The new same-sex marriage majority

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Perhaps it was only a matter of time. Whatever the case, the time has come:

More than half of Americans say it should be legal for gays and lesbians to marry, a first in nearly a decade of polls by ABC News and The Washington Post.

This milestone result caps a dramatic, long-term shift in public attitudes. From a low of 32 percent in a 2004 survey of registered voters, support for gay marriage has grown to 53 percent today. Forty-four percent are opposed, down 18 points from that 2004 survey. 

Of course, the issue remains divisive, with the divisions largely generational and ideological. Republicans and especially evangelical conservatives oppose same-sex marriage, as do older age cohorts.

But the trend is clear: support for same-sex marriage is growing and the majority will continue to expand. It's only a matter of time before same-sex marriage becomes part of the American social landscape, accepted as, for lack of a better word, "normal."

Conservative opposition will remain, but, even there, it will weaken, just as conservative opposition to, say, civil rights has weakened over time. Ultimately, even conservatives (or future generations of conservatives) come to accept, however reluctantly, that which they vehemently opposed. Perhaps their energy wears out, perhaps they simply come to accept the new social norms, and, even if they don't admit it, come to see their opposition as retrograde bigotry.

Many younger Americans who support same-sex marriage now will get more conservative as they age, but this poll indicates that opposition among older Americans is weakening. Simply put, generations are, for the most part, getting more liberal.

And even those groups with the staunchest opposition are seeing changes:

The issue remains divisive; as many adults "strongly" oppose gay marriage as strongly support it, and opposition rises to more than 2-1 among Republicans and conservatives and 3-1 among evangelical white Protestants, a core conservative group. But opposition to gay marriage has weakened in these groups from its levels a few years ago, and support has grown sharply among others – notably, among Catholics, political moderates, people in their 30s and 40s and men. 

Looking ahead to the American future, there are many reasons to despair. Thankfully, though, there are a few indicators of progress. This is one of them, and America will be a much better place once it legalizes same-sex marriage -- from Alaska to Florida, from Hawaii to Maine -- and puts an end to the institutionalized bigotry of sexual orientation for good.

Hawaii legalizes same-sex civil unions

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well done, Hawaii, well done:

Less than a year after seeing the push for civil unions vetoed, gay rights advocates cheered as Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed into law a bill legalizing civil unions and making Hawaii the seventh state to grant such privileges to same-sex couples.

Abercrombie signed the legislation at a ceremony [yesterday] at historic Washington Place.

"E Komo Mai: It means all are welcome," Abercrombie said in remarks before signing the bill into law. "This signing today of this measure says to all of the world that they are welcome. That everyone is a brother or sister here in paradise."

"The legalization of civil unions in Hawaii represents in my mind equal rights for all people," he said.

Well, yes, sort of. To me, there will not be equal rights in this area until there is full marriage equality, and that also means equal terminology as well. They shouldn't be "civil unions," they should be "marriages." Either that or, perhaps preferably, all state-sanctioned partnerships that we currently call "marriages" should be called "civil unions," including heterosexual ones.

It's not an insignificant point, as homosexual couples should be able to be married, if that is what heterosexual couple are allowed to be, though I understand that the bill the governor signed into law "allows all couples — same-sex and heterosexual — to enter into a civil union, a legal status with all the rights, benefits, protections and responsibilities as traditional marriage."

Yes, I'd be happy if every state allowed such civil unions, but there needs to be complete marriage equality.

Zach Wahls, Iowa, and the struggle for marriage equality

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm way late coming to this, but I think this clip is still worth posting.

On February 1, as you may remember, the Iowa House voted 62-37 in support of a resolution that would ban same-sex marriage in that state by way of an amendment to the state constitution. (For a history of same-sex marriage in Iowa, see here. On August 3, 2009, the state Supreme Court struck down a 1998 law that restricted marriage to heterosexual couples, thereby legalizing same-sex marriage in the state.) The resolution will now go to the Senate, where Democrats, in the majority, will likely block it.

Before the House vote, there was considerable public testimony for and against. I recently came across this clip, a deeply moving statement against the resolution by Zach Wahls, a 19-year old student at the University of Iowa, and the proud son of a married lesbian couple. As the House vote indicates, bigotry is a powerful force, but ultimately I believe that justice, full marriage equality, will prevail, not just in Iowa but across the U.S., just as in Canada and elsewhere.

This is what is needed to prevail, the voice of truth. It's awesome:

Think of the children

By Mustang Bobby

The perennial campaign from the "traditional marriage" crowd is that gays and lesbians are out to destroy families. They shouldn't be allowed to get married because they can't have children in the old-fashioned way, or raising kids in a home with two mommies or two daddies is not the best environment for children.

Aside from the fact that these people never really define what "traditional marriage" is, are they speaking of marriage from biblical times where a man could have as many wives as he could afford, or where a father sold his daughter to the guy in the next county as part of a land swap and slaves, or the arranged marriages between royal households to keep European nations from going to war? The same-sex marriage opponents deal in abstracts. They cannot point to any reliable scientific studies to prove their point that same-sex households are any less nurturing than straight ones. Their research is based on watching the Leave It to Beaver marathon on TV Land.

That seemed to be the mindset in Iowa as the state legislature voted this week to try to pass a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and civil unions in the state. This is in knee-jerk response to the state supreme court ruling in April 2009 that overturned the state laws against same-sex marriage. However, the amendment still needs to go to the state Senate, and then get passed again by both houses in the legislative session next year to go into effect.

The legal maneuvering is one thing. What is often left out is the actual people who live and form the families that this amendment is targeting. It's one thing to talk about family values in the abstract -- "oh, think of the children" -- but it's quite another thing when you hear from the children themselves, as the Iowa representatives did from 19-year-old Zach Wahls:

It takes an enormous amount of distance and lack of compassion to watch this young man talk about his family and not be moved.

But in another way, this battle is empowering. As GDad noted over at his place Cranial Hyperossification:

Maybe I should try to enjoy being so incredibly powerful that a state legislature goes into full panic mode to stop my destructive rampage through the fabric of society. Or maybe it just makes me f^(&!ng tired that my family and my life are used as political fodder for ignorant dumb@$$3$ who beat their chests and rant on about how they need to stomp on the heads of good and honest people just to protect themselves from having to acknowledge that the world is not and never will be the way they want it to be. 

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Tim Pawlenty, a social conservative extremist, just like the rest

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Think Minnesota Gov. and likely GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty is a sensible Midwestern moderate, an old-school sort of Republican, an antithesis to the Sarah Palins of the party?

Think again.

As Pawlenty told right-wing hatemonger Bryan Fischer on Wednesday, he's not just a fiscal conservative but a social one as well. He's "a strong supporter of the family, pro-life positions, traditional marriage positions" -- in other words, he's anti-abortion and anti-gay, the proponent in Minnesota of an amendment that would ban same-sex marriage, the proponent of conservative judicial activism ("strict constructionists") and the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

And, he said, he would reinstate Don't Ask, Don't Tell, misleadingly claiming that "the combat commanders and the combat units" are against gays being allowed to serve, even though a huge majority not just of the American people but of the men and women in uniform supported DADT repeal, including not just Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but perhaps America's most revered current military commander (and conservative wunderkind), Gen. David Petraeus.

Sure, Pawlenty may just have been pandering to the right-wing GOP base, and appearing on right-wing shows and playing up (or exaggerating) one's conservative bona fides is de rigueur for Republicans, but there's really nothing to suggest that he isn't the sort of social conservative he claimed he is. Really, it's just that most of the media's attention has been on his similarly conservative economic views, and that he doesn't come across as an unhinged extremist on social issues the way other leading Republicans do -- the way, say, Palin and Huckabee do. And in presenting himself as a credible social conservative, he's clearly distinguishing himself from another moderate-seeming fiscal conservative, Mitt Romney, who has tried so desperately to flip-flop himself into conservatives' hearts while failing miserably to overcome his decidedly un-conservative past (health-care reform, anyone?).

However sincere he may be, it's just so transparent what Pawlenty is doing, and it's telling that he'll even pander directly to a bigot like Fischer. In today's GOP, that's just what you have to do to get anywhere, particularly at the national level, with presidential aspirations driving you ever further to the extreme right.

Biden: "There's an inevitability for a national consensus on gay marriage."

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

Vice President Joseph Biden said in a television interview Fridaythat "there's an inevitability for a national consensus on gaymarriage."

The vice president, who backs civil unions but notsame-sex marriage, weighed in on the issue two days after PresidentObama acknowledged his position was "evolving."

"I think the country's evolving," Biden said in the interview withABC News. His comments were not the first time he has suggested thecountry would eventually accept and support gay marriage. Asked in a2007 appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" if gay marriage wasinevitable, Biden replied that "it probably is."

I think Biden's right -- that same-sex marriage legalization is inevitable given the evolution of the country. I would also call this progress, as Americans and American society in general become more liberal, more accepting of difference and diversity.

Now, it's not clear what a "national consensus" would mean. Perhaps, despite his 2007 comments, such a consensus would form around civil unions but not same-sex marriage, that is, around Biden's own position. But I suspect that the country is ultimately moving towards not some separate-but-more-or-less-equal status for same-sex unions but full marriage equality, with the state (most, if not all, states, that is) recognizing both same-sex and opposite-sex marriages equally.

I would be fine with civil unions if they applied equally to same-sex and opposite-sex partners. Indeed, an argument can be made that the state should do away with "marriage" altogether, replacing it with "civil union" as the state-recognized partnership of two people. There could still be "marriage," but it would be religious, and hence private. You could get "married" by a religious official, for example, but while that religion would recognize the partnership as a "marriage" within its own code, the state would recognize it as a "civil union."

Simply, such partnerships, or civil unions, should be purely secular in nature. While the state should not tell religious institutions what to do, within certain broad parameters, religious institutions should not continue to hold such sway over society.

Anyway, while Obama's views on same-sex marriage may very well be "evolving," I don't expect him to push aggressively for the repeal of the odious Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), as I wrote yesterday, let alone for the full legalization of same-sex marriage beyond what some states have done or are doing on their own. Aside from the fact that he has been dragging his heels on gay rights the past two years, whether because of excessive caution (political calculation) or lack of principle (personal commitment), there just won't be any urgency for him to turn his attention to DOMA, not with Republicans in control in the House, with Democrats far from a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and with more pressing political concerns to attend to in the lead-up to 2012.

A national consensus may very well be forming, and it may very well take the shape of support for marriage equality, but there's still a long way to go for any such consensus to be reflected politically.

Is Obama finally moving forward on gay rights?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

TPM:

President Obama, although he still supports civil unions over same-sex marriage, said yesterday that he believes the Defense of Marriage Act should be repealed.

"Repealing DOMA, getting ENDA [a bill to protect LGBT people from discrimination] done, those are things that should be done," Obama told The Advocate the night before signing Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal into law. "I think those are natural next steps legislatively. I'll be frank with you, I think that's not going to get done in two years. We're on a three- or four-year time frame unless there's a real transformation of attitudes within the Republican caucus."

The federal Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed in 1996, defines marriage as strictly heterosexual. It's currently facing multiple legal challenges, including two cases from Massachusetts in which a federal judge already ruled that part of the law is unconstitutional. Obama's Justice Department is defending DOMA. 

The Justice Department has to defend DOMA regardless of what the president's own position on the law, but what we seem to be getting here is a signal from Obama that he has a plan and will work towards full equality for homosexuals.

The problem is, there won't be "a real transformation of attitudes within the Republican caucus," nor even a fake one. The Republican Party, individual dissenters aside, is anti-gay. And so it is highly unlikely that DOMA will be repealed anytime soon.

Still, it is noteworthy that Obama is speaking out more forcefully than usual on gay rights. He even told The Advocate that he's "wrestling" with same-sex marriage. The preference for civil unions over marriage rights is a cowardly cop-out, of course, and I've long thought, giving him the benefit of the doubt, that Obama actually supports marriage equality but just doesn't want to take that position publicly.

I just wonder if this is all just hot air for the base. After all, will Obama really push for DOMA repeal? (And, from there, for marriage equality?) Will he spend his political capital on gay rights? Sure, DADT repeal was a major victory for him, but it happened more in spite of Obama than because of him -- he never aggressively pushed for it and, of course, repeal only came after military leaders called for it and after a military study (and public opinion polls) showed overwhelming support for it. By the time DADT was repealed, it was safe to be against DADT -- and Obama knew it.

And now? Don't count on much happening. I don't want to be overly critical here, but Obama will be able to ride the wave of DADT repeal for a while, basking in its glow, and there won't be any urgency for him to turn his attention to DOMA, not with Republicans in control in the House, with Democrats far from a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and with more pressing political concerns to attend to in the lead-up to 2012.

So, yes, call me a cynic.