The slow march of history
One day, gay marriage will be legal nationwide. Scientific findings that sexual orientation is primarily genetic and each successive generation's greater tolerance of gay people will see to that.
Until then, society will encounter a lot of "firsts" along the way. One of those firsts will come in a matter of days, when Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell, a Republican, signs a measure to allow civil unions for same-sex couples. The state House passed the bill Wednesday, 85-63, and state senators, who already approved an earlier version, will OK the new bill next week. Connecticut will be the first state to establish civil unions without a court order.
The precedent will be a powerful one. Gay-marriage opponents no longer will be able to portray the issue purely as a battle between activist judges and the "tyrannized" majority. Once Connecticut lawmakers, of their own free will, approve same-sex civil unions, opponents' blanket assertion that most Americans everywhere oppose marriage rights for gay people will be eviscerated.
States' rights advocates will be in a tough position: Do they support a state's right to govern marital benefits as it sees fit, or do they abdicate their core values and call for federal intervention to prevent an undesirable outcome? Regardless, it seems the only way that a constitutional amendment against gay marriage will escape Congress is if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act or a state gay-marriage ban in the next few years. Because the justices realize what the political fallout from such a decision would be, they almost certainly won't touch the issue any time soon.
In the next couple of decades, many more states likely will permit civil unions as a matter of basic fairness. As they do, the public will get a chance to see that civil unions won't drive up divorce rates or otherwise "harm" traditional marriages. Everyday life will belie doomsayers' warnings that gay marriage will lead society into irreversible moral decay.
After Americans hear, year after year, gay people casually referring to their unions as "marriages" and their partners as "spouses," the distinction between "marriage" and "civil union" gradually will fade and eventually will become impossible for most people to justify. Somewhere along the way, once anti-gay forces have lost the power and influence they now wield, the Supreme Court probably will extend constitutional protection to gay people's right to obtain the benefits of marriage.
The result, decades from now, will be that society either 1) applies the word "marriage" to both heterosexual and homosexual unions or 2) calls both kinds of unions "civil unions" and gets the government out of the marriage business altogether. Either way, gay people will receive equal protection under the law, and thanks to the First Amendment, religious leaders will remain free to decide which unions they will or won't recognize.
And history, as it always does, will march on unabated.
Until then, society will encounter a lot of "firsts" along the way. One of those firsts will come in a matter of days, when Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell, a Republican, signs a measure to allow civil unions for same-sex couples. The state House passed the bill Wednesday, 85-63, and state senators, who already approved an earlier version, will OK the new bill next week. Connecticut will be the first state to establish civil unions without a court order.
The precedent will be a powerful one. Gay-marriage opponents no longer will be able to portray the issue purely as a battle between activist judges and the "tyrannized" majority. Once Connecticut lawmakers, of their own free will, approve same-sex civil unions, opponents' blanket assertion that most Americans everywhere oppose marriage rights for gay people will be eviscerated.
States' rights advocates will be in a tough position: Do they support a state's right to govern marital benefits as it sees fit, or do they abdicate their core values and call for federal intervention to prevent an undesirable outcome? Regardless, it seems the only way that a constitutional amendment against gay marriage will escape Congress is if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act or a state gay-marriage ban in the next few years. Because the justices realize what the political fallout from such a decision would be, they almost certainly won't touch the issue any time soon.
In the next couple of decades, many more states likely will permit civil unions as a matter of basic fairness. As they do, the public will get a chance to see that civil unions won't drive up divorce rates or otherwise "harm" traditional marriages. Everyday life will belie doomsayers' warnings that gay marriage will lead society into irreversible moral decay.
After Americans hear, year after year, gay people casually referring to their unions as "marriages" and their partners as "spouses," the distinction between "marriage" and "civil union" gradually will fade and eventually will become impossible for most people to justify. Somewhere along the way, once anti-gay forces have lost the power and influence they now wield, the Supreme Court probably will extend constitutional protection to gay people's right to obtain the benefits of marriage.
The result, decades from now, will be that society either 1) applies the word "marriage" to both heterosexual and homosexual unions or 2) calls both kinds of unions "civil unions" and gets the government out of the marriage business altogether. Either way, gay people will receive equal protection under the law, and thanks to the First Amendment, religious leaders will remain free to decide which unions they will or won't recognize.
And history, as it always does, will march on unabated.
posted by Alabamian at 6:25 PM
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