Gay Marriage. The recent hot spot in the culture wars. If you're like me you're not exactly sure how to address this issue, but if so, also like me, you're in a definite minority. Everyone knows exactly what should happen—literally, with a religious conviction. Recently, the Arnold, Governator of Kaleefornya, promised to veto a state-legislator passed gay marriage bill. Frankly, that takes stones in the people's republic of California. See, a referendum had clearly shown a majority of the citizens did not support gay marriage. But Arnold said the people or the courts should decide--which I assume means he'll roll over if they can get the state courts find a "fundamental right" to gay marriage. So, Arnold's walked a thin line that could hurt him on the right (as Chrenkoff points out). I actually know way more than I ever thought I would about the legal arguments on this subject. I'll sum up the whole gay marriage legal argument: gay marriage loses. Oh, it might not shake out that way, but, frankly, you have to reinvent the wheel to win gay marriage in the courts. I'm sure a lot of you are getting your amicus briefs ready as I write, but ease up, I'm here to discuss the realpolitik of the issue.
The truth is gays, regular gays--not the kind of gays other gays think are too gay--have a good argument for gay marriage. If a person loves another person, then why shouldn't they be able to get married? Okay, there are a ton of assumptions in that statement, but that's where we conservatives could end up. On the wrong side of love. The problem is that gay marriage isn't really about love, for the political groups, it's about acceptance. So, what's the endgame? Can conservatives win? No. A lot of you won't be able to accept this point. Good. Don't. Fight like hell. But just remember California is likely to approve gay marriage, Mass. already has, and its going to be in pushed every second in the Media. The victory is already being heralded and anyone in the way is mocked as a hate monger. The left is ready to use gay marriage as a weapon, even using low tactics, like the whole Cheney's Daughter thing during the election. People aren't willing to take stances that appear to "outlaw" gays. But just as many aren't ready to say that being gay is okay. You hear them all the time: "He's gay--not that there's anything wrong with that." The unspoken part is "not that I want him to be my son's Scout Master, either." Look, I can sit here and tear apart what libs affectionately refer to as "legal arguments" all day long, but what's going to actually happen?
My guess is that as the culture wars move homosexuality more and more into the "Mainstream" people are going not to be willing to prevent gay marriage purely on a moral basis. If you recall, the more liberal you become the less you're allowed to judge things as being good and/or evil. The problem with this is if in the process of losing this battle we could lose the justification of morality for a social rule or actual law. Marriage isn't moral to extreme liberals--if they even bother to entertain morality. Liberals show their contempt for marriage, spewing out lines like, “I don't think marriage is anything special,” something that obviously thousands of gays disagree with them on. No morality, no reason to stop things like incest. Wait? Incest? Well, actually no, not incest, because collectively speaking we all think its pretty darn icky. So, unless there's a horrible court decision you're not going to see "incest marriage" anytime soon (although... one cannot estimate the effect of the Internet--go Google "incest" and see how many hits you get). But Stanley Kurtz has been all over this subject and brings to the foreground an article showing that the next big step is polygamy. (No Mormon cracks, it's too easy.) You don't believe it? It'll never happen? I'm sure old TR would've said the same thing about gay marriage.
Now, I'm not giving up, but right now--no BS assessment--I think the best thing conservatives can do--short of staging an entire counter sexual-revolution, which I'm all for--is get homosexuals some sort of civil unions or domestic partnerships. I don't like this idea. Creating a "marriage-lite" is like crippling marriage to save its life. Regardless, if we could cut the legs out from under the argument that gays are being punished it could end the issue. This means gays get an alternative bond and benefits and such. What do we get? Conservatives get to go on making moral choices and marriage is separate and, hopefully, sacred. Toleration traded for preventing forced acceptance.
Now, just relax, and let the hate-mail roll in....
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