Toward Civil Discourse on Same Sex Marriage

Jeff Jacoby writes a good piece in the Boston Globe which talks about the 1 year anniversary of same sex marriage in Massachusetts, and his wish that the level of dialogue could be raised from name calling and hatred to a serious discussion of why same sex marriage is bad public policy:

Of all the motifs that get played and replayed in the marriage debate, this one is the worst. For two reasons: First, because it is untrue. Marriage was not created to hurt homosexuals or enshrine bigotry in law. It did not became a universal human institution as an expression of animus. The core of marriage has always and everywhere been the pairing of a man and a woman because no other arrangement can do what marriage does: produce the next generation, bind men to the women who bear their children, and give boys and girls the mothers and fathers they need.

The second reason that the ''only-a-hater-could-oppose-gay-marriage" theme is so objectionable is its destructiveness. It breeds resentment between parties who should be seeking common ground. It causes pain to gays and lesbians by encouraging them to believe that they are hated by most of their fellow citizens. And it promotes the idea that those who defend the traditional definition of marriage are moral cripples.

If the price of opposing unisex marriage is to be labeled a homophobe, many opponents will keep their opinions to themselves. The New York Times reported a few years ago on three ''respected Protestant theologians" who had been asked to take part in a TV program on same-sex unions and the church. These were not hardliners -- one of the scholars, for instance, endorsed civil unions -- but they shared the belief that Christian clergy should not bless homosexual marriage. All three refused to go on the air, afraid of being ''pegged as antigay and anti-compassion." They wouldn't let the Times identify them by name; one worried about his family, which he said had ''felt the heat" for his previous statements.

If your goal is to silence an opponent, playing the hate card can be an effective tactic. But it is illiberal and crude, unworthy of people who style themselves ''progressive."

None of this is meant to downplay the emotional importance that samesex marriage has taken on for many gays and lesbians. It holds out the promise of ''normalcy," of the kind of ordinariness that heterosexuals take for granted. In America, today, no one needs a marriage license to form a lifelong union with a partner of the same sex. Gays and lesbians already have that right. What they don't have is the stamp of approval that would establish, in Shelby Steele's words, ''the fundamental innocuousness of homosexuality itself."

I think same-sex marriage is bad public policy, especially when it is imposed by judicial decree. But at the level of ordinary human feeling, I can understand the yearning for acceptance that drives the gay marriage movement.

Well said, Jeff. Sadly, he'll probably get hate mail from both sides on this one.