Sometime this week (or was it last?), I sorted through the clutter of notes on my desk and made a list of posts I’d like to write on marriage. With yesterday’s California Supreme Court decision, the clutter has grown as I’ve been scribbling down myriad ideas for new posts to add to that list.
As soon as today, I hope to start fleshing out the ideas on that list and posting here on marriage. I do hope to promote a conversation more serious than we have generally seen on both sides of the issue where proponents of gay marriage accuse their adversaries of wanting to write “bigotry and hatred . . . into the California Constitution” and proponents of the traditional marriage accuse their adversaries of wanting to destroy the institution.
Let us hope (I fear this is a vain hope) that those coming forward to debate the issue are like Jonathan Rauch (for gay marriage) and David Blankenhorn (for the traditional definition), individuals who value the importance of the institution and understand (and oftentimes even respect) their ideological adversaries.
I hope to contribute to the debate in the manner that these two individuals have. Yesterday, I didn’t like having to write my Pajamas piece in haste because I wanted to take the time to think seriously about the issue.
Sometimes when we blog, we rush to get an idea out there because the nature of this medium is such that we need get these ideas out there as quickly as possible. People want to hear our ideas right away! But, with a potential social change of this magnitude, we need a more prolonged conversation.
For example, yesterday, in order to get my post done, I could only read the first 20 or so pages of the court decision carefully (and the majority opinion is very poorly written). I had to skim the rest, relying on word searches to see how the court fleshed out certain ideas expressed early in the opinion. In the world of the old media, I would have had time to read the whole opinion before getting my piece to press. (But, then in the world of the old media, the opinion would not have been readily available here in LA and I may not have had the forum I do.)
Given the haste with which I wrote, I am flattered by the praise I have received from most of the readers who e-mailed me about it (as well as a good number of commenters). Your words mean more to me than you know (an issue which you may better understand if I go ahead with the next post I have planned).
While I am satisfied with my Pajamas piece, believing it gets at the basic points I feel need be addressed, there is more, much more, that I have to say on this issue. I really want to get at the majority’s obsession with this notion of dignity which I can’t find in the state constitution and which even one of my critics (on this issue) faulted, saying the “judges should stick with the law and leave the social commentary in their memoirs.”
That said, to repeat a point I made in a previous post, we, as a society, need to have a serious conversation on marriage, particularly those of us in the Golden State. I hope this blog serves as a forum to further that exchange.
UPDATE: Just after posting this, a reader e-mailed me Debra J. Saunders Townhall column where she offers viewpoint near identical to my own. Like me, she voted against Prop 22 in 2000 and is “ambivalent” about the issue. As to a point in the post about the haste with which I wrote. I didn’t have time yesterday to get to the dissents as did she. Had I, I would surely have noticed the passages which stood out to her:
But I have to agree with Justice Marvin Baxter’s dissenting opinion that the court “does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice.”
What next? Baxter wondered if in the future an “activist” court might look at this opinion and “conclude, on the basis of a perceived evolution in community values, that the laws prohibiting polygamous and incestuous marriages were no longer constitutionally justified.”
Baxter stipulated, “In no way do I equate same-sex unions with incestuous and polygamous relationships as a matter of social policy or social acceptance.”
Marriage is a difficult subject – it crosses religious, legal, philosophical lines. In the US, matters are complicated because the majority of “family law” is a a state matter and we have fifty different states to deal with plus some territories.
And we need more intelligent, respectful discussion on many issues and especially this one. Here’s to your sentiments!
I will be interested in reading them. I know you guys don’t like him, but Andrew Sullivan’s book pulling together a lot of writings on this topic was very good.
Hold the presses! Houndentenor & I agree on something. In my post “Gay Books for Grownups,” I wrote, “I have not read all the essays in Andrew Sullivan’s Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con, but those I have read suggest this is a solid collection.“
#2 – Houndie, it’s not that we dislike Andrew Sullivan. He was one of the first gay bloggers I ever read (back when he was conservative or at least libertarian), and I am glad for that opportunity.
However, following the 2004 election, he slowly but surely started abandoning his conservative principles and became a gay Brit version of Arianna Huffington. Ever since then I’ve quit reading him.
WE didn’t abandon Sully. HE abandoned US.
Regards,
Peter H.
So you stop reading someone because you disagree with them? I usually find it more interesting to read the people I disagree with. It makes me think. Why do I disagree? What is wrong with this argument? Don’t get me wrong, Andrew Sullivan strikes me as whacky sometimes too. NOW he’s against the war but had harsh words for those of us who were back in 2002.
But on the gay marriage issue: he’s been on this topic a long time and has probably read more about it than anyone writing today. At the very least he is able to point you in the direction of various people who have already made certain arguments. Besides, he did everyone the service of presenting various points of view, not just his own which is rare these days and very useful if we are to discuss a topic intelligently.
I am on my way to have dinner and see “Curtains” with my friends Erik and Jason. They had a ceremony two years ago. I sang. They are married in Canada but not in the US. They don’t have the legal benefits of being married. To me that makes them lesser citizens in the eyes of the law. Not fully American in spite of working and contributing and paying their taxes. Those opposed should have to explain to them why they are lesser in the eyes of the law. Why do they shoulder the same responsibilities while being entitled to only some of the benefits and priveleges?
Dan GPW, because of personal family experiences you and I will always have to agree to disagree, and always do it in a civil manner.
I do want to say that, despite our disagreements, I think you contribute a great deal to the discussion of the issue with opinions and observations that are very articulate and obviously well thought-out.
# 5 – “So you stop reading someone because you disagree with them?”
No, Rover, that’s not what I said. I stated that I stopped reading Sully because he had abandoned the principles that made him, in my opinion, worthwhile reading for gay conservative issues.
I constantly read screeds by people with whom I have no agreement. Your posts come frequently to mind.
Regards,
Peter H.
Okey-dokey. Your gay friends have every civil right I have. They are not lesser in the eyes of the law. They define themselves by the methods they employ for sexual gratification. They want marriage redefined to accommodate their sexual practices. The compelling case for redefining marriage on that basis simply has not been made.