Posted on 05/21/2008 6:39:41 PM PDT by SJackson
Same-sex marriage just made a major comeback as a campaign issue.
Last Thursday's ruling by the California Supreme Court that a reasonable reading of the state constitution prevents the denial of marriage protections to same-sex couples means that both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain -- as well as congressional candidates -- will be debating the most contentious of social issues this fall.
California first established domestic partnerships in 1999 and expanded them in 2005 to include broad family recognition. In 2005 and 2007, the California Legislature passed measures that would have ended the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the legislation both times, saying the California Supreme Court should resolve the question. With Thursday's decision, California joins Massachusetts in extending full marriage rights to same-sex couples.
The California decision is a legal one. But, as it arrives in a presidential election year, the decision of the highest court in the nation's largest state is also a political one.
In California, the political test could take the form of an initiative vote this fall. Conservative churches and grass-roots organizations have filed petitions to force a referendum on a California Marriage Protection Act, which would amend the state constitution to require discrimination against gays and lesbians.
But the debate won't stop in California. Especially if the initiative vote is scheduled, there is no way that the candidates for president won't be drawn into the fight.
That's got some Democratic strategists scared. They think the only way to deal with social issues is to avoid them.
Those strategists are wrong. And if Obama and other candidates listen to their bad advice, damage will be done to the party's prospects.
The fact is that the Democratic Party has in recent years moved tentatively toward being a pro-gay rights party -- just as it moved tentatively in the 1950s toward being a pro-civil rights party. The process has been slow, and it remains incomplete. But most Americans see Democrats as supporting gay rights, just as they see Republicans as opposing equality.
Democrats can't change that fact. And they shouldn't try to. Instead, if Democrats are smart, they will embrace the opening created by the California Supreme Court decision.
To do so, they need to learn from mistakes of the past.
In 2004, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry was generally good on issues of concern to gays and lesbians -- and the community's straight supporters. But the senator from Massachusetts didn't want to be too good. And his ham-handed attempts to avoid appearing to be overly sympathetic to the rights of same-sex couples helped Republicans portray him -- fairly or not -- as a man of fluid principles.
The smarter approach is to err on the side of the future and say that the law should not get in the way of love.
That's what Sen. Russ Feingold did. Feingold didn't fool around with talk of civil unions or lesser compromises. The Wisconsin Democrat always stood strong against moves to exploit the marriage issue and finally came out as an explicit supporter of the rights of gay and lesbian couples to wed.
Feingold was always blunt. He told voters that moves to bar same-sex marriage were "mean-spirited attempts" to develop wedge issues for a singular political purpose: "to hurt Democrats who are against discrimination."
But how exactly do the Democrats get hurt?
It's not the wounds that come from standing on principle that do them harm.
It's the wounds that are self-inflicted by candidates who are afraid to level with the electorate -- and to use debates over social issues as what the late Paul Wellstone referred to as "teaching moments." (Wellstone, who voted in 1996 for the federal Defense of Marriage Act, would later express regret for getting the moment, and the issue, wrong.)
In 2004 in Wisconsin, when Kerry was running cautiously for the presidency, Feingold ran dangerously for re-election. Both faced big-spending Republican opposition -- indeed, Feingold's opponents went much further than Kerry's in suggesting that their Democratic target was soft on terrorism.
When the votes were counted, Kerry won Wisconsin -- a state that, lest anyone think it to be unduly progressive, would in 2006 endorse a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage -- by barely 11,000 votes.
On the same day, Feingold won by 330,000 votes.
By any measure, a lot of voters who opposed same-sex marriage voted for Feingold. Indeed, it can fairly be suggested that hundreds of thousands of "values voters" who might have differed with the Democratic senator on specific social issues ended up voting for him because they were impressed by his frankness and his willingness to take political risks to uphold his values.
The point here is not to suggest that Feingold's stance on gay rights accounted for all of his advantage in 2004. The point is that Democrats who campaign from a place of confidence and strength make a better impression -- and win more votes -- than those who campaign from a place of fear and reaction.
Reverse your position, and make gay, sorry same sex, marriage a top issue.
It's a winner, I wouldn't mislead a fellow midwesterner Barry.
Thinking about it, how is it you're a midwesterner?
There is no such theng, sorry to disappoint the folks who failed English.
Afraid for a damn good reason. If liberals started telling the truth about their agenda they'd be booted from office.
Potentially unfortunate phraseology in headline alert!
;^)
Time to become a divorce lawyer. $$$$
Goody! I hope the Democrats really push this issue! All those middle of the road voters who thought they might be able to support Obama because he wants to change things, might not like the idea of THAT much change.
On a positive note, this cannot be good news for Mr. Lumpkin in San Diego.
I weep for the future of my beloved America. Oh, I have every confidence America will not only survive, but will, as the Phoenix, arise from the ashes. Tragically, though, America will have to suffer a terrible trial by fire before it sees that resurrection.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
LOL, what a laugher, tell me another!
America is going to do fine, America is overwhelmingly opposed to same sex marriage. If it’s possible to bring the issue up today where it might not have been even a decade ago, that’s not the end of the world, since Americans are on the correct side. I’d love to see Obama run on this. But he’s opposed to same sex marriage too, so he says.
“We the Judges of The United States....”
I hope that B. Hussein picks up this issue and leads with it.
Kudus to the Capital Times.
The very idea that “gay marriage” stands on equal footing with straight marriage is proposterous. Dare I ask why the state offers benefits for those who marry? Well, mainly to entice them into a particularly healthful and beneficial relationship. And also because it benefits the state. So why, then, should the state grant status to a relationship that contributes next to nothing back to the state? Future taxpayers, anyone? The force to drive America’d industry in the future? Nope. Just a bunch of dead ends.
But ignore all that for a moment and ask what this is all about. Marriage, to this point, is defined as two key aspects:
1) A bond for two people who care deeply about one another to share an eternal bond
2) and the relationship by which a man and a woman formed that bond in which to conceive and rear children.
And now we’re hearing the same contrite arguments that marriage is already failing, so why not just dump the whole thing on its head and do away with #2. But dare I ask how our divorce rates got so high and how births out-of-wedlock grew so much? Namely by liberals attempting to destroy #1 with unilateral divorce and the push to normalize having childern outside of marriage. And now #2 is under fire.
I take note that no society on earth has accepted the concept of “gay marriage” outside of a few secular populations in the past 15 years whose societies are now so dysfunctional as to not even be capable of doing something so basic as producing the next generation. Birthrates are already plummeting in these nations that toss traditional families to the wind—families and cultural traditions that built and defined strong nations for centuries. And what do they have to show for it? Their socialist systems are due to come tumbling down in a few decades.
So what are we replacing it with? A system that says, “Well, if you happen to choose to marry someone of the opposite sex, you can have kids.” Gone is the expectation kids grew up with of marrying and having kids. It’s essentially a move to hopelessly weaken even straight marriages, producing a bunch of dalient, self-centered individuals who never grew up with the concept of family. Oh, no, marriage is now just based on some abstract notion of Romantic love...and we’re talking about the divorce rates now?
Sure, toss aside the sociology of the argument. Argue that this isn’t really an affront to the very foundations of marriage. You’ll be wrong. The statistics were right about unilateral divorce, and yet we heard the same people howling about how this wouldn’t greatly increae the divorce rate. A generation of parentless kids thanks you, no doubt.
The irresponsibleness and myopic attitudes in the comment section on that site disgusts.
It isn’t just an attack on the foundations of marriage. It’s an attack on the foundations of society, especially our form of free society.
Almost as unfortunate as the Gay Sex Probe in the supermarket tabloid.
BRING-IT-ON.
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