Back to Tempered Moderation

Of all the manifold ways in which worldviews diverge over the perennial issue of same-sex marriage, one of the most irksome is actually relatively minor, in the grand scheme of things. Not surprisingly, the elections' outcome provoked an example from Andrew Sullivan:

A lot of gay people are devastated this morning, and terrified. We have seen, and not for the first time, how using fear of a minority can be so effective a tool in building a political movement. The single most important issue for Republican voters, according to exit polls, was not the war on terror or Iraq or the economy. It was "moral values." Karl Rove understood the American psyche better than I did. By demonizing gay couples, the Republicans were able to bring in whole swathes of new anti-gay believers into their party.

A trend that has been escalating for about a decade reached a fevered peak this year: After hints in Hawaii and Vermont (and, once-removed, Canada), the Massachusetts judiciary introduced into American law the concept of a same-sex marriage. Thereafter, civil servants around the country flaunted the law in an attempt to make legal recognition of such relationships an "in hand" right. In short, the courts, the town halls, and the activists who prodded them gave Americans a straightforward choice: vote on this issue, or we'll take away your opportunity. Well, Americans have started voting — not out of cynicism and aggression, but in defense of deeply held principles.

Indeed, it's somewhat telling that Sullivan and others place homosexuality so prominently in the range of "moral values." True, there were direct votes to be cast on that one issue, but what might have been the results had partial-birth abortion or cloning been available for direct comment via ballot? I'm not entirely sure, but I would hope that Sullivan's crowd could have explained the victory of "moral values" in terms other than hatred for women and sick people. By what calculus is such a large percentage of the population corralled as bigots and extremists when it comes to marriage?

Those who've read Sullivan for a while know the answer: he's back to leaping for the reasonableness turf:

But the intensity of the [traditionalist] passion, and the inherently totalist nature of religiously motivated politics means deep social conflict if we are not careful. Our safety valve must be federalism. We have to live and let live. As blue states become more secular, and red states become less so, the only alternative to a national religious war is to allow different states to pursue different options.

Just about a year ago, back before President Bush voiced support for a Federal Marriage Amendment, Sullivan expressed these same sentiments:

The flip-side of leaving Mississippi alone is that we should also leave Massachusetts alone.

The catch is, of course, that Sullivan's less-politic allies aren't going to leave Mississippi alone. So, while I agree with him, in disconnected theory, that the "passage of so many anti-gay amendments in so many states reduces the need, by any rational measure, for a federal amendment," the most conciliatory response that it is rational to make is: We'll see. The political fortunes of the FMA are more closely linked to "the inherently totalist nature" of homosexual activists than to those American Christians who actually represent the extreme that Sullivan expands so ridiculously.