FMA, Politics, and Propriety
I was going to leave the Federal Marriage Amendment controversy alone, having already poked that hornets’ nest last summer. But the Washington Post pushed me into a response this evening, with one of the most deliberately blind, partisan editorials I’ve ever seen from their usually analytical and pragmatic (if left-wing) editorial board.
I actually agree with their introductory premise — that a ban on gay “marriages” doesn’t belong in the U.S. Constitution. At base, it’s a social/societal issue rather than a question of governmental structure; the only similar issue addressed in the Constitution is Prohibition — and we see how well that worked out. In an ideal world, it would be completely unnecessary.
But let’s be honest here. The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, meant to do essentially the same thing as the FMA, is likely to be declared unconstitutional sooner or later. It seems on its face to violate the “full faith and credit” clause requiring states to accept “the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings” of every other state, and I’d bet the main reason it hasn’t been challenged yet is simply for lack of a sympathetic-enough test case.
Those future test cases are being created right now, as gay marriages in America are being brought into existence by one decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the extra-legal actions of the mayor of San Francisco and one county magistrate in New Mexico. That’s a total of nine people making the decision, against the clearly-expressed will of a majority of Americans, to completely redefine a basic building block of five thousand-plus years of human society.
Those actions only have effect in three states at the moment. But what happens when DOMA goes away? There’s simply no way left to securely defend that majority’s position short of a Constitutional amendment. And though I don’t believe FMA will come close to ratification, President Bush at least deserves respect for having the political courage to bring his position in front of the American people for their approval or disapproval.
It’s instructive to note that the one route gay marriage advocates haven’t really tried hard on anywhere but Hawaii and Vermont is the one in which the American people could speak most clearly: through state legislatures. Why haven’t they? Because every time they do, they lose badly. So instead they have appealed to individuals, in the most liberal places they can find, to either unilaterally redefine the law (Mass. SJC) or just break it openly (CA and NM), hoping that “full faith and credit” will eventually let them ram these regional victories down the throat of an unwilling nation. That’s not political courage. (Funny, we didn’t see these guys defending civil disobedience in the case of Judge Roy Moore.)
President Bush didn’t start this fight, and it might have been politically smarter for him to stay out of it — there are safer ways to mollify the religious-right base, like reinforcing federal grant availablity to faith-based charities or taking another shot at partial-birth abortionists. And this is a fight his side will most likely lose in the long run. That’s simply because the required majority of us (because we’re choosing the democratic route to our goal) are not prepared to become as our enemies, in countering their judicial and extra-legal chicanery by doing something nearly as ridiculous to the Constitution of the United States.
From my conservative vantage point, these are the initial tremors of societal breakdown. And the conservative desire to stick to the rules and laws (written and unwritten) that have served us well for over two hundred years leaves me powerless against it. It’s a depressing state in which to find myself — and the country.
25 February 2004 / 6 Comments / Tags: politics