Come Out Swinging for Same-Sex Marriage

Liberal politicians in America need to glove up and come out swinging on behalf of same-sex marriages. Instead of setting their stall for the lowest common denominator, politicians should show some leadership and by leading, change peoples’ minds.

2004 started with gay couples walking up the aisle in Massachusetts and California. Come November these early gains were reversed, as marriage was defined as a union between a man and a woman in eleven U.S. states on polling day. The re-elected President, he of the political capital, supports a constitutional amendment on the topic which would altogether cement the status quo.

Less remarked on was the Democrat’s position on the issue. Kerry’s typically nuanced stance on gay marriage was that while he was against it personally, the states should be allowed to judge its legality in their own back yard for themselves. The Democrats calculated that their natural supporters would vote for them regardless, and so saw nothing to be lost and lots to gain by moving to the centre, cooing to the voters with the mating calls of a moderate Republican.

In moving to the centre on this issue, the Dems have lost their way. It seems to me that the rights of gay people to marry are no different to the rights championed in the battle against racial and gender segregation in bolder days, and it’s a scandal that mainstream liberals are now deserting the fight on the new front.

Like in earlier civil rights battles, campaigners are fighting their battle through the courts, and without the support of political elites. Like in the battles of old, brave individuals are putting themselves forward as example plaintiffs, testing the law. And –most strikingly - opponents are offering as a compromise not marriage, but civil unions. Something of equivalent value to the original arrangement, just… separate.

Separate but equal is, of course, the formulation Chief Justice Warren struck down in the Supreme Court in 1956, in Brown vs Board of Education, Topeka, making racially segregated schools unconstitutional. The ruling stated that segregation on the basis of race denied to people the equal protection of the laws, even if the tangible provision made for each group was equal.

If then, like Kerry, you think you can be a liberal without supporting same-sex marriage you had better start by explaining how discrimination on grounds of sexuality is any more defensible than discrimination on grounds of race. That’s not an easy task, if you’re a thinker from the enlightenment tradition. The trouble is, most people have an initial gut reaction against gay marriage. When forming an opinion on it, it’s then easy to let the heart rule the head. Particularly when the churches make clear their view that homosexuality is an abominable sin.

Once removed from their wrapper of religious censure however, the arguments against same sex marriage fall apart like cheap clothing in the tumble dryer. Consider:

It’s traditional that marriage be between a man and a woman? It’s traditional in parts of India for suttee wives to be thrown onto the funeral pyres of their husbands, but that isn’t enough to endear the practice to communities elsewhere.

The institution of marriage needs to be protected? Well, then welcome the revitalizing influx of new blood. Conservatives say gays don’t cherish fidelity in their relationships to the same degree as straight people, but it seems to me self evident that people who are willing to walk over legal hot coals to get married palpably do. Not that the conventional divorce rate is any great advertisement for heterosexual fidelity these days.

Marriages are for bringing up children in, and that’s something gay people shouldn’t do? If that’s the case, why do so many barren couples and octogenarians get wed? Marriage is an arrangement between two people. The intention or capacity to add children to that relationship hasn’t so far been a condition to getting tying the knot if you’re heterosexual. Why put it in the way of gay people?

The only reasonable defense of the anti- case seems to be the religious one – that being gay is sinful - and few liberals are conventional theists. Liberalism was, after all, born from of efforts in early modern times to escape the political authority of the church. The revolutionaries of France and America are direct descendants of Martin Luther. We might heed James Madison, who observed that "In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."

It’s not just America where liberals have failed to come up with the goods on this. Across the world gays have come knocking at the cupboards of supposedly progressive governments, only to find them bare. France and Germany offer civil unions, a poor alternative to marriage without the same legal protection or administrative benefit. In the U.K. the government, without a paper constitution as an anvil on which to test the issue, has been scratching its head about it for a while, but will likely legislate for civil unions in the next parliament.

Even the Scandinavian countries, they of the high taxes and universal childcare, have so far seen civil unions as a satisfactory terminus. Only in easy-going Holland and some maverick provinces of the North American continent has the right to marry been made universal. Spain has recently declared it too will introduce legislation which will bring it into the positive camp.

Now, in 2005 as the dust has settled on the last election, commentators are putting on their 20-20 hindsight spectacles, and pointing to gay marriage as the issue that lost the Democrats the election. Kerry didn’t make the case for it, but he couldn’t hide from it, and the voters opted instead for the candidate who showed leadership on the issue – for Bush, and against same sex marriage.

Same sex marriage is unpopular – it challenges the current order, and the idea runs against the grain for many straight people. But bending with the wind won’t win over the voters. On moral issues, people’s minds are persuaded by appeals to head as well as heart. The next liberal candidate in to bat might remember that sometimes when politicians speak, people listen, and when leaders lead, people follow. Who knows, the risk might pay off.