Nathan writes:
> If the Hawaii Supreme Court had never made its ruling, there
>would have been no DOMA. But in the end, we got DOMA and the
>Hawaiian Constitution was amended to ban gay marriage.
-The reaction of the legislature and the Hawaiin population shows -that it would be fruitless to try to advocate for legislative change.
Except not, since subsequent to the marriage vote, Hawaii voted to establish a domestic partnership law, which while not granting all privileges of marriage, gives domestic partners hospital visitation privileges, authority to sue for wrongful death on injury to a partner, family and bereavement leave, and treatment as spouses under some inheritance laws.
California and New Jersey passed their domestic partner laws with no lawsuit beckoning. The ACLU has a long list of other cities that have also passed domestic partnership laws, along with governments offering Domestic Partnership Benefits to government employees.
>No legistlature is going to approve same-sex marriage. Queers
>can advocate and do grassroots work all their lives and it isn't
>going to happen. To suggest otherwise is a complete misreading
>of the sexual and religious attitudes of Americans.
Which means you haven't even bothered to look at the polls, since a majority of young voters in most polls already support legalizing gay marriage. http://www.18to35.org/policy/fact-gm.html
Gay marriage is coming. A few more older folks may have to die to get there, but it's coming.
> Same with the Massachusetts decision. Before it, a number of states were
>passing domestic partnership laws, but now after MA's decision, we are
>seeing a whole new round of anti-gay marriage laws and state amendments
and
>the FMA.
-Domestic partnership is not marriage, and does not provide federal benefits. -Also, it is not portable.
Neither is marriage in any particular state under DOMA. Unless you expect the Rehnquist Supreme Court to strike down DOMA, state-level domestic partnerships are likely to deliver essentially all the benefits of marriage for the foreseeable future, until we can get 60 Senators to override the filibuster needed to repeal DOMA.
The fact that the FMA couldn't pass today shows how tragic the premature Hawaii decision was back in 1996. It encouraged DOMA to sail through the Congress back then, where it will lock out federal marriage benefits for gays for years beyond when majorities would have supported extending benefits. A more gradual approach, first domestic partnership laws evolving democratically into gay marriage laws would have crept up on the federal government, while so-called "federalist" conservatives would have found it harder to pass an law overturning a democratically passed state gay marriage law, especially as voters increasingly support it.
I will wager that within ten years, we will have majorities in polls registering support for gay marriage, but we will not be able to repeal DOMA over the filibuster it will face. That will be the tragic legacy of the Hawaii litigation.
Nathan Newman