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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George Coyne who wrote (543073)	2/20/2004 1:05:54 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

You obviously didn't read the article, but chose to pull out a 'visual bite' for ridicule. Here is the supporting argument that you so conveniently left out: For one thing, the proposal now pending before Congress would bar not only same-sex marriage itself, but also any of "the legal incidents" of marriage. That means that states and cities could not even provide for civil unions or domestic partnership arrangements that fall short of marriage. So it is not just be Massachusetts' pioneering recognition of same-sex marriage itself that are under threat. Other states' alternative solutions (summarized by Joanna Grossman in a prior column) would also be rejected. More broadly, there is simply no good reason why the government should confer official recognition and financial benefits on straight couples, while refusing the same to gay and lesbian couples. Many people, of course, object to same-sex marriage on religious grounds, and it is accordingly their right to practice a religion that does not recognize same-sex marriage. But the legal institution of marriage is distinct from the religious one. No church, synagogue, or mosque will be forced by the government to recognize or perform same-sex marriages. Even in Massachusetts, the mandate affects county clerks, not country priests. Nor does the fact that heterosexual marriage plays an important role in providing a stable environment for child-rearing distinguish it from same-sex marriage. The law has never denied the right to marry to infertile heterosexual couples, or to heterosexual couples that do not wish to raise children. And conversely, increasing numbers of gay and lesbian couples choose to have and raise children. In the end, the argument against same-sex marriage comes down to the claim that it is somehow a threat to traditional marriage: Thus Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act, to defend the institution of marriage against an ostensible attack from same-sex marriage. Apparently, people who oppose same-sex marriage think that loving committed relationships among gays and lesbians are so different in kind from loving committed relationships among heterosexuals, that dignifying the former with the term "marriage" makes a mockery of heterosexual marriage. I understand that a majority of Americans feel this way, but that doesn't make it so. Gays and lesbians asking for the right to marry, far from undermining the traditional institution of marriage, pay it homage. The struggle for a right to same-sex marriage requires for its success that the millions of people of good will, who nonetheless oppose that right, be made to understand that what they regard as a matter of principle is ultimately a prejudice. But to persuade such people will require that the real issue--the moral issue of equality--be tackled head on. Arguments rooted in states' rights, and the supposed sanctity of the existing constitutional text, just won't cut it.