I don’t believe that even George Bush really supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Believe it or not– in spite of what I have said about George W. previously– he isn’t that stupid. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that his top advisor, Karl Rove, isn’t really that stupid.
Why? Good question.
It’s not hard to figure out why trying to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is a stupid idea, even if you do believe in the bible. The definition of marriage as a life-long union between one man and one woman is so clearly bound up with a religious doctrine and is so culturally and historically specific that large numbers of lawyers, judges, editorialists, and even some law-makers will eventually come to realize that it simply isn’t viable to enshrine the idea in the constitution. You have to start discussing the origins of that definition of marriage, it’s foundation in religious law (or do you want to try to argue that it is the product of “natural” law?), it’s claims of normativity (when more than 50% of heterosexual marriages fail in the U.S.) and what, exactly, it is that is so valuable about it. Is the purpose of marriage to have children? Explain that to childless couples.
You have to explain why divorce is permitted for trivial reasons, and why couples are allowed to live together common-law, if marriage is so sacred.
You have to explain the difference between common-law marriage and legal marriage. You have to start thinking about how the state tries to treat children from single-parent homes, and why.
I’m not saying that there isn’t anything valuable about the old fashioned heterosexual definition of marriage. Just that it would be very hard to prove that keeping marriage exclusively hetero-sexual would provide something to our society that is indispensable or irreplaceable. Unless you are James Dobson.
But James Dobson might have to come clean in a campaign like this. No, he won’t. You see, if Dobson ran for office, he would actually have to try to persuade a majority of voters that his politics are reasonable and wise. He would actually be accountable for his views. But in his best-selling books and tapes, Dobson can pontificate about all of society’s ills without ever being challenged or disputed.
Will John Kerry ever have an opportunity to ask George Bush if, since he feels that marriage should be the union of one man and one woman for life, he approves of divorce? Get him on the record. Let him explain why being in favor of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman doesn’t mean you don’t recognize that there are situations in which a divorce is desirable or allowable. See if his right-wing evangelical minions agree.
Still, you never know. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Texas legislature came out and declared that the earth was flat one of these days.
The problem is that the constitution is about the set of rules and principles that govern the way we, as individuals, associate with each other. It doesn’t tell you that the purpose of such associations is to seek salvation, or to experience sensual gratification, or some kind of higher consciousness. It leaves that to religion. The constitution wisely leaves to each of us the right to decide what the ultimate purpose of life is.
It is not for the state to define what the pursuit of happiness means. It is not for the state to define love or marriage or family or happiness. The purpose of the constitution is to keep you from being able to prevent me from seeking my own happiness according to my own beliefs, in so far as my pursuit of happiness does not impinge upon your pursuit of happiness.
We aren’t very big on the idea that the state should consciously promote moral virtue in it’s citizens. In other words, we want to promote orderliness and prosperity and justice, and any law that clearly advances those ideals will resonate with our existing laws and institutions. But any law that tries to tell us what happiness is, or should be, goes too far.
There is no constitutional logic that provides a rationale for banning gay marriage. It clearly is no skin off James Dobson’s, or anyone else’s, nose if a couple of guys or girls in New York want to share an apartment and sleep together and make each other beneficiaries of their life insurance policies. It really isn’t, no matter how many stupid things Dobson may say and how often he may say it.
I may not believe that people should be driving around in Hummers, but I can’t stop them. If they can pay for the gas, and if they abide by the rules of the road, they have the right to drive a Hummer. Some guy driving a Hummer does not infringe upon my right to drive a Toyota. (Let’s leave alone, for a moment, the argument that a Hummer uses up more resources belonging to everyone– like air– than most other vehicles.)
George Bush is going to have to try to argue that gay marriage somehow prevents me from driving my Toyota, in a manner of speaking. He’s going to have to argue that gay marriage somehow is going to prevent you from…. well, I can’t even imagine what they will argue gay marriage prevents you from do it. The truth is, he might as well blurt it out– he just doesn’t like it.
The truth is– and I think any in depth discussion of the issue will eventually elucidate it– that gay marriage doesn’t hurt anyone.
Unless. Unless you are going to argue that homosexuality is an unhealthy, abnormal lifestyle. But then, you don’t just need to ban gay marriage. You need to ban homosexuals.
And James Dobson and his cohorts might well say, well, what’s wrong with that idea? “When I grew up, we didn’t have homosexuals. Homosexual acts are still illegal in some states. It ought to stay that way.”
So, why not a constitutional amendment making it illegal to engage in homosexual acts?
Because then you would see how silly and unworkable it is.
Bush may be clueless about the implications of this issue, just as he seems clueless about the implications of just about every policy of this administration. (After Texas implemented an abstinence-only high school sex education system under then governor Bush, it’s rate of teen pregnancy slipped to the highest in the nation). But Karl Rove isn’t. He probably doesn’t care one whit whether the proposed amendment gets passed or not.
The truth is, that he is hoping to make use of some bigotry. He knows the Democrats would prefer not to oppose the amendment, because they know that Americans, by a ratio of 2 – 1 disapprove of gay marriage. And he knows that many Democrats are as ahead of the Republicans on this issue as Johnson, Kennedy, and the Supreme Court were ahead of the country on the issue of race in 1963.
How feeble does it sound, intellectually? Try this:
“It should be an inalienable right, guaranteed by our Constitution, to live in a marriage-based society,” said Robert Knight, director of the Concerned Women for America’s Culture and Family Institute. “When you create counterfeit marriages and put them into the law, you’re undermining society’s most important safeguard against tyranny.
Actually, that doesn’t just sound feeble. It sounds downright stupid. A “marriage-based” society? Sounds almost like “creationism”. But you can see how the right is groping for some rationale for why they think their rights are infringed by the idea of same-sex unions, when clearly they are not.
Quote from Salon
