On Wed, 11 Feb 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
> So it's "religious" - then people are, consciously or unconciously,
> saying that there's something sacred and natural about a union
> between a man and a woman but there's something profane and unnatural
> about one between two men or two women.
No, there's something much stupider at work. People are afraid that if marriage is defined in sex neutral terms than churches will be sued and and forced to perform them.
The fact that this is untrue is besides the point. Fears like this are politically insurmountable. The ERA was sunk because people thought it would make separate bathrooms illegal. And the ERA was a typo on the constitution compared to this. (It was never clear it would ever endow anyone with rights they wouldn't have otherwise. This most definately will.) This is asking for epochal change in something people are deeply confused out and invested in: sex and gender categories. You know they will lash out hard.
This is a great example of the left not being good at framing:
URL: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17574
If you want to start and win a culture war -- which this will be, and which I'm all for -- you have to define the issues in such a way that the majority of Americans already agree with you.
There has been a lot of talk of imitating the Goldwaterites, of fighting to take over the country step by step. But as soon as we're confronted with a chance to do that we throw it away saying we won't fight for second best. But that's what step by step is all about. You rush into and take the undefended ground. You surround them like a game of Go. You don't attack the citadel head on when you've only got a squad. That just leads to defeat and demoralization.
The right understands this. Right wing activists like Grover Norquist would love to come out and say that government is evil and they want to shrink and kill it. Instead they say they're for tax cuts. Even though that's second best and means they might end up with a government just as big but based on debt. The important thing is to draw blood and put the other side on the defensive. And to win something real. And then you fight for more, having already changed the discourse in your favor and created facts on the ground that will be hard to take back.
Michael