Joyous emails began flooding my in-box within seconds of today's announcement about the overturning Proposition 8, the 2008 California ballot initiative that deprived gays and lesbians of the right to marry. Even if today's decision is reversed, this is a moment to celebrate the Court's expression of America's highest, inclusive ideals.
One of the emails in my Inbox was from a colleague who urged me to read Judge Vaughn Walker's decision closely: "Walker swung for the fences," she said. "It is very very powerful." She's right. Judge Walker did swing for the fences, and he hit a grand slam.
From my perspective, the most compelling and awe-inspiring aspect of Judge Walker's decision is the wholesale rejection of the politics of paranoia, which was defined by Professor Richard Hofstadter in his classic, 1964 book, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. According to Hofstadter, the paranoid tradition has been a prominent feature of American politics since our earliest days, and involves the use of divide-and-conquer tactics to blame some outcast group for the nation's problems.
Hofstadter shows that the paranoid style always involves a distortion of facts: "What distinguishes the paranoid style is not, then, the absence of verifiable facts, but rather the curious leap in imagination that is always made at some critical point in the recital of events." In today's decision, Judge Walker saw the defense of Prop 8 for exactly what it is: the use of phony facts and arguments to conceal a private, moral judgment.
Listen to what he says on page 132 of his decision: "Proposition 8 was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples. Whether that belief is based on moral disapproval of homosexuality, animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate."
What is striking about the Prop 8 defense as well as Judge Walker's dismantling of it is that rather than simply admitting that they're not comfortable with marriage equality, proponents tried to conceal their private, moral judgment with no fewer than twenty-three phony arguments as to why allowing gay people to marry would cause actual, tangible harms to the people of California!
Judge Walker, however, found that there was no evidence in the record of any potential for harm:
"They provided no credible evidence to support any of the claimed adverse effects proponents promised to demonstrate. During closing arguments, proponents again focused on the contention that 'responsible procreation is really at the heart of society's interest in regulating marriage.' When asked to identify the evidence at trial that supported this contention, proponents' counsel replied, 'you don't have to have evidence of this point.'" (pp. 9-10)
And there it is right there. "You don't have to have evidence." When Americans complain about the supposed harms caused by immigrants, people of color, gays and transgendered people, often they make arguments as if these minority groups are responsible for significant, actual harm. But when pushed to defend their claims, they don't have evidence. That's the politics of paranoia in action. And it's a dangerous politics which corrodes the integrity of the deliberative process. And that's part of what Judge Walker recognized today.
Rabbi Michael Lerner: Why Jews Should Rejoice at the Overturning of Prop 8
The rights of homosexuals are supported by an overwhelming majority of the American Jewish community. That support is not only based on a memory of shared victimhood, but also on the core values of our own Jewish tradition.
Despite the angry protests of many anti-gay Christian groups, I believe that Judge Walker's ruling is actually rooted in a profound theological truth articulated by St. Paul in Romans 13: "the one who loves another has fulfilled the law."
Also, I've always wondered: if one of the main arguments against homosexuals is that they are somehow more promiscuous/immoral than other people, why encourage this very behaviour by not allowing them to "do the right thing" and get married.
Face it, those who spend so much time worrying about gays, gay marriage, etc. are hiding some deeply seated homosexual feelings themselves. Why would they spend so much time thinking about all this?????
Even with Bush gone, it's hard to shake the paranoia that events are being orchestrated.
One more point. If we can grant parenthood to people, straight or gay, who adopt children who are not their own, it shows that the whole concept of marriage, child bearing and raising is quite malleable and not the rigid and restricted institution some make it out to be.
In fact, this issue is a great opportunity to question many assumptions that we've never looked at rigorously before.
This recalls the old story about the new bride who cut off the ends of the brisket before cooking it and it came out delicious. When her husband asked why she did that, she said that was because her mother did it. Later, asking her mother why, she was told because her mother did it. When they finally asked grandma why she cut off the ends of the roast, she said it was because that's the only way it would fit into the pan she used. How many things do we do because that's the way they were done before and the reasons forgotten?
I too believe in sovereignty of our borders, after amnesty is granted. The fervency of anti-illegal immigrant crowd betrays much more than they pretend.
Demographics are on the side of reason. Most people under the age of 30 support gay marriage. In twenty years they will be all voters under 50 which equals a majority.
In the remaining 20 years do you really want to divide the US ideologically in ways that might actually skew the normal demographic trend by injecting legal coercion? Sometimes a good PR campaign--which includes what the entire US sees on TV nightly--beats a political victory by a country mile. Sure, you can force a bunch of "redneck yahoos" to publicly accept gay marriage. Only to find gays, married or not, are far less accepted than they would have been absent force majeur.
This is what many reasonable gay orginazations are also saying, so I am far from alone. Also, if you think any court will uphold the right of a gay married couple when in direct opposition to established religious dogma in 2010 you are delusional. Separation of church and state cuts both ways.
For goodnness sakes, have a little patience. Unfortunately, prop 8 will go "Supreme." You really, really don't want it to do that right now.
"If it's not broke, don't fix it." is an old engineering concept. If demographics and trends are marching steadily, albeit slowly, twoards full acceptance of all facets of the gay lifestyle--marriage only being one--do you really wnat to derail it?
Specifically--do you really want to force recognition of gay marriage on states in which a high majority of residents reject that lifestyle? We are in a fragile political ecosystem right at the moment due to the economy. There are a high number of residents of any state who are poised on the edge of a fiscal and emotional abyss courtesy of personal finance. Do you really think illegal aliens would have become the cause celebre absent tens of millions of US citizens out of jobs? And now you want to forcibly revise everyone's spiritual belife by legal fiat?
What--are you nuts?
There is a legal basis in prohibiting those religious practices which physically harm their devotees. Other than that, religion should be left alone. It puzzles me that any legal scholar finds a right to a religious sacrament in our laws. Giving couples of whatever sex the legal rights conveyed by the sacrament of marriage, however, goes to the issue of equality.
We need to uncouple the legal rights of marriage from the sacrament of the same name. Since the sacrament came first by several thousand years, the legal union needs to get another name. Ergo civil unions. Any couple, straight or gay, not directly participating in the sacrament of marriage within the purview of a church should be granted civil union status. Law should no more recognize marriage than it does baptism or extreme unction (last rites). The licence to wed you get at the courthouse should become a licence to unite, and priests/ministers should be empowered to unite couples in the same way as are judges and ship's captains.
Sorry, but recognizing same sex marriage has everything to do with the separation of church and state. By definition same sex marriage is an oxymoron.
http://www.kenrahn.com/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html
The argument that marriage is intended by God for couples that can and will procreate is equally absurd, for then the law should restrict couples from marrying if one or both members are infertile, or are beyond child-bearing age, or if they have refused to contractually agree to procreate.
That's an excellent analogy.
Great Aunt Hattie told me: "Civil Rights and Equal Rights are not like a pie to be divided up; they are like the tides that when set in motion overcome, overwhelm and exponentially increase all."
There is no place in America, in American Law now or ever for the Lies, Fear and Hate-Mongering of the Catholic, Evangelical and LDS/Mormon Cults of Jesus Inc. It's long past time to TAX the Church with this kind of political activism paid for by the George W Bush "Faith Based and Community Initiative" funneling $150 Million into their pogroms of Lies, Fear and Hate-Mongering. The "Faith Based Initiative" is unconstitutional and requires destruction now.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to ANY person within its jurisdiction the EQUAL protection of the laws."
what part of ANY PERSON and EQUAL do you not get?