All the quotes that follow are taken from New York City's own "Gay City News". First, let's see what the Republicans have to say about their charming little constitutional amendment (you may not want to read this if you've recently eaten):
"Supporters of the anti-gay amendment, almost to a person, trotted out several large graphs and charts to show how marriages declined and out-of-wedlock births increased after gay marriage and civil unions were legalized with corresponding statistics on how children are better off when raised in a married heterosexual household, an inaccurate representation of the research on the question."
'Once the process of redefining marriage begins, it is but a short step to the dissolution of marriage as an institution all together,' said Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican.
Brownback, along with Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, both claimed religious freedom would be in jeopardy if same-sex marriage were legalized.
'People will lose religious freedom if they hold a different view. If they say: `We believe marriage is a union of a man and a woman' ...now are you going to find that somehow discriminatory? They are going to be sued if they only recognize marriage as a union of a man and a woman,' Brownback said."
Now, kossacks, pretend for a second you're not highly literate media-savvy news-junkies, and set aside the fact that you know the truth-claims in the diatribes above are absolutely false. Read carefully what concerns the Republican rhetoric evokes: the Republicans talk about the decline of straight marriage, the rise in out-of-wedlock births, the wellbeing of children, religious freedom. These are not inconsequential fears. They're visceral. They're saying gays and lesbians must not be allowed to marry or children will suffer (once again, never mind how little sense that actually makes).
Now, the "mainstream" Democrats:
"Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic minority leader, opened the debate with the declaration that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but that the principles of Federalism dictated the matter be left to the states.
'This is another one of the president's efforts to frighten, to distort, to distract and confuse America,' Reid said.
He was followed by Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, who declared "the Constitution is too important to be used for such a partisan political purpose... we should be addressing Americans' top priorities including ways to make America safer, the war in Iraq, rising gas prices...'
So whereas the Republicans claim this an issue about the well-being of families in the real world, the Democrats turn it into an issue of inside-the-beltway point-scoring. And whereas Republicans ground their argument in factual claims about the subject matter they're talking about (no matter how abjectly false), Harry Reid runs from the facts (no matter how strongly they are in favor of the side he's arguing for) because he evidently can't bear to have Nevada voters see him defending gay people on C-SPAN.
I don't want to belabor the point unnecessarily, but what do Democrats like Harry Reid see themselves as gaining by virtue of opposing the same-sex marriage amendment on technicalities, or for reasons of its demagogic political purpose, or for reasons of federalism rather than simply for the reason that gay people are not such menaces to the state and the wellbeing of those around them that they need a special constitutional amendment to keep them from marrying each other?
The Democrats who argue same-sex marriage this way come off as lawyering, bullshitting, logic-chopping insiders. And the Republicans, for all their bile and venom, come off to those who don't know better as just wanting to help all the liddle itty-bitty kiddies safe.
Once again, dear kossacks, imagine you're one of the people who might believe upon hearing it that being raised by two parents of the same sex might actually mess up a child. The Republicans are making an argument about the welfare of these children. The Democrats are making an argument about federalism or the president and high gas taxes that really has nothing to do with the actual facts of the issue. It's not hard to imagine these people actually choosing the Republican side, because the Republicans are making a case that appeals to a set of interests that are truly compelling, and have facts custom-produced by their own thinktanks that back them up, whereas the Democrats are simply running from the issue.
I worked in a gay non-profit during the summer of 2004, and the arguments I heard being posed as potential strategies against a same-sex marriage amendment were almost uniformly bad. They were generally of the "banning same-sex marriage will discourage outside investment because the rest of the country will see us as backward" school, designed to attract business-conscious rotary club Republicans and middle-of-the-roaders. They were procedural arguments, insider arguments, arguments about everything but the most visceral and the most important issues that face polities trying to decide the question of same-sex marriage:
-Who should we consider qualified to raise children?
-Do same sex couples do the same social good as opposite sex couples?
-Should homosexuals as a group expect equal treatment under the law?
Resoundingly, every psychological, sociological, economic and historical study that has not been financed by the religious right has validated same-sex couples and their claim to equality. But when the field of battle is divided between a Right that makes outlandish, even fraudulent, claims about gays and a Left that refuses to speak substantively about them at all, it is only a matter of time before the factual assumptions upon which the Right is arguing becomes the assumptions of society itself.
Because no one is bothering to rebut them.
But all is not lost:
"Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat who is among the Senate's tiny cadre of same-sex marriage supporters, mounted a strong attack against Allard's amendment. Noting that the ambiguity in the amendment's wording placed civil unions and domestic partnerships in jeopardy, he pointed out that even the amendment's supporters could not agree how it would impact such arrangements.
'We should not play politics with the Constitution, nor should we play politics with the lives of gay and lesbian Americans who correctly see this constitutional amendment as an effort to make them permanent second-class citizens,' Feingold said. 'They are our friends, our family members, our neighbors, our colleagues. They should not be used as pawns in a cynical political exercise.'
Senator Ted Kennedy followed in a similar vein.
'There are same-sex couples in every state, and nearly every county in the country,' the Massachusetts Democrat said. 'They have families, and children. Why should the federal government seek to make their lives more difficult by writing discrimination against them into the Constitution?'
Feingold and Kennedy were among the few opponents of the amendment who used any of their time to defend the rights and dignity of gays and lesbians and their families. Most other opponents criticized the measure as politically motivated or a distraction from more serious matters such as Iraq, the budget deficit, and rising healthcare costs."
While I haven't read Feingold and Kennedy's full speeches, I doubt even they--as superior as they are to Reid's--go far enough. The American people need to hear--again and again and again--that children raised in same-sex households are loved, are cared-for, and above all that they are safe. They need to hear about the lives that would be affected by the marriage amendment. And they need to know the real, practical, everyday significance the ability to marry the people with whom we share our lives has for gay men and lesbians. If we don't, regardless of the vote in the Senate this past week, we will lose the same-sex marriage battle, and with it far more. For if we allow the Republicans to successfully paint gay men and lesbians as dangers to society and the moral order, there is no end to the evil they might do.
One final quote from Gay City News:
"Bush stayed with that message in a press conference on Monday, June 5, just moments before debate began in the Senate. A smiling, upbeat Bush addressed an audience of supporters in the Old Executive Office Building just blocks from the White House, after an earlier plan to gather in the Rose Garden was scotched. Among those invited were representatives of the ultra-conservative groups Focus on the Family and Exodus Ministries, an ex-gay organization that runs conversion therapy programs that have found virtually no support in the psychotherapeutic profession.
'I am proud to stand with you,' Bush said."
Does anyone really think, if the Republicans were to win the public policy debate on homosexuality in this country, they would shy away from funding Exodus Ministries out of our tax dollars, recriminalizing sodomy, or permanently separating children from their lesbian or gay parents?
The lukewarm rhetoric of the Harry Reids of the U.S. Senate is helping to make that potential nightmare a reality. And people instead of being complacent that the Amendment was defeated this past week should focus instead on how incoherent and uncompelling the Democrats rebuttal of the Republicans was, and how much it needs to be retooled.
Make no mistake about it. This week we lost the marriage debate.
