Hopes for change on the issue in Australia were raised and quickly dashed following September’s leadership spill in the centre-right Liberal Party, in which Malcom Turnbull defeated Prime Minister Tony Abbott, 54 votes to 44. Once seen by advocates of law reform as a champion of marriage equality, the new Prime Minister stated his intention to maintain the coalition’s position on the issue.
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During the decades of debates over marriage equality in the United States, opponents centered much of their advocacy on the purported need to maintain marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution in order to promote the well-being of children. It was therefore fascinating to see the well-being of children play a crucial role in the US Supreme Court’s ruling on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans in Obergefell v. Hodges, albeit not in the way opponents of marriage equality hoped.
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Like many, I’m still digesting the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision—not just its text, but its personal and social significance. When I wrote Debating Same-Sex Marriage with Maggie Gallagher (Oxford University Press, 2012), only a handful of states permitted same-sex couples to marry. In the three years since, that handful grew to dozens; last Friday’s decision grows it to all 50. One striking thing about the decision itself is the importance of the definitional question: What is marriage?
One striking thing about the decision itself is the importance of the definitional question: What is marriage?
If the state prohibits same-sex couples from marrying, does it thereby interfere with their liberty, as the majority argues, or does it simply decline to grant them certain benefits? If the latter, is it treating them unequally—and thus violating the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment—by privileging certain citizens without sufficient reason for the distinction? The answer depends on what marriage is. If marriage by definition requires (at least) one man and one woman, then same-sex “marriage” is impossible by definition, and one does not treat people unfairly by denying them something impossible.
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NOTE: This post is political and personal. It is not about books, or storytelling, or crafts. It IS about change and my thoughts on all the change that is going on right now in the Untied States.
A week and a half ago, a young man sat with a Bible study group for an hour and then killed nine of the members. He chose this group on purpose. He had a plan. Suddenly, the hatred, obstinacy, and irrational craziness that many Americans subscribed to since an African American became president was exposed for what it was. Racism. Bigotry. Cruelty. Evil. Fear.
Since then:
1. The Confederate flag has been demonized - rightly so. It should never have been flown on public land after the Civil War. (Private rights are another thing.) It's just a piece of cloth, but it's significance in the war against equality is now clear.
2. The Supreme Court has outlawed housing discrimination - again - upholding broad discrimination claims.
3. The Supreme Court made marriage among all people - same sex, two sexes - a law in 50 states. This means people everywhere in the United States have the right to not be lonely anymore regardless of whom they love.
4. Our president delivered the speech of his lifetime when he delivered the eulogy for Clementa Pinckney - a speech that showed his intelligence, his confidence, his empathy, and his faith.
People were shocked into their senses again. Politicians had to admit that their party loyalty just might be counterproductive, if not downright anti-American.
The battle to be a better country is not over. Hate crimes are still being committed. The Equal Rights Act needs to come to fruition. But, my dwindling hope has rebounded. There are good people here - on both sides of the aisle.
Sometimes, we say what we don’t really mean. ‘You look really tired’, for example, when we mean to be caring rather than disparaging of appearance. ‘I thought you were older than that!’ when we mean to applaud maturity rather than further disparage appearance. And so it is with the gay thing. The accidental difference between what people are saying or writing, and their intended meaning, is becoming perplexingly polarized.
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