>Exactly. And there is no reason at all you can't define it as the legal
>equivalent of marriage. You could even amend the DOMA to do that,
>reserving marriage to hets, and defining civil unions as same-sex, and
>saying that the term "spouses" designated by either would be equivalent in
>all rights and duties in all federal laws and regulations. It would be
>hard to oppose. Bush himself said he was for it.
That "reserving marriage to hets" is what bothers me. It seems to be creating a barrier between "real marriage" ie what hets have and civil unions ie what's offered to the GL group, no matter how much these two forms of union are made legally alike. It's giving in to the Right "too easily".
Over on the Canadian politics board where I go now, there are conservatives who like this arrangement too. Their reasoning is primarily along the lines that it offers something to G&L which won't give that same group the potential power to have religious figures penalized for refusing to marry them. In short: they want people to forget about the systemic discrimination preached and practiced by the right-wing Christian groups. One guy went nearly berserk trying to convince me that "freedom of religion" simply must trump "freedom to marry". I don't recall his ever giving specifics as to why that must be so (probably because he was passionately arguing at the same tine that, if Parliament gets rid of "some rights" then, eventually, they all would be gone).
I can understand why it might be preferable to accept the civil union "out" (eg limits to the present progressive stance of Canadian or American society vis-a-vis religion and homosexuality) for the present, but the more progressive course is full marriage for G&Ls, without the legal contortions.
>There are several advantages to such a strategy even if (perhaps especially
>if) you think the ultimate desired end state is gay marriage.
>1) The majority of Americans are already for it.
For "gay marriage" or for "equivalent to marriage"?
>2) The backlash it would generate would force that majority to define
>itself as progressive.
Mmm. Assuming this does happen (and there's no guaranteeing a progressive stance on one thing means a progressive stance on all or even most things), then what?
>3) It would divide conservatives and unite progressives, weakening them and
>strengthening us, where gay marriage does the opposite.
I seriously think this strategy as it is now really is playing into the conservatives' hands. So we give up on gay marriage ("for now"), then at some future point in time, when we bring it up again, all they'd have to do is respond with comments about "whining liberals" who've "never had it so good" and they still want more. Makes us look ungrateful (not that I personally have difficulty with that . . .).
>4) It would make progressives the defenders of family, taking that arrow
>out of their quiver.
Well, yes, but the conservatives could press the point of another arrow: that our capitulation means progressives are "pro-family". I don't doubt they'd take that inch and use it to measure out a mile.
>5) It would force conservatives to emphasize that they are for
>discrimination, against equality, for intolerance, and for letting religion
>dictate what goes on in our private lives -- all things that are
>unAmerican, and repulsive to the majority, and which would further push the
>political imaginaire to the left.
I suspect this fraction of the Right is as small (though not less vocal and most likely wealthier) as that fraction of the Left beyond social democracy.
People wouldn't care less about what the "fringe" thinks (and might delight in thwarting such "bad people"), but that still doesn't necessarily translate into solid gains for the Left.
>5) It would create facts on the ground in the form of families that could
>never be torn asunder. They would gradually grow until they entangled
>every institution in society.
Mmm. Not so sure if gay civil unions wouldn't also open the door to arguing against gays having families (despite it happening nowadays). That old saw about it "hurting the kids" would get played by the Right and most folks, I fear, would listen out of genuine concern for kids.
>6) It would be so be called marriage anyway. People would talk about long-
>term gay couples as married because they already do it now. It would
>simply increase the scope of their visibility. People would even have
>weddings to go with them. The unitarian church I went to was having them
>in the 1970s.
This goes back to what I said about "real marriage" vs. civil unions ie "gay marriage".
>7) By specifically protecting homosexuals in law, it would basically make
>opposing homosexuality illegal
Freedom of religion . . . .
>7) Eventually, for all those reasons, gay marriage would become such a
>normal part of life that get the words in the law changed would be like
>changing the sodomy law. It would seem like an anachronism.
Aren't sodomy laws still on the books, they're just not enforced?
>It would take decades for all this to happen, but that's the whole point. A
>culture war is a campaign that goes on for decades. That's what happened
>with civil rights and abortion rights. That's what will happen gay
>marriage rights. It seems absurd to imagine a culture war in any other
>time frame. So the question is not how do win the battle, nor what do we
>want most. The question is, how do we win the war. You do that by planning
>for the counterattack you know will come. You do it by taking the the
>strategic moral heights. And you do that by defining the frame in a such a
>way that places a majority on your side, and which defines what you want as
>quintessentially American.
Given what we've seen happen to civil rights and abortion rights in the States, gay marriage rights would have about as much a chance if not less (you can't argue gay marriage in the frame of a person's choice over their body or as gays not being given the freedoms that were denied blacks for so long). I suspect people are more inclined (at least for now) to let the matter lie with civil unions for G&Ls. It's a "happy compromise" that allows people to get back into not thinking about such things again and allows them to feel good about their "moral highground" too.
Decades? More likely a century or more of struggle and reaction . . . .
Todd
_________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN Premium http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=http://hotmail.com/enca&HL=Market_MSNIS_Taglines