Why civil unions make sense
When it comes to gay marriage, President George W. Bush and Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco need each other. In fact, they love each other. Politically speaking, that is.
There’s Newsom, new to his job after a tough election fight, seizing the chance for some free publicity by defying state law and staging hundreds of same-sex weddings that will probably not hold up in court. But many of the celebrants don’t care whether their unions hold up or not, because they are making statements, not just taking vows. As one newlywed told The New York Times, “It’s very important to stand up against George Bush and the right wing.”
Team Bush is greeting such comments with a gleeful “Bring it on.” They’re thrilled that the wedding frenzy in San Francisco — combined with a court ruling that legalizes same-sex marriages in Massachusetts — gives them a chance to demagogue the issue and tag the Democrats, once again, as anti-family and pro-weirdo.
What’s lost here is the sensible center — a common and corrupting problem in American politics these days. Between the two extremes lies a reasonable and popular compromise: civil unions that would confer many of the benefits of wedded bliss on same-sex couples without using the emotionally charged word “marriage.”
But both sides have turned this into an all-or-nothing, for-or-against decision. The loudest, shrillest voices dominate the debate, and the moderates are getting drowned out.
Moderation, however, is what most Americans want. They don’t support gay marriage — 60 percent opposed the concept in a recent poll by the Annenberg Election Survey — but they don’t support intolerance, either. Half of all voters oppose the position that President Bush seems to favor, a Constitutional amendment that would bar states from legalizing same-sex marriages and perhaps even civil unions, depending on how the amendment is worded.
In fact, Annenberg reports, two out of five Americans who oppose gay marriage favor civil unions that “would give gay couples rights such as inheritance, insurance and pension coverage.” But these are precisely the centrist voters who are not being heard in the current debate.
But it’s still a big deal to the activists on both sides. To the organized gay community, marriage has become an absolute right, the same conclusion adopted by the Massachusetts court in a narrow, 4-to-3 vote.
This is a hard position to defend legally, and even harder politically. As The Washington Post — a supporter of same-sex marriage — put it, the Massachusetts court was guilty of “judicial arrogance” because it imposed its view on the political process and prevented the legislature from adopting what most lawmakers favored, a generous civil-union statute.
To describe gay marriage as a basic right diminishes those rights that truly are inalienable under our system, from free speech to a secret ballot. They’re just not on the same plane. Gay marriage more closely resembles abortion than it does, say, freedom of the press; it’s an important principle that has to be reconciled with competing interests and political reality.
The opponents of gay marriage are equally rigid and unreasonable. Start with the fact that true conservatives should be welcoming the outpouring of love and commitment from gay couples that flowed through San Francisco City Hall in recent days.
Finally, the conservative position should be to keep the Constitution as pure as possible, supporting amendments only when they expand rights, not narrow them. Altering our most precious national document to ban same-sex marriage is a radical position that should make true conservatives cringe.
Most Americans reject both extremes in the gay marriage debate and would be happy with civil unions. But our political and legal systems seem incapable of delivering that compromise. Apparently, it makes too much sense.
(Cokie and Steven Roberts are syndicated columnists.)