There are two ways to defend gay marriage. Argument A is
empathy: One is influenced by gay friends in committed relationships yearning
for the fulfillment and acceptance that marriage conveys upon heterosexuals.
That’s essentially the case President Obama made when he first announced his
change of views.
No talk about rights, just human fellow feeling. Such an
argument is attractive because it can be compelling without being compulsory.
Many people, feeling the weight of this longing among their gay friends, are
willing to redefine marriage for the sake of simple human sympathy.
At the same time, however, one can sympathize with others
who feel great trepidation at the radical transformation of the most
fundamental of social institutions, one that, until recently, was heterosexual
in all societies in all places at all times.
The empathy argument both encourages mutual respect in
the debate and lends itself to a political program of gradualism. State by
state, let community norms and moral sensibilities prevail. Indeed, that is
Obama’s stated position.
Such pluralism allows for the kind of “stable settlement
of the issue” that Ruth Bader Ginsburg once lamented had been “halted” by Roe
v. Wade regarding abortion, an issue as morally charged and politically
unbridgeable as gay marriage.
Argument B is more uncompromising: You have the right to
marry anyone, regardless of gender. The right to “marriage equality” is today’s
civil rights, voting rights, and women’s rights — and just as inviolable.
Argument B has extremely powerful implications. First, if
same-sex marriage is a right, then there is no possible justification for
letting states decide for themselves. How can you countenance even one state
outlawing a fundamental right? Indeed, half a century ago, “states’ rights” was
the cry of those committed to continued segregation and discrimination.
Second, if marriage equality is a civil right, then
denying it on the basis of (innately felt) sexual orientation is, like
discrimination on the basis of skin color, simple bigotry. California’s
Proposition 8 was overturned by a 9th Circuit panel on the grounds that the
referendum, reaffirming marriage as between a man and woman, was nothing but an
expression of bias — “serves no purpose . . . other than to lessen the status
and human dignity of gays and lesbians.”
Pretty strong stuff. Which is why it was so surprising
that Obama, after first advancing Argument A, went on five days later to adopt
Argument B, calling gay marriage a great example of “expand[ing] rights” and
today’s successor to civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights and workers’
rights.
Problem is, it’s a howling contradiction to leave up to
the states an issue Obama now says is a right. And beyond being intellectually
untenable, Obama’s embrace of the more hard-line “rights” argument compels him
logically to see believers in traditional marriage as purveyors of bigotry. Not
a good place for a president to be in an evenly divided national debate that
requires the two sides to offer each other a modicum of respect.
No wonder that Obama has been trying to get away from the
issue as quickly as possible. It’s not just the New York Times poll showing his
new position to be a net loser. It’s that he is too intelligent not to realize
he’s embraced a logical contradiction.
Moreover, there is the problem of the obvious cynicism of
his conversion. Two-thirds of Americans see his “evolution” as a matter not of
principle but of politics. In fact, the change is not at all an evolution — a
teleological term cleverly chosen to suggest movement toward a higher state of
being — given that Obama came out for gay marriage 16 years ago. And then
flip-flopped.
He was pro when running for the Illinois legislature from
ultra-liberal Hyde Park. He became anti eight years later when he was running
for U.S. senator and had to appeal to a decidedly more conservative statewide
constituency. And now he’s pro again.
When a Republican engages in such finger-to-the-wind
political calculation (on abortion, for example), he’s condemned as a
flip-flopper. When a liberal goes through a similar gyration, he’s said to have
“evolved” into some more highly realized creature, deserving of a halo on the
cover of a national news magazine.
Notwithstanding a comically fawning press, Obama knows he
has boxed himself in. His “rights” argument compels him to nationalize same-sex
marriage and sharpen hostility to proponents of traditional marriage — a place
he is loath to go.
True, he was rushed into it by his loquacious vice
president. But surely he could have thought this through.
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