Maybe it doesn’t matter that the debate on gay marriage has been (on the whole) so pathetic. Maybe we don’t need a national conversation on the meaning of marriage. Maybe it’s those myriad private conversations that are really making the difference.
Or maybe not even conversations. Interactions. When people see gay couples living together and fulfilling the responsibilities that inhere in a relationship, they understood that gay men and women are capable of marriage. They don’t need words to convince them; they have evidence.
Writing yesterday about the shifting consensus on gay marriage, Jennifer Rubin observed:
As more gay and lesbian Americans came out to friends, family and co-workers, the anti-gay-marriage voices were handicapped; they argued against an issue in the abstract while gay-marriage proponents could argue that Mike and Sam down the street or Sue and Ann at the office shouldn’t be denied the right to marry.
In the past few weeks, two Democratic Senators came out for gay marriage, both following the lead of their Republican colleague from the Buckeye State, Rob Portman, who changed his position on the issue after his son had come out to him.
Were the Democrats inspired by the Republican’s example? Would the Republican have changed his mind without dealing with the flesh-and-blood experiences of his son?
Personal interactions will always matter more when it comes to changing minds on a particular issue. This is why everyone, or so it seems, decries lobbying (at least on a national level)—because it’s effective. It’s also why supermarket sampling is so popular (even if the often-grumpy older women who usually ply the trade don’t really make the sale on their own merits).
That said, it also cuts both ways. There’s a lot of empathy (as well as sympathy) on the topic of same-gender marriage right now. The opposition has also overplayed its hand: on the surface by opposing any type of relationship recognition (“domestic partnership, civil unions, marriage—it’s all the same!”), and on a deeper level by being the same people who previously opposed any type of anti-discrimination law [and in some cases, still do] and couldn’t even see fit to making laws restricting private consensual behavior between adults a thing of the past. It’s hard to take someone seriously on an issue when it seems they are just against everything in the general sphere.
But there will be a time when the bloom will fade from the rose and a more holistic portrayal of LGBTQXYZ family life will emerge. The multiple emulations of the Modern Family depiction now mentioned in every news story on the issue will give way to the everyday realization (not mentioned on any news story) that while perhaps “love makes a family”—lying, cheating, deception and thievery are just as common in same-gender households as they are in hetero households. Designer children will be seen being pitted against other designer children in the same household, with all hearing some version of “Your other daddy/mommy is evil!”
I’ve long said that the real opposition to same-gender marriage will come not from the eeeeeevil conservatives and Republicans and “religionists” [whose ultimate goal, natch, is the dreaded concentration camps], but via the hetero father who can’t get a court hearing to deal with denied visitation rights with his kids because the docket is full due to two gay guys fighting over custody of a mahogany armoire acquired during the once-perfect around-the-world trip to Madagascar.
Maybe it’s high time, as suggested here last week, to truly save marriage by getting government the hell out of it.
Dan,
I am reminded of the phrase “corner cases make bad law.” I have friends who are in Polyamourous relationships. I don’t believe that it’s a ‘right’ to be recognized. My mom as well as my two strays are gay, it hasn’t changed my feelngs toward ‘fred’ one bit.
I was explaining one of the issues of drug legalization to a friend. I have family members who smoke(d) pot, as well as having grown up in the second (now third) highest producing county in Ohio. The issue there is, a society who protects people from the consequences of their actions is one that can never allow dangerous actions. If the drug user who can’t handle his choices becomes a burden on society, society collectively has to be able to step over him on the street. If an individual wants to help him deal with his bad choices, that’s different.
The same thing applies here. If Sen Portman wants to bless his son’t union (like I blessed my mom’s and my strays’) more power to him. But if he can’t present a ‘serves the government interest’ argument any better than “I love my son,” He needs to evaluate his position again.
“Personal Interactions matter more than arguments in shifting consensus on gay marriage”
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Yes, but should they be? Are we rational people, or do we react out of impulse.
Liberals constantly insist that their agendas are the policies of reason. I just don’t see it. The view from my position is that liberals move from one crisis to another. Everything they do is a response to some kind of panic about the environment, about our “fair share”, or about a new form of “Justice” that was only created in the last five minutes. They are controlled entirely by fear and anger. Nothing they do is for a logical reason. (Why do they wait until everything is an emergency?)
Go to a liberal rally some time and ask the individual members what their positions are. Most of them conflict. Where Republicans are concerned about having a unified message, Democrats don’t worry about it. They have anger and passion to unify their cause.
Even if a majority agrees on some issue, does that majority have the right to impose itself on a minority? Is our government a vehicle for the promotion of the subjective majority beliefs, or of objective freedoms?
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“Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realisation the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.” – Lord Acton, 1862
Dan, while I agree with you that interacting with same-sex couples can change someone’s opinion on same-sex marriage, that logic can apply to almost anything. The_Livewire is right. We can’t make laws simply based on people’s personal opinions and experiences. If that’s the case then those who are against same-sex marriage on the basis of religion have a legit argument.
Yes. Senator Portman’s proximity to the issue is not an objective argument.
Some might even call it a conflict of interest.
There is no right to marry. Please learn this. Also, why should Mike and Sam be denied the privilege to marry if they’re good people, consenting, show all outward signs of being committed and loving, taxpaying and productive — despite they’re being biological brothers?
I guess everyone has forgotten Dick Cheney has been accepting of “gay marriage” for a long time now.
Oh wait! I forgot you have to be approved by pop culture people under 40 these days to matter.
“I guess everyone has forgotten Dick Cheney has been accepting of “gay marriage” for a long time now.”
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Also not an objective argument.
Tell us how Gay marriage will not disrupt 200 years of legal precedent, in ways that none of us can even anticipate. Tell us how it won’t limit the freedom of people who believe otherwise. Tell us how it won’t cost anyone anything.
The fact that all our friends are doing something is not a good enough reason. Tell us why this is right, and don’t tell us why this is popular.
Every time Obama declares that “a clear majority believes as I do”, I’m convinced he’s lying. He doesn’t have a ‘Consensus’. But all that is irrelevant because A CONSENSUS IS NOT PROOF OF ANYTHING.
A consensus thought banning Alcohol would solve all our problems too.
At least they had the werewithall to amend the Constitution. 🙂
The reason they matter, and aren’t irrational, is because a lot of the arguments people used against gay individuals just turned out to be wrong. It’s not just about empathy. Ron Portman’s reasoning may be on one level silly, but so many people are in the same place as him. To put it another way, gay people aren’t so scary when they’re your kids.
Btw, did anyone hear Sen Hagen’s put-down of Rob Portman’s support of SSM when she announced her own? Really petty and shameful. She should lose not because she supports SSM but just because she’s a nasty partisan hack.
Civil unions for all is the answer. Straight people have no automatic, handed-down-from-Heaven “right” to marry, either. They certainly have no “right” to rig the tax code to steal money from others.
It’s all about goodies from Uncle Santa. What’s in your stocking, little girl? Little boy, what’s in YOUR wallet?
I’d be fine with that, as a compromise.
That may be, but if everyone’s tax rates were lower, it would be less of an issue. Just saying about me personally, that I have more energy to fight for lower rates in general. Combined with that, yes I would want to eliminate some deductions.
ILC, so right as always. The bigger the gov’t, the more it matters what gov’t’s policy on SSM is.
Chad how very true. Further to this subject there is an interesting piece in the National Review how some antis have made their cause so toxic there has risen anti-anti-gay marriage people how are merely anti-the nasty antis.
I think that’s true. (I also think Ramesh almost always writes very well.). I think there’s also, however, a pretty obnoxious side to the pro-SSM side. Over the last few years, I’ve been not do much pro vs anti but anti-anti vs anti-pro, if that makes sense. Recently, I’ve become much more pro-SSM, but that’s mostly been in spite of the pro-SSM rhetoric. Mostly, I just want both sides to be much less divisive and hostile since there are a lot of people on both sides whom I really love and respect.
I mean “so much”, not “do much”
As part of the anti-anti-ssm crowd, I’m not so pro-gay marriage as much as I’d like to end the power of this divisive, fundraising issue. Agreeing with you Chad but also realizing the Left will always come up with a wedge issue. I recall the morning after DADT was repealed reading an article decrying the injustices transsexuals face in the military. They’re becoming more blatant in their irrational demands. They also wasted little time in belittling Rob Portman’s pro-gay marriage stand.
What we may be seeing with respect to gay marriage may be larger than the gay-marriage issue itself. What we may be seeing is the rebirth of the Live and Let Live, libertarian-rooted philosophy that has underlain this country for centuries. That is, it is not just a change of heart with respect to the gay community, it is a change of heart with respect to the individual rights of Americans. Witness the enthusiasm enjoyed by Ron Paul in 2008, which seems to be transferring to his son.
The origins of this rebirth come, in my opinion, from the individualism fostered by the growth of the internet and the Web. The individualism is just the opposite of the statist approach promoted by both the social conservatives.
Why civil unions for all, instead of marriage for all, only without any of the tax breaks and whatnot that favor couples over singles?
I mean, it seems to me that you’re conflating two different issues, Lori. The unfairness you object to in the federal tax system* could certainly exist under a “Universal Civil Unions” scheme, and has nothing to do with whether the term “marriage” is used or not. (For that matter, lawsuits against churches that prefer not to rent out their multipurpose hall for a gay couple’s Jumpin’ The Broom reception could also occur under a CUs For All scheme — even if the word “marriage” is not used by the government office that issues the Official Kinship certificate.)
*P.S. I would point out that a lot of the Special Financial Privileges given to married couples were originally justified by the assumption that one of the partners (nearly always the woman) would not be earning an income outside the home because she was working full-time as a caregiver to all the li’l anklebiters that tend to result from heterosexual f*cking.
Note: I personally favor “marriage for hets, civil unions for homos,” but my reasons are mainly symbolic, and I have no delusions that civil unions would magically avoid all the potential problems that SSM opponents bring up (for instance, in practical terms the “religious exemption” issue is just as thorny with gay civil unions as with gay marriage).
I think there is definitely something to personal relationships changing the face of an argument.
It is easy to work in stereotypes and generalizations, but I think personal experience can change things.
I also think another reality is that homosexuals are creating families together whether their relationships are recognized or not. The more people see these families I think the more they realize they aren’t that different or at least the vast majority don’t fit in the stereotype (at least where I live-the stereotype of the g-string wearing rainbow flag waving, hoo up every night one). Most of the gays I know pretty much do the same things I do everyday.
#19 — What difference does it make whether it’s called one or the other? I don’t care if the official name used for gay unions is civil union. Let people call them whatever they want. The label only exists to give us a way of getting a handle on the subject in political discourse.
Just because some dweeb at City Hall “officially” refers to my marriage as a “civil union,” so what? I reserve the right to hold any opinion I choose on whether I would consider his heterosexual union a marriage. We simply need to stop voting ourselves other people’s money every time we can think of a pretty-sounding reason to do so.
An interesting recent comment on the reprint of the 2003 Ramesh Ponnuru column:
[via NRO]
Politicians suddenly ‘evolving’ and having transformations on the issue of SSM because they have a gay child reminds me of a Simpsons episode in which a judge throws out a criminal conviction based solely on the pleas of Bart and Lisa. As she throws out the conviction and sets the criminal defendant free she says, “Although it’s highly irregular and likely unconstitutional…I just can’t say no to kids.”
I understand where these kinds of transformations come from, but the truth is there’s nothing principled about it. It’s quite the opposite–the transformation necessarily requires an abandonment of principles (which suggests there was no ‘principle’ there to begin with). I can’t stand it when that kind of squishiness is dressed up as nobility and compassion.
It also reminds me of a common pronouncement made by liberal gun grabbers: “If Senator So-And-So’s kids were gunned down by one of these killing machines, he/she would support the bill banning certain assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, blah blah blah…” Of course, this makes perfect sense to libs because they have no fixed principles and assume everyone else is willing to abandon theirs as circumstances change from moment to moment, but I want leaders representing me that I can count on to resist that temptation. I’m getting really sick of Republicans going along with this emerging bullsh*t–characterizing the abandonment of principles as “enlightenment” following “evolution” on a critical issue. Any politician who somehow “evolves” AFTER arriving in DC doesn’t belong there in the first place, at least not representing me.
Kurt Schlichter at Townhall on the losing season of gay marriage opponents “There are several reasons,” Kurt Schlichter explains, why conservatives lost the battle on gay marriage, despite millennia of precedent. For example, “Americans dislike harshness, and it is tough to look at good people and tell them ‘No, you cannot have this thing we feel is central to a happy life.'” Furthermore, “the argument that gay marriage will destroy traditional marriage is very tough to make when Americans have seen gays getting married for a while and…nothing happened.” So what are conservatives to do? In a word, relent — for the greater conservative cause. “As long as gay marriage remains unsettled, many will not even look at conservatism even though they are remarkably supportive of many of our positions.”
RE: 23
More conspiracy-theory anti-Muslim sentiment presented in the detached context of quoting someone else’s words and commenting, “interesting.” Isn’t that the MO of one of the long-term bloggers on this site? If you’re going to be ignorant, at least don’t be a coward about it and have the courage of your convictions. Do you even have any Muslim friends? Mormons as “poorly funded”? Good one.
Why shouldn’t polygamy be legal? How does it hurt anyone’s two-person marriage if someone else has 2, 4, 6 or however many mates?
Stupid bigted h8rs.
Again, I’d like a clarification on what is meant, here, by “legal.” Are we speaking of legal protection of contract, or are we adding to Santa’s delivery list?
It seems to me there is a general confusion — a fuzziness — on this matter. As government is presumed to be all-wise and all-powerful, what is usually meant seems to be government endorsement. And, of course, government confiscation via taxation.
This conforms nicely to the passive, sheep-to-the-shearer mentality we’re supposed to have. After all, to merely define a term we wouldn’t need government. All we’d need is a dictionary.
First off, I’m pretty sure that the was referring to the Mormons [actual phrase: “Mormon heretics”] who are of the FLDS ilk, not those represented by Temple Square in Salt Lake City. And, yes, I’d tend to agree with the original commenter on that point—which is that they don’t seem to have dump trucks full of money—since I don’t get all my information on fundamentalist religious sects from teevee programs such as Big Love.
Do I have any Muslim friends? No, but that has more to do with the lack of local Muslim population, which is essentially zero. At any rate, what does that have to do with the original comment? The original comment referred to the possible legalization of polygamy due to the demands of fundamentalist Muslims—which is not so far-fetched, since one of the concerns of several of the members of my state legislature the last time a DOMA bill was presented was that current state law, in recognizing out-of-state marriage licenses, would also recognize an international license which allowed for multiple wives (since current law specifies neither quantity nor gender of parties).
All the more the reason I think states should run, not walk, in getting out of the marriage business.
The greatness of America is that we can and should CO-EXIST and even rely on each other because this country is the most tolerant in the world for those who are different in our American culture.
But tolerance needs to go BOTH ways, and demanding those who support keeping the very foundation of our society from shifting, isn’t tolerant. What we need to do is find the BALANCE between Tradition and Progress. So call it Civil Union and assure that Gays are afforded all their rights without rejecting the IDEAL that children need BOTH Mothers and Fathers.
How after hundred of years and millions of marriages does the government “get out of the marriage business”? As the saying goes “You can’t un-ring a bell.”
#31 — Government has not been regulating marriage, to anything close to the draconian degree it does now, for “hundreds of years.” Please study history.
And what, pray tell, have we to show for government over-involvement in marriage? Other, that is, than a divorce rate now skyrocketing toward sixty percent?
Maybe just slightly off-topic, but if SSM is instituted I wonder what the reactions will be when the palimony suites start rolling in? Been living together a while? Co-mingle any funds? Guess what… you’re common law married. Yes, half of your 401K really does belong to the person who is moving out this weekend. And if you like that, you’re going to love temporary spousal support.