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The Republicans are just so clever, timing their Senate debate on a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage for the day marking the 25 th anniversary of the medical discovery of AIDS in America. Surely the irony is not lost on them -- i.e., the fact that AIDS is one of the main reasons why marriage became such an important issue in the gay community in the first place. As AIDS spread, those closest to the sick, dying and deceased found themselves locked out of hospital rooms, thrown out of apartments and homes, barred from funerals and denied what their late partners wanted them to have. It soon became apparent that gay relationships needed to be (in the President's own word) "codified" in a way that would have sway in a court of law. Rejecting the confines of heterosexual society did not guarantee America's gay population its freedom; when the community was ravaged by a virus under another Republican administration that dared not speak its name, it was obvious there could be no freedom without law. Gay Americans might as well have been illegal immigrants the way they were deprived of basic human rights. Thus the push for gay marriage began as thousands died at the mercy of institutions that denied their very existence. That was the 1980s. It is now 2006, and many things have changed. AIDS is no longer the gay plague -- it is now known across the world and nobody believes it discriminates. In the U.S., there has been great progress in the civil rights of gay people -- in the media, in schools and universities, in the courts, in the American psyche. More and more gay people are adopting or having children, more are being elected to public office, and, in step with the rest of the developed world, certain progressive states are looking to follow the lead of Massachusetts by legalizing gay marriage. To watch television these days is to be falsely lulled into a belief that gay Americans have equal rights. But the Charles is not the Potomac. In Washington, different standards apply. In other words, let the backlash begin. It's bad enough that the American military has gotten away with "don't ask, don't tell" for 13 years now, a policy so patently unconstitutional that even the late Barry Goldwater denounced it as just plain "stupid." But now, as another election season heats up, gay marriage is again being brought to the fore by a political party desperate to stay in power by scapegoating those it considers easy targets. And many a Democrat, wary of being perceived as "too liberal" for the supposedly centrist electorate, subscribes to the idea that the issue should be left to the states, that civil unions are acceptable for those of the other persuasion but that marriage should always be "between a man and a woman." Between a man and a woman -- how … heterosexual. When people go into business, there are no laws requiring that they be of the opposite sex. When Presidents and Vice Presidents run for office, it's a man and a man more often than not. When children are conceived, it's a pretty random genetic process that decides whether they'll be male or female. And, contrary to what many may believe, or at least say they believe, when two people fall in love, it is not required that they be of the opposite sex. And then comes marriage. The slippery slope argument says that if you let gays marry, polygamists and cows will soon demand the same right. The "marriage is for children" argument supposes that the institution is just some kind of production line for the creation of new taxpayers or perhaps cannon fodder for the next war. Did somebody mention war? Surely the debacle in Iraq is more damaging to the moral ethos in America than gay marriage will ever be. We now have Americans torturing and murdering civilians in a foreign country that we invaded under questionable circumstances. We've had prisoners languishing in Guantanamo without access to due process of law, one of the supposed pillars of our society. We've learned that our government is getting away with warrantlless surveillance, an assault on yet another pillar. And we've seen thousands of our young men and women either killed or maimed in a conflict that we know will end without a clear-cut victory, since the terms of that victory have never been, and cannot be, defined. This is the situation that should give Americans moral pause, not the legal “sanctifying” of relationships between two – as in two – people who may be of the same sex. And there are other insidious aspects to this whole gay marriage “debate.” For one thing, it seems anti-American for the President and Congress (i.e., the executive and legislative branches) to gang up on the judicial branch via name-calling (“activist judges”) and the inference that judges are somehow conspiring against the will of the American people. The idea that the judicial branch is not part of checks and balances, but must be checked and balanced by the other two branches, is a concept the American public sanctions at its own peril. Then, of course, there's the perverse idea of using the Constitution to limit the rights of a group of Americans, but the Republicans take this a step further even when they begin bandying the term “civil rights” about to describe one impetus for their proposed amendment. Talk about lipstick on a scorpion – since when is it civil rights when you protect the privilege that one group has over another group? Well, yes, one supposes that George Wallace felt he was defending the civil rights of white people when he stood at the university door to keep black students out. So now we have Bush and the Republicans standing arms-crossed in front of city hall with the same rationale. When it comes to spin, Bush, Frist and gang are veritable gyroscopes. Let's face it, the logic for, and justice in, extending the right of marriage to two – as in two – gay people is not yet able to penetrate (excuse the term) the wall of prejudice and intolerance that the legions of gay marriage opponents have erected to protect themselves from yet another inroad into life as they insist it must be. As long as political leaders believe they can earn points with certain segments of the public by dredging this issue up whenever it suits them, then so be it. The American public will either respond in kind with its own certification of intolerance or (let us pray) with an electoral signal that enough is enough. Like Iraq, this has now become a battle for hearts and minds, and until enough of our progressive leaders speak out forthrightly against this sham, chances are the fundamentalist Republican point of view will dominate. Meaning, expect both the Iraq war and the war on gay couples to continue at least until November and perhaps a long time after that. Unfortunately for the victims, some wars are simply too useful to end. |
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The new look of Al-Qaeda, American style. "Expect both the Iraq war and the war on gay couples to continue at least until November and perhaps a long time after that. Unfortunately for the victims, some wars are simply too useful to end." (Photo: AFP/Hector Mata)
