The D.C. city council, by a vote of 11-2, has given final approval to a bill authorizing same-sex marriage. The vote caps a years-long lobbying effort by gay activists, including the main author of the bill, city council member David Catania. The mayor is expected to sign it.
Opponents have a few options at this point, but none of them seem likely to work in the near term. One would be to persuade the mayor not to sign the bill, despite his pledge to do so. Another would be to force a popular referendum on the law. The D.C. elections board has already determined that the bill is not subject to referendum because it comes within the Distict’s human-rights law. Anti-SSM activists are already in court challenging that determination.
Congress could get involved in a couple of different ways. First, after the mayor signs the bill, there is a 30-day review period during which Congress could vote to disapprove it. That is very unlikely given Democratic control of Congress — not because a majority in both Houses wouldn’t vote to reject the new law but because rejection won’t even get on the agenda. Nobody in the Democratic camp will want to vote on this issue, especially in an election year. Further, any disapproval would be subject to veto. President Obama, who says he opposes gay marriage, could veto the bill as a matter of supporting the principle of D.C. home rule, analogous to his previously announced support of state prerogative on the issue.
Second, and more promising for those who oppose gay marriage, is a rider to the next congressional appropriation for D.C. sometime next year specifying that no money can be spent implementing the law. A vote on that issue, for the reasons given above, seems unlikely in a Congress controlled by Democrats. What happens after November 2010 is another question, though the matter wouldn’t likely make it to the agenda of a GOP-controlled Congress until late 2011, if at all. By that time there will have been almost two years of gay marriage in the city with no obvious ill effects.
Finally, gay-marriage opponents can work to defeat the 11 council members who voted for the legislation. The problem is that each of the 11 has already faced the voters since announcing his or her support for the bill. And I’m not aware of any legislator anywhere losing an election because of support for gay marriage.
If I’m right about the near-term prospects, marriage should be secure in the city. The lesson from Massachusetts and Vermont, and from California and Maine, is that the longer the day of electoral reckoning can be delayed the more likely it is that anti-SSM passions will subside. So, if gay marriage in D.C. survives 2010, it is probably here to stay.
D.C. will also be another test of the theory that, at least without expansive exemptions for religious objectors, there will significant erosion of religious liberty. The city’s Catholic leaders have already warned (some would say threatened) a loss of social services if the bill is passed because religious traditionalists who get city money won’t agree to treat gay couples equally. These losses have not materialized in other jurisdictions recognizing gay marriage or civil unions, though Catholic Charities has stopped providing adoption services in Massachusetts.
Winning on this issue in the political heart of the country is some consolation after disappointments in Maine and New York. Those losses themselves followed legislative victories in Vermont and New Hampshire, and a wild-card judicial win in Iowa. It’s hard to believe, but all of this happened in 2009. D.C. is one more chapter in a rather long and unfinished novel. We can see the arc of the story, but the narrative has a frustrating tendency to accelerate and decelerate, and we can’t yet be certain of the end.
For now, we can be certain only that gay families will be better off in one place whose historical and political importance far exceeds its size. Congratulations to gay families in the nation’s capital!
corneille1640 says:
Does DOMA have any effect on D.C.’s law, since D.C. is a federal district and not a state?
December 15, 2009, 8:55 pmFreedom!!!!!! says:
With all due respect, do you comment on anything besides the redefinition of marriage? And do you have any other narrative besides “OH NOEZ INEVITABLEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!”
FYI: Nothing in life is “INEVITABLEZ” and insisting such is disingenuous.
December 15, 2009, 9:23 pmmetro1 says:
once again the anti-democratic forces of the left win a victory. gay marriage – they dare not put it to a vote – but let judges do the work. abortion on demand – they dare not put it to a vote but let judges do the work. gay marriage would lose in DC if put to a vote. African-Americans vote reliably Democratic – but are very conservative in certain matters, e.g., the majority believe a marriage is between a man and a woman.
December 15, 2009, 9:31 pmmetro1 says:
in this case the DC City Council enacted a law not supported by a majority of their own constituents
December 15, 2009, 9:32 pmcorneille1640 says:
Not quite the same thing as “let judges do the work.”
Further edit: Another question that comes up is, even if we grant that a majority of DC-istes oppose gay marriage (and for all I know, you’re right), maybe it’s not important enough for them to do much about it when the council members vote for it.
December 15, 2009, 9:49 pmCornellian says:
once again the anti-democratic forces of the left win a victory. gay marriage — they dare not put it to a vote
It passed 11-2 in the legislature. Is that not a vote? If you mean a vote of the electorate, no it wasn’t put to a vote of the electorate, any more than the Bill of Rights, Title VII or any other civil rights legislation. So what?
December 15, 2009, 9:53 pmCornellian says:
in this case the DC City Council enacted a law not supported by a majority of their own constituents
And anyone who lives in DC is free to take advantage of that by running for election on a platform of repealing same sex marriage and we’ll see how far that gets him.
December 15, 2009, 9:54 pmRoger the Shrubber says:
Sorry “Freedom!!!!!!” but you’ll have to get used to that crappy, angry, bitter feeling you’re having. It’s how it feels to be on the wrong side of history. I doubt you’ll get used to it.
And six exclamation points? Really?
December 15, 2009, 9:55 pmyankee says:
The city council, whose members are directly elected by the people, enacted a new law by an 11-2 vote. Is it democracy only when your side wins?
December 15, 2009, 10:15 pmtheobromophile says:
Cornellian: if the Bill of Rights had been put to a vote by the electorate, what would have happened? Are you seriously arguing that the Bill of Rights would have fared as badly before the people as gay marriage has?
Advocates for marriage equality ought to have the common sense to realise that the public – and not even their super-liberal President – are on their side. While that is hardly a judgment as to the correctness of that position, it does mean that anyone with common sense should stop acting like gay marriage is some inevitable thing, opposed only by a few but powerful group of people. (On a separate note, it also might do people some good to understand, on both sides, where the opposition is coming from…. Willing it away, though, is just silly.)
December 15, 2009, 10:35 pmtheobromophile says:
Yankee: that would be a republic, not a democracy.
December 15, 2009, 10:36 pmCornellian says:
Cornellian: if the Bill of Rights had been put to a vote by the electorate, what would have happened? Are you seriously arguing that the Bill of Rights would have fared as badly before the people as gay marriage has?
I wouldn’t assume the Bill of Rights would have passed had it been put to a popular vote. Why do you assume that it would?
December 15, 2009, 10:57 pmyankee says:
Opponents would have attacked at least half of it as “soft on crime,” which is never popular.
December 15, 2009, 11:07 pmBrett Bellmore says:
Exuse me, “political heart of the country”? Are you joking?
December 15, 2009, 11:13 pmgeokstr says:
Shucks, theo, everybody knew the prez was lying through his teeth when he said that he didn’t support gay marriage. He was asked that question by an Xtian preacher in a religious setting before the election, when he still needed lots of Xtian votes.
It’s just that he’s got much more serious constitution-trashing to do before he gets to the gay issues. The crisis only remains too good to be wasted for so long, you know.
December 15, 2009, 11:30 pmNick056 says:
I wouldn’t assume the Bill of Rights would have passed had it been put to a popular vote. Why do you assume that it would?
>>>Because it only applied to those who’d be voting on it?
December 15, 2009, 11:41 pmGuy says:
Well, of course Freedom!!!!!! used six exclamation points, if Freedom!!!!!! had used seven, it would have made him or her look crazy. And five exclamation points wouldn’t have adequately expressed the gravity of the comment.
I hope I don’t have to outline why direct popular votes are not a good way of protecting the rights of disadvantaged minorities, nor even a good way to weigh the interests involved fairly.
As far as “inevitability”, don’t you think you’re ignoring the enormous gender divide, as well as the momentum acquired by the gay rights movement? Do you really believe there is any serious doubt that the gay marriage side will eventually win nation-wide, even if it takes a generation or two?
December 15, 2009, 11:50 pmGuy says:
I meant enormous generational divide, not gender divide, oops.
December 15, 2009, 11:58 pmJames N. Gibson says:
Just for the sake of the discussion, there were very few “votes of the People” in the time of the founding fathers. The best example of this is the electoral college system for the President. People in a community might elect the local council, but as the Brady campaign stated in their argument on Heller, there is no individual right to elect your representative to Congress. State legislatures elected the Congressmen, the governors elected the Senators, the people might elect certain people to the electoral College but there was no assurance they would vote for a specific person when their time came. And, in the beginning, the President was the person with the most votes in the electoral college while the VP was the man with the second highest number of votes.
All this changed in the Jacksonian era when the first true national presidential vote occurred. So yes the Bill of Rights wasn’t put to a vote of the people, just as the declaration of independence wasn’t either. Is it right? I guess it depends on which side your on.
December 16, 2009, 12:45 amDave Hardy says:
While (having been married) I think this is gay-bashing of the most terrible sort, I cannot see where this is any of my concern. Let DC decide its policies and if its city council has indeed sufficiently offended the feelings of its people, they will elect new people to misgovern them.
December 16, 2009, 12:54 amptt says:
Actually, I think it was just in Boston. They also stopped in San Francisco. They made a big stink in the big, liberal cities (despite having facilitated a couple dozen adoptions by same-sex couples in the past in both areas). As far as I know, Catholic Charities continues to provide adoption services in dioceses in the rest of both states. They also continue to operate most of San Francisco’s social welfare services, under contract with the City. They do so while obeying City and state law guaranteeing employment benefits to domestic partners. The archdiocese established a policy of including any person with whom an employee shared a home, including uncles, cousins, etc. That avoided the theologically troubling issue of supporting quasi-marriage for gay couples.
December 16, 2009, 1:02 amtired of blogs says:
It’s not inevitable because anybody’s going to change their mind. It’s inevitable precisely because they won’t. Young people are either for gay marriage or indifferent. All the hullabaloo seems only to make more of them be for it. This is a lost cause for the conservative right in the long run. There may be short-term gains to be had in rallying the base against it, but they won’t last, and they might backfire in the longer run.
December 16, 2009, 1:09 amRandy says:
“once again the anti-democratic forces of the left win a victory.”
No, not at all. DC has a law that actually prevents any human rights law from being put up for a vote. That’s the law, and the law was enacted, yes, democratically. So the SSM bill cannot be put up for a vote because of this law. If you want to change the law, then you have several options at your disposal. But until you do, you still have to deal with that law.
“These losses have not materialized in other jurisdictions recognizing gay marriage or civil unions, though Catholic Charities has stopped providing adoption services in Massachusetts.”
Professor Carpenter, CC did not stop providing adoption services because of SSM in Massachusetts. They were told that if they wished to continue to receive public funds for adoptions, then they would not be able to continue to discriminate against placing children with gay couples. The CC could have refused the funds and continue to place adoptions, but not with gay couples. But they choose to stop all adoptions. The issue had little to do with SSM, as CC made it clear that they would not place children with gays, married or not.
December 16, 2009, 1:20 amtheobromophile says:
To be clear: what I said was merely descriptive; I was not saying nor implying that the best way to determine rights is by counting heads. My point is simple: if you are going to count heads, count accurately. If the accurate head count does not give you the result you want, find yourself another metric.
As for the generational divide: sometimes that remains (as with racial issues) and sometimes the current batch of libertines, libertarians, and liberals slowly change into conservatives as they age. I just don’t understand the rationale for assuming that any particular issue should be automatically put into the first category, especially as so little time has passed.
December 16, 2009, 1:36 amfishbane says:
To be clear: what I said was merely descriptive; I was not saying nor implying that the best way to determine rights is by counting heads.
Ah. Well then, heads have been counted, according to rules defined for head counting, and in a jurisdiction that has really strange rules for counting said heads.
It never stops being amusing when those fans of experimentation in support of determining when a woman can choose to end pregnancy seem to have a massive issue with experimenting with when two people who wish to commit to one another.
Even putting aside D.C.’s weird status, there are some arguments that could be made about the difference. But it really is a stark difference that should be remembered the next time people start talking about “judicial activism” and “will of the people”.
It is also amusing to note that bromophile writes off “the current batch of libertines, libertarians, and liberals”. Those are the folks that are running things, friend, and are going to pay you in your old age (or are you refusing Medicare and SS?) Damn kids.
December 16, 2009, 3:52 amTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Gay Marriage in Washington, D.C. -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Matthew Lloyd, Eugene Volokh. Eugene Volokh said: Gay Marriage in Washington, D.C.: The D.C. city council, by a vote of 11–2, has given final approval to a bill .. http://bit.ly/7LJez9 [...]
December 16, 2009, 8:06 amcorneille1640 says:
A quibble: I thought the Constitution provided that representatives in the House be elected by “the people,” and that the legislatures, not the governors, elected senators. Also, as a matter of practice, it was up to the states to determine how presidential electors were selected, so that legislators in some states (eg., S. Carolina) were the ones who selected the electors.
December 16, 2009, 8:09 amWallace says:
Freedom is right. You keep telling yourself that your victories are inevitable, that anyone who disagrees with you is “on the wrong side of history”, that anyone who opposes the redefinition of marriage is “bitter” and “angry”. Perhaps someday you might even believe that yourself.
However, insisting that your way is the only way is laughable. You vastly overestimate the popularity of your position on this, as evidenced by the stunning defeats in Maine (which was supposed to be a sure thing), California and New York.
The “generational gap” is extremely misleading. When one breaks down the millennial generation, they find that the youngest of the millennials (Those 12-15) are actually quite socially conservative. They just haven’t started voting yet. It also doesn’t take into account that people tend to become more conservative as they grow older.
None of you seem to take into account the massive influx of socially conservative Hispanics from South of the Border either. These people don’t take kindly to the homosexual agenda, and they are entering the nation at a rate that would swamp any gains that you might hope to make among the youngest generation.
As freedom said, nothing in life is inevitable. Nothing that is except death.
December 16, 2009, 8:36 amRoger the Shrubber says:
And don’t forget that they’re also catching bullets for us in Afghanistan and Iraq. Volunteers all. Probably one of our greatest generations.
And Wallace, please, the poster’s name is “Freedom!!!!!!” Get it right, or we’ll start to think you’re on the side of the terrorists. You do support freedom — don’t you?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!????!!!???
December 16, 2009, 9:11 amRoger the Shrubber says:
Oh and in order of confidence regarding inevitability, I’m going with (1) death, (2) societal approval of gay marriage within the next 50 years, and (3) the Detroit Lions continuing to suck at football for 10 years.
All three are pretty close, but that’s the order.
December 16, 2009, 9:13 amzuch says:
IIRC, some polls had rephrased the Bill of Rights a tad, and asked about support for such questions in polling. Sadly, I think the BoR lost … in some cases big.
Cheers,
December 16, 2009, 9:18 amzuch says:
No. Representative democracy, not strict democracy. There are ways to structure a republican [note the small "r", but applies even more for big "R"] government that are not democratic.
Cheers,
December 16, 2009, 9:22 amRandy says:
I just never get it when I read posts like that of Wallace of Freedom!!!!!! They are so bitter over the fact that a few hundred people will get married. They realize that it won’t affect them personally, or their own marriage (or marriage prospects). They are absolutely sure that this will lead to something horrible, even though they don’t know what horrible it will lead to, and they can’t identify what horrible things have happened in states or countries that have had SSM for years. They are beside themselves that anyone would even take gays seriously, let alone give us rights.
They just know that anything that makes gays happy must be bad for Wallace and Freedom!!!!!!!
December 16, 2009, 9:45 amGramarye says:
D.C. is one of the most overwhelmingly Democratic “states” in the U.S., so I actually think it would have as much chance of passing there as anywhere. Granted, one reason that it is heavily Democratic is a substantial minority population, which can mean less support on this specific issue than for the Democratic Party overall at the ballot box. However, another large portion of the district’s residents are single young professionals–many with overly libertarian and liberal agendas, and many more who simply aren’t heavily invested in the gay marriage issue one way or the other. (Several of my acquaintances at D.C. BigLaw shops, for example, don’t care about it at all, unless it leads to litigation, in which case their interests in the issue are more pecuniary than principled.)
I think Prof. Carpenter’s analysis of the politics has a strong ring of truth to it. In 2010, the Democratic Congressional leadership would have to make an affirmative decision to take up the issue. Fat chance. Beyond 2010, the furor will likely have cooled.
December 16, 2009, 9:53 amgeokstr says:
Sorry, Wallace, but that does not take into account that the Ayers’ agitprop has not yet had time to fully be washed into their impressionable little brains yet. They’ve got another 6-10 years left of public “education” to get to them.
Change happens at the margins. A few percent more reflexive leftists graduating into real life each year, with many of them to go into government jobs, “journalism” and “teaching” and the wave will keep building until we get to 1984.
December 16, 2009, 10:46 amWallace says:
Perhaps. The homosexualists are counting on just that. However, the socially conservative hispanics from South of the Border are very real, and will swamp any gains that the homosexualists might make with young people. Not to mention the influx of Muslims who not only oppose homosexuality, but will back up that opposition but cutting the throats of those who practice it.
Liberals seem to be their own worst enemy on this.
December 16, 2009, 11:39 amgeokstr says:
The “homosexualists”, as you call them, are the least of our worries. They’re just another group of useful idiots in the “progressive” army in the Long War on capitalism, freedom and the West in general. The agenda of the left goes far beyond sexual politics.
December 16, 2009, 11:49 amtheobromophile says:
Randy,
Unfortunately, a tiny minority of the gay/gay rights advocates population messes things up for everyone else. If people could get a guarantee that this battle would only ever be about two people having access to the same bundle of government rights and benefits as do straight people, it wouldn’t be that much of an issue; you would probably get about 90% of the population on board.
Unfortunately, this is pushed by a group of people who don’t seem to have much respect for marriage (i.e. they refer to it as an outdated, patriarchal institution). Further, any advances in gay rights seems to lead some people to think that the next logical step is indoctrination of children via the public school systems. There are many instances of kindergarten kids and elementary schoolers who come home after having learned about gay sex, despite being at an age in which they really don’t want to think about kissing. Then, of course, there are adults who are fired from their jobs, brought to court, or otherwise harassed because they express their religious viewpoint (one which, if I’m not mistaken, is shared by every major religion in the world).
Again, if this were about the bundle of government rights at stake, most people wouldn’t have a problem with it. Drag in repression of religious expression, little kids, and the fact that the promoters aren’t big fans of marriage anyway, and you lose the majority of your would-be supporters.
People ask their family and friends to witness their weddings because marriage is fundamentally a social institution. Society will reinforce a marriage by granting rights and benefits to married couples as well as to help a couple keep their wedding vows. In return, those two people are more able to depend on each other, rather than the government. So it’s never just about two people, and stating that it is will only confuse and alienate people.
As I’ve stated before, I think that the best solution is to let the government grant civil unions (gay, straight, roommates, old gal down the hall in the nursing home) and to let churches deal with marriage. Sadly, that’s often not an option, even though it would probably be one of the best (and most popular) solutions.
December 16, 2009, 12:23 pmChrisTS says:
Jeesh. I was still trying to recover from “libertines, libertarians, and liberals.’
Aside from having a set of talking points, could you show us evidence that the people ‘pushing’ SSM do not respect marriage? It does seem odd that anyone who wants to marry does not respect the idea of marrying.
Note, by the way, that marriage could only be patriarchal if it is heterosexual.
December 16, 2009, 12:47 pmAndyinNc says:
I think Wallace is really onto something with his “homosexualist” tag. I can’t think of a better description of the gay marriage-obsessed conservatives who spend so much time worrying about two dudes having hospital visitation rights.
December 16, 2009, 1:02 pmyankee says:
Can you cite even one of these “many instances”? I am sure some schools have read kids Heather has Two Mommies or The Family Book, but they don’t have anything to say about sex, gay or otherwise.
Perhaps some school systems mention gay sex in a fifth-grade sex ed curriculum aimed at preparing kids for puberty, but the fact that sex is discussed in sex ed is rather less than shocking.
December 16, 2009, 1:32 pmBrian K says:
I don’t think you understand where anti-SSM people are coming from. any mention of SSM in a non-derogatory tone is considered indoctrination. the only way it is acceptable to mention gay marriage is if it is immediately followed with “is evil and will ruin society and you will go to hell for supporting it.”
December 16, 2009, 1:39 pmyankee says:
Corporations restrict employees’ expressions of their religious viewpoint all the time. If you spend your time on the job expressing your religious viewpoint that your co-workers are going to hell because they don’t belong to your religion, or that they’re sinners because they’re not married to their live-in s.o., or that they’re Christ-killers, your employer has every right to terminate you.
December 16, 2009, 1:45 pmElfwreck says:
Fascinating admission, that. Makes it obvious that opposition to same-sex marriage is a matter of one religion demanding that its beliefs be inflicted on everyone.
December 16, 2009, 2:07 pmJohn D says:
I’d worry about the Bill of Rights in an general election. Sure, it might win, but it might not.
A few years ago, I read about a group of students who conducted a poll. Their questions were loaded. “Would you support the repeal of a law that allows pornographers to peddle smut?” “Would you support the repeal of a law that interferes with the military’s ability to house our troops?” And so on.
I don’t remember the exact language of the poll, but the poll response was that almost no one recognized that they were being asked about the Bill of Rights.
December 16, 2009, 2:19 pmzuch says:
Oh, really?!?!? As for “respect for marriage”, with 50% of heterosexual marriages ending in divorce (many a time precipitated by adultery, etc.), that’s just a tad hypocritical, don’t you think?
Well, yes, if you listen to the hyperbolic screaming of highly partisan anti-gay zealots…. Reminds me of my time working at a radio station, and the general manager talking about FCC complaints and fine/license issues if you would dare to put on one of the seven dirty words. He said that he talked to GMs across the country, swapping stories about complaints on file with the FCC concerning content. They would start “I was driving in my car with my son, and scanning through the channels, and I was horrified at what I heard….” It’s truly amasing how many people are riding in their car with their son, wildly flipping through the channels 24X7 and managing to catch every f*cking naughty word that happens to slip through…. The plain truth is that these are people with no life other that to monitor stations they don’t like around the clock, and firing off letters of complaint to the FCC at the slightest “offence”, hoping for punitive action. That is to say, they’re looking to be offended, and go out of their way to do so. And they have a right to be that. They also have a right to be ignored with their vapours and hysteria. They furthermore have a right to go find a planet more amenable to their tastes … and go live on it and leave us the f*ck alone….
Cheers,
December 16, 2009, 2:28 pmzuch says:
You’re mistaken. I suspect in particular you are claiming a nonexistent unanimity amongst various Christian and Jewish sects. Not to mention, if it were true, who cares? In the U.S., we have freedom of religion … and from religion.
Cheers,
December 16, 2009, 2:39 pmptt says:
I’ve always thought of “homosexualist” as a step up from the run-of-the-mill “practicing homosexual”.
December 16, 2009, 2:40 pmSmooth, like a Rhapsody says:
…”and I will eat the text of the act if this legislation is ever used to justify reverse discrimination on the basis of race…”
—Hubert Humphrey (more or less) on
the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Do the pro-SSM folks truly believe that there is absolutely no way that a reasonable person could be concerned here?
December 16, 2009, 3:03 pmRob in CT says:
The gay people I know are quite pro-marriage. That’s why they want it. They also are understandably wary of “separate but equal.”
They have also adopted two children, and have provided them with a good home and upbringing.
Clearly, these are dangerous people we must stop. Yeah.
December 16, 2009, 3:10 pmDilan Esper says:
Theo:
1. There’s no way 90 percent of the public would support gay marriage if it were presented on pure non-discrimination grounds. The opposition to gay marriage is driven by people who think gays and lesbians are “icky” and most of those folks didn’t even like Lawrence v. Texas very much. People who think sodomy laws should still be in force are not going to endorse the principle of nondiscrimination against gays and lesbians.
2. As for your malicious and despicable mischaracterizations of the motives of gay rights advocates, in the words of the great Bob Dylan, “don’t criticize what you can’t understand”.
December 16, 2009, 5:00 pmFreedom!!!!!! says:
Fail.
The Divorce rate is NOT 50%
December 16, 2009, 5:17 pmRandy says:
Earlier, in another thread, Theo and I got into a bit of a spat because I said that, during Maine’s fight to repeal SSM, I stated that the Catholic Church seems to have as one of its highest priorities stopping SSM. She took me to task, and said — rightly so — that there are a great many people doing work fighting poverty and illness under the auspices of the church. I certainly agree, and meant no ill will towards anyone who works that hard. But I refused to back down on my larger point, which is that the church in Maine spent a ton of dollars fighting SSM while at the same time claiming it didn’t have enough money to keep churches open. Somehow, they found the money to fight gays, but not to tend to their flock.
Well, now we have the church here in Washington saying that if SSM is passed, they will have to pull out of providing all social services of all kinds, be it administering to the poor, the downtrodden, AIDS victims, the ill, the elderly — everything. In other words, stopping SSM is a higher priority than servicing the poor.
Now, I understand their position — they claim that if they have a gay employee, and that gay employee gets married, then the church will be forced to recognize the employee as a married person. However, the church in San FRansisco came up with a compromise that satisfied all parties, and when the same compromise was offered to this diocese, it was rejected. The church is holding firm — if SSM passes, they leave city altogther.
Aside from the ethics of using poor people as pawns in their own little war, the clearly is sending a message to everyone — stopping SSM is more important than serving the poor and the ill.
Which if fine. I really don’t have a problem with that. Other groups can get the contracts and do just as well. But that really says something about a religious institutions values, and nothing good as far as I’m concerned.
December 16, 2009, 5:28 pmRoger the Shrubber!!!!!! says:
What on earth is a “homosexualist”?
December 16, 2009, 5:40 pmElfwreck says:
How does the church deal with secular acknowledgment of divorced persons’ 2nd marriages, or other types of marriage the church doesn’t allow? It’s not like “the state gave them a marriage license, but they’re not married in the eyes of the church” is a new situation.
December 16, 2009, 5:44 pmgeokstr says:
What admission already?
That’s the way politics works. People vote the way they do for many many reasons, just one of which is religion. I didn’t even say whether I considered that good or bad. My point was that the commenter I was responding to was incorrect in thinking that Obama was against gay marriage.
If you think it’s OK for Obama to lie about that to further his election and the leftist cause, that’s just confirmation that taqiyyah is a tactic you believe in. We’ve already seen that the whole leftist strategy is based on anything and everything being justified by the ends.
December 16, 2009, 6:08 pmElfwreck says:
However, many anti-marriage proponents insist that their aversion to same-sex marriage being legal is *not* an attempt to force their religion’s morals on everyone. (Not all. Some just outright claim that their religion’s morals should be everyone’s, and all US laws should be based on those morals.) Admitting that it’s a religious issue should simplify the issue: in the US, we don’t get to have laws based on religion.
I don’t mind taqiyyah–but I don’t think it’s ethical for public officials. If he needs to hide his beliefs to feel safe, he shouldn’t run for public office.
December 16, 2009, 6:20 pmChristian K says:
One of the things I don’t understand about this debate is why Social Conservatives are so against SSM. It would be a great way to effectively neuter the Leftist impulses of the usually outspoken gay community. Most gays that I know that are currently married are quite conservative outside of specifically gay issues. Also most married people, gay or straight, tend to sit at home with their spouse. They don’t march in protests or get politically active, or financially support those who are, unless they are threatened. So pass gay marriage, and get a much quieter, less liquid Left.
December 16, 2009, 7:02 pmDilan Esper says:
One of the things I don’t understand about this debate is why Social Conservatives are so against SSM. It would be a great way to effectively neuter the Leftist impulses of the usually outspoken gay community.
Andrew Sullivan has asked the same question for years, and the answer is pretty obvious. The Southern conservative base of the Republican Party is extremely homophobic, and that base, through its churches and networking, provides many of the footsoldiers for the conservative movement. Not only do major Republican politicians not go anywhere near endorsing gay marriage– they tend not to support ANY gay rights measures, even short of marriage.
December 16, 2009, 7:32 pmRandy says:
“How does the church deal with secular acknowledgment of divorced persons’ 2nd marriages, or other types of marriage the church doesn’t allow?”
Good questions, and I don’t know. OF course, recognizing second marriages would violate a very basic tenet of catholocism, yet somehow the church is able to provide services in all 50 states that allow these types of remarriages.
December 16, 2009, 7:58 pmzuch says:
From your link:
Sorry to point this out, but if there’s twice as many marriages as divorces, that means that [assuming this statistic stays constant] 50% of marriages will end in divorce. You can’t get divorced unless you’re married, and to sustain this statistic, one half of marriages must end in divorce. This is more than “first glance”. This is simple math. Agreed, if the number of marriages were decreasing substantially year by year, this might lower the divorce rate from the 50% steady-state (because divorces this year would be from the larger number of marriages from previous years mostly), but no one is claiming that the overall number of marriages year by year is going down (despite the best efforts of RW wackos). RWers seem to have difficulty with math.
More from the link:
Even if true, if those that had been divorced had been divorced multiple times, it would increase the number of marriages ending in divorce. Your conclusion assumes only one marriage per person [at most], which is a clearly false assumption.
Cheers,
December 16, 2009, 10:16 pmtheobromophile says:
No idea. Maybe it’s a sort of facial v. as-applied invalidity issue (to borrow a con law construct): a heterosexual marriage can be invalid and can be valid, but, according to the Bible, a homosexual union is never valid.
Randy,
I didn’t know that the D.C. dioceses were going to shut off all social services entirely. Aside from being stupid and cruel, it’s incredibly short-sighted; parishioners often identify with their faith (and donate to their churches) because of the tangible good that can be brought out through that institution.
Maybe they aren’t thinking about what makes the Church the institution that it is – inspiring people to be better, more generous, and more compassionate than they would otherwise be. Maybe they don’t understand that this isn’t the time to Go Galt and stick it to D.C., saying “Try to do it without us.”
That’s depressing.
Dilan,
The absolute irony in your statement is beyond parody. What you appear to be saying is that, as a West Coast religion-hating atheist, you understand southern Protestants better than I, as a Massachusetts-dwelling marriage-equality young lady, understand the gay rights movement.
Although it is comedy gold, it underscores your constant and unfortunate tendency to argue against conservative positions via ad hominem attack. As I’ve pointed out to you numerous times before, you do it so reflexively, and without any alternative line of argumentation, that it’s clear that you’ve never actually tried to understand where half of this country is coming from.
December 17, 2009, 1:04 amtheobromophile says:
Let me clarify one comment: many of the heterosexual people who push gay marriage (i.e. liberals) don’t like marriage.
A search for “marriage patriarchy” on google yields over two million results. If anyone can’t figure out what I’m talking about, scan the first dozen or so results.
It’s not the conservatives who pushed for no-fault divorce.
It’s not the conservatives who think that cohabitation is fine, that unwed motherhood is fine, and that it’s fine for two people to live together for their entire lives without getting married.
Pardon me if I don’t understand the allegiance between those who disdain marriage and those who think that it is so important that they are willing to engage in a long, protracted social crusade to have the right to it. It’s bizarre, really.
(Update: ChristianK made my point, far better and from the other perspective, upthread.)
December 17, 2009, 1:11 amzuch says:
Maybe you think the ACLU is a bunch of Nazi porn addicts then. Assuming arguendo that pro-gay-marriage hets are really personally anti-marriage (don’t tell my wife!) — and thanks indeed for the clarification that this is what you meant — then I guess you don’t understand how the ACLU could defend the rights of Nazis and pornographers without a intense personal fondness for their philosophy and/or product. Is this so? If so, I think that your criticism of Dilan:
becomes just a little bit silly and petit.
Put more simply, if you don’t understand how or why hets can support gay rights, you simply don’t understand the issues to begin with. Which leaves you at a distinct disadvantage, even as a “Massachusetts-dwelling marriage-equality young lady”, in understanding the gay rights movement.
Cheers,
December 17, 2009, 7:52 amJake says:
If the capital city can do it – so can every capital city of every state in the country! This is another large step in the right direction for America and American freedoms. Know how to help! Here’s a good resource: Tictacdo (ignore the lipstick, I have no idea why it’s there – this is a quality article.) Another point for DC vs NYC.
December 17, 2009, 10:16 ambadlaw says:
I swear some of you don’t know any history of social movements besides a few quotes from MLK.
One of the “things they wont tell you and will pearl-clutch if you point it out” that don’t get mentioned is that gay marriage is more of a 2nd wave radical feminism issue than a civil rights March on Selma type issue.
It’s interesting how in about two generations, the gay community went from a sort of anti-bourgeois, free love, do-your-own-thing community to one that, it seems, cant exist without the government’s blessing of their relationship. I’m sure there is a component to the push for gay marriage that stems from just the present benefits of the government (though I think they’re largely exaggerated and often ignored for more emotionally-laden sloganeering, but that’s just me), but you’re sorely mistaken if you think there isn’t a substantial held-over sentiment that is distinctly anti-marriage. It’s the radical feminist credo that is more about everybody being “treated” exactly the same and almost completely disregarding how dynamics (yes, even in power) might be a better model. When supporters ask conservatives to explain how gay marriage will ruin marriage, they act disingenuously (even if it’s unknowingly disingenuous), because we don’t share the same view of marriage, and how it should ideally work in society. So any answer they get, they can shrug off, because it’s irrelevant to them.
December 17, 2009, 12:19 pmElfwreck says:
Quite possibly, but that doesn’t mean parallels with the civil rights movement are inaccurate. The rhetoric used against it is certainly eerily familiar.
Same-sex marriage is another step in the acknowledgment that marriage, in a technological, egalitarian society, is not based on ownership of women and their reproductive systems. The “redefining” started over a hundred years ago when some couples claimed that a married woman had a right to refuse sex, own property, and decide on the rearing of her children.
What view of marriage is that? What are the essential elements of a marriage, and what makes two people of the same sex incapable of providing those elements? What *must* a mixed-gender couple do, that a same-gender couple cannot, in order to have a “real marriage?”
December 17, 2009, 12:35 pmDilan Esper says:
The absolute irony in your statement is beyond parody. What you appear to be saying is that, as a West Coast religion-hating atheist, you understand southern Protestants better than I, as a Massachusetts-dwelling marriage-equality young lady, understand the gay rights movement. Although it is comedy gold, it underscores your constant and unfortunate tendency to argue against conservative positions via ad hominem attack. As I’ve pointed out to you numerous times before, you do it so reflexively, and without any alternative line of argumentation, that it’s clear that you’ve never actually tried to understand where half of this country is coming from.
Theo, for your information, in the 1950′s and 1960′s, there was a cottage industry of conservative commentators who swore that the white South wasn’t racist, that the North was far more racist than the white South was, and that all the disagreements over segregation were principled disagreements about states rights and had nothing to do with bigotry or dislike of blacks.
In other words, it isn’t as though southern conservatives and their defenders arguing in bad faith is something that just popped up in the gay rights debate.
December 17, 2009, 1:33 pmRandy says:
badlaw: ” because we don’t share the same view of marriage, and how it should ideally work in society.”
Well, it certainly doesn’t work ideally in society when you have a divorce rate in excess of 50%, and high rates of domestic violence in the conservative south. But thanks for lecturing us on the ‘proper’ view of marriage.
December 17, 2009, 4:37 pmGuy from DC says:
Many of these posters seem to be ignorant about DC and this issue.
Despite a lot of outsiders claims to the contrary, it’s simply a myth that this has been controversial among most DC residents. Regarding support for the matter in DC, different polls have been done. They all have found that the majority of city residents support marriage equality. (Among the various poll results that I have seen city-wide support was AT LEAST 65 percent. Support may be a little lower in a couple of the city’s wards, but even in those wards support seems to outweigh opposition. In some wards, support exceeds 80 or 90 percent. And polls haven’t shown soft support [or opposition]. Opinion seems to be pretty well formed in the city that has been discussing and moving toward marriage equality for decades.)
There also isn’t a significant black-white divide on this issue in DC. DC has a large gay, African-American population that has been active on the issue. Again, those opposed to marriage equality have tried to brew discord, creating tension among progressives by highlighting differences among racial and GLBT civil and human rights matters…But prominent DC African American leaders have dismissed such divisive debate. They simply state that discrimination is discrimination, regardless of the root motivation.
While the Catholic Church and some Maryland ministers have tried to brew controversy, there is broad support among many of DC’s religious leaders. And threats by Catholic Charities that it will abandon the city’s social service programs are totally overblown, considering CC only was responsible for 6 adoptions in the District of Columbia in 2008. There are other organizations that will be happy to accept DC taxpayer dollars and capable of handling the administrative responsibilities associated with arranging such a small number of adoptions.
Regarding the human rights provisions of the DC City Charter, it’s clear (as has already been decided by DC Superior Court) that matters related to rights of protected classes cannot be put to a vote. This was incredibly forward thinking for a charter that was put in place in the 1970′s, but shouldn’t be surprising, considering historically the only time that such a vote ever was taken in District of Columbia’s history was when the voting rights of freed slaves were put to a vote in the 1860′s. (Guess what the results of that vote were.)
Frankly this issue should make it perfectly clear that voting on minority rights (regardless of the issue) is never a good idea…The majority almost inevitably will dismiss the concerns of the minority group. Does anyone believe that even decades after Virginia v. Loving was decided by the US Supreme Court that there aren’t states in the Union where referendums requesting support interracial marriage would fail? The possible tyranny of mob rule is why we live in a republic, not a democracy.
Regarding the elected officials (Mayor and council members) of DC, it’s possible that this vote will be become an issue in upcoming elections in 2-3 of the 8 wards. But no one who is knowledgeable about DC politics seems to believe that any of the incumbents really are vulnerable because of their votes. In fact, the council members, who represent the two wards where the greatest amount of opposition to marriage equality exists, were the two that voted against the measure, so they should be protected. It seems to be simply saber rattling and/or wishful thinking from the anti-SSM crowd that a wave of anti-SSM sentiment will lead to the current DC council being voted out.
D. Carpenter is correct in saying that the biggest threat to this law is action from the Congress. Congress has a long tradition of blocking popular local support for a variety of DC programs ranging from a domestic partner registry, civil unions, needle exchange programs, medicinal marijuana, etc. But it’s also true that the current Congressional leadership has more recently demonstrated its respect for local governance in the District. In fact, the city recently was allowed to start implementing a medicinal marijuana program after Congress decided it would no longer block the issue.
Anyone who supports marriage equality in D.C. needs to contact their members of Congress and request that they do not interfere in this local matter. You can be sure that the opposition will be calling their senators and representatives to demand action. And these calls matter.
December 17, 2009, 4:46 pmbadlaw says:
…because much of the rhetoric used for it eerily (and disingenuously) similar. It’s a neat rhetorical trick to try and carp as much of the rhetoric from the civil rights movement as you can all so you can ally those who disagree with the racists of yore, but it is just that: a rhetorical trick.
Oh, come on. You know there’s a difference between a categorical “redefinition” and a context-specific “redefinition”. It was still a union between a man and a woman, and much of the radical feminist anti-marriage rhetoric was about the institution as a whole being oppressive; even after the legal underpinnings of the subjugation of women had been done away with. And I wont get into your list of the supposed rights married women got over a hundred years ago (because I can tell you’re spit-balling based on what you’ve heard rather than what you know and have researched), but needless to say, equal dignity for women fit into a larger framework in which marriage was still a piece.
Again, there’s a difference between categorical differences and context-based differences. Aside from having their own children, a gay couple could technically do anything a straight couple could. But what works best for society, what works best for children, what justifies any of the marriage benefits the state bestows, in my opinion, is heterosexual monogamous marriage. Just because same-sex couples can somewhat resemble a heterosexual monogamous marriage — just as an unmarried heterosexual relationship can resemble a marriage — it’s not marriage, IMO. Marriage is that one thing, and not anything else.
Thank you, Randy R, for providing us with a helpful example of the type of anti-marriage talking points many advocates for gay marriage espouse. The refrain of “well, since you guys messed it up, we deserve the right to treat it just as badly as straight people do.” Great argument, Randy.
Guy from DC, the polls also said the same thing in California, and in Maine, and you saw what happened there. Again, they could be right in this case, but with gay marriage, the more the public “seems” to support it, the better the odds are that there are people lying when they are polled. I don’t really trust polls anymore. The term “the polls say” has little credibility to me, just like the term “scientists say”.
December 17, 2009, 7:23 pmGuy from DC says:
I would hope that people more closely associated with efforts in California and Maine will respond, but I followed the public polling in both states pretty closely, and I don’t believe that even in places like San Francisco you ever had polls indicate the level of support that we’ve seen city-wide in DC for marriage equality. I recall the news in both California and Maine around the times of their respective votes showing polling very, very close (within the margin of error). I would agree when polling is that close that polls are pretty meaningless. Were there ever state-wide polls in either state that showed more than 47-49 percent of poll respondents being (either strongly or somewhat) supportive?
December 17, 2009, 8:39 pmbadlaw says:
The CNN exit poll showed Prop 8 failing with 52% opposition. There was another widely circulated poll that said opposition was 54%.
December 17, 2009, 9:31 pmElfwreck says:
What works *best* for society, isn’t what’s legally required, in most cases. We don’t require marriages to stay together because they have children. We don’t annul or divorce them against their will if they’re not sexually exclusive. Nor even if they don’t claim to be monogamous, as long as they don’t try to claim legal benefits of marriage for more than two people.
What works best is marriages where neither partner beats the other, where neither steals the other’s property or works to undermine the partner’s self-confidence and create an emotional slave. But we don’t ban those marriages, and we don’t require any legally-binding promises that they won’t happen. We don’t even expect a promise of “I won’t strike you in anger” in standard wedding vows.
What “works best” for marriage is not what the law requires. (Are you positing the law should disallow all non-best marriages?)
So, ummm… what is that thing? What makes a “marriage” other than a mixed set of genitalia and a sheet of paper declaring this is a marriage?
I’m not asking for “what’s the BEST marriage?” Societies aren’t built on laws that require the best of everything. I want to know the minimum: the standard requirements for if-it-has-this-it’s-a-marriage, if-it-doesn’t-it’s-not.
December 18, 2009, 12:13 amJake says:
Freedom, it turns out, is good for the economy? Revolutionary! And 11-2 – a milestone indeed!
December 18, 2009, 9:30 amBrad says:
As an Alabama native well-versed in my home state’s history, I can assure you that what the majority wants is not always the right thing for the minority.
December 18, 2009, 8:32 pmbadlaw says:
I know. The law allows for the fact that what works best for society doesn’t always prevail. That’s not an inconsistency, it’s just acknowledging reality. However, that’s not the same as codifying something that isn’t ideal. It’s best to push for that ideal if we don’t always succeed at it.
The “love, honor, cherish” part doesn’t count? Okay.
Did I say the law should disallow all non-best marriages? Don’t question me as if I’ve provoked your exaggeration of my argument. Of course the law doesn’t require it…because the law couldn’t. The law can expressly show interest in promoting an ideal union, within reason. Acceptance of failure within the ideal model of marriage isn’t the same as success within the antithesis of the ideal of marriage. It’s the same way many conservatives feel about Republicans these days: Republicans said they would be fiscal conservatives, and they more or less failed at it when they had the majority. Democrats said they would spend their butts off, and they’re succeeding at it. Which one do you think conservatives would more prefer?
I think I’ve already answered this, but ok. A marriage, at the minimum, is the unique union of an unrelated man and woman who have taken vows to be faithful, and have some type of legal binding to one another.
December 18, 2009, 8:35 pmElfwreck says:
1) Love, honor, cherish is not required for a marriage. Those words weren’t part of my wedding ceremony.
2) Where it is part of the vows, it’s not legally enforceable–saying “she no longer cherishes me” is not breach of contract, and before no-fault divorce, was not grounds for divorce.
Oaths in the wedding ceremony are not part of the marriage contract.
Many of us believe that promotion should be based on the quality of the relationship and devotion of the people involved, not what’s between their legs.
Legally, that’s not true. My husband and I have taken no vows to “be faithful” to each other, and yet we are legally married. I know several polyamorous marriages. The law does not require sexual exclusivity for married couples.
Certainly the laws in my state (California) don’t say anything about requiring “faithfulness” in married couples.
Also, can you define “man” and “woman?” That’s not a rhetorical question; I have several friends whose gender status, both social and legal, doesn’t fit easily into either.
When one member of a marriage changes gender, is the marriage instantly annulled? Does it become not-able-to-be-a-marriage anymore? If so, why? What essential aspect of the relationship, to each other and to society, changed with the surgery?
“Some type of legal binding”–any type at all, or some specific legal arrangement?
I have noticed that anti-marriage activists fight hard to avoid actually defining marriage. They like to insist on the M/F requirement, but don’t want to discuss the relationship itself, and why they think that relationship is impossible for two people of the same sex.
December 18, 2009, 9:33 pmCraig says:
Your a fool. Marriage isn’t about gender or race, its about love. I’m sorry your so self conscious in your marriage, but everyone is entitled to love. This article is proof of the hate people like your a spreading. Instead of seeing the fact that the Church is willing to stop adoption, because of their hate, you see Gay Marriage. Grow the fuck up, and stop speaking for African Americans we don’t think like you. We are a new generation of powerfull black man who understand the struggle of discrimination, and a shamed that your generation forgot what its like to be discriminated against.
December 19, 2009, 5:35 amElfwreck says:
That’s a nice thought, but it’s not true. At least, not legally. Spouses are not required to love each other, and historically, the idea of marrying for love is very recent–less than 100 years old–and pretty much confined to wealthy, privileged societies.
In most of the world, marriage is about providing a stable environment for children, and consolidation of material assets. We’ve got a society that allows those to happen without marriage (and, conversely, allows marriage to happen without those traits), and are trying to sort out what “marriage” means if it’s not kids-and-inheritances.
I’d like love & devotion to be a much bigger part of it than the physical traits of the people involved. That seems to be the key issue: is marriage a contract supporting a physical arrangement, or a social/emotional one?
December 19, 2009, 10:17 amFreedom!!!!! says:
You really are an idiot. Did you bother to read on? Like to the very next sentence:
“Virtually none of those divorces were among the people who had married during that year, however, and the statistic failed to take into account the 54 million marriages that already existed, the majority of which would not see divorce.”
Even the New York Slimes ran a story that completely debunked the 50% divorce myth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/health/19divo.html
You fail. Epic Fail. Worst Fail of All Time.
I guess lying is all you have left.
December 20, 2009, 7:24 pmjazmine hoover says:
i believe that same sex marriage is ok and we should let same sexed people get married because love is love no matter what anyone says…how would you feel if people voted and said that you cant be with the person you love…thats just wrong.
January 12, 2010, 1:40 pmjazmine hoover says:
i believe that same sex marriage is ok and we should let same sexed people get married because love is love no matter what anyone says…how would you feel if people voted and said that you cant be with the person you love…thats just wrong.
January 12, 2010, 1:40 pmwy dont they says:
why dont they just pass the law i dont get it…why is it such a big deal??? when we vote for same sex marriage i think that everyone thats votes is just getting in the middle of people that they dont even knows love life…how would you feel if people you dont even know voted no so your not aloud to marry your one true love…just think about it…
January 13, 2010, 1:14 pmdannyv says:
Seriously people we live in the 21st century and were still having this arguement. Alot of religious leaders are against gay marriage and why is that, they are the most hippocritical individuals in America. If your gonna follow rules in the bible, follow of them you can’t pick and choose what you want from it, all these right wing christians always wanna throw bible rules well if your gonna do that then follow all of them just don’t pick on a group of people for their sexual prefrence. If marriage is so sacred why is that their is so much divorce and why are men beating their wives and children. The bible is againist DIVORCE and Jesus talks about it to its more of a sin to get a DIVORCE than to be gay people who wanna point out rules from the bible should read it before judging people. Jesus said “Let he without sin cast the first stone.” many of you would have to put your boxes of stones down. I don’t know what the big deal is back in the sixties blacks couldn’t marry whites or have their own tv shows or eat at restaurants they had to ride in back of buses and look at how we live today. White people love black entertainers shit all the white women wanna marry all the black men so in retrospect its enivitalble its gonna happen so get OVER IT YOU BIGGOTS. OH AND BY THE WAY I’M A WEALTHY GAY LATINO THAT WAS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BEFORE ANYTHING OR MY RACE I AM FORMOST AMERICAN I LOVE MY COUNTRY AND PROBABLY PAY HIGHER TAXES THAN SOME OF YOU ME AND MY HUSBAND HAVE BEEN TOGETHER FOR 19 YRS THEIR ISN’T ALOT OF STRAIGHT PEOPLE THAT CAN SAY THAT BECAUSE I HEAR THAT ALL THE TIME. AND YES ME AND MY HUSBAND ARE GONNA GO GET MARRIED IN WASHINGTON D.C
February 18, 2010, 9:31 pmPUA Attraction Forums says:
Interesting point of view…
September 9, 2010, 3:04 am