Inside The Campaign for Gay Equality: How Activists Rewrote the Political Playbook and Finally Won Over Voters in 2012
At a speed that resembles nether a tortoise nor a hare, these efforts are less a race and more a construction project. Sound legal foundations are being dug and legal infrastructures are being set in place. Will there be delays along the way? To be sure. Legal challenges will have to be dealt with along with expected and inevitable issues with social acceptance.
For reasons dictated by vocabulary, religious groups often conflate marriage with matrimony. Because of that there is much confusion and unnecessary adversarial and confrontational relationships. Let’s look at the definitions fo some clarity.
Marriage is a legal contract which always supersedes religious dictate. In other words, the state recognizes the union of a couple regardless of religious affiliation. All marriages are treated equally by the state and by the law. In effect, the marriage is a contract between the couple and the state.
Matrimony is different in that there is a religious component to that union which the celebrants hold to be the primary aspect of their union. Once a state of matrimony is entered into, there is a by product of state recognized marriage.
In other words, marriage is the contract entered into between the couple and the state and matrimony adds a religious component to that union. For people of faith, it is that religious component which is primary in their union.
Why is gay marriage an important issue? Because all marriage is good for society. Stability, commitment are the bedrocks of our society. Marriage is a promise of fidelity. Marriage is promise to add a link to the chain of continuity of our culture and society. Anything which contributes to the stability 9f society is a good thing whether the couple is heterosexual or homosexual.
No one can or should force religious institutions to confer matrimonial status on same sex couples. There are religious institutions or clergy which will marry gay couples and there are those which won’t. That is their prerogative. We cannot force them to do so nor should we want to for any number of reasons. In the same we won’t tolerate the state endorsing a particular religion, we cannot dictate to religious groups what they can and cannot believe or do.
In the end, gay marriage is not about the law or wedding parties. It is about couples establishing a home, putting down roots, having or adopting children and contributing to society. It is about making a home and contributing to the betterment of our wives, husbands or partners. All very good things.
On May 9, President Obama sat for an interview in the White House with the ABC News anchor Robin Roberts. Both of them knew what she’d been summoned there to discuss, and Roberts didn’t waste any time. “So, Mr. President,” she said, “are you still opposed to same-sex marriage?”
Obama was ready for the question. A few days before, Vice President Biden had said on Meet the Press that he was “comfortable” with men marrying men and women marrying women. The surprise statement went against the president’s own ambiguous stance, which was that he was against gay marriage but in the process of “evolving.” At the same time, evidence of the political risk inherent in the issue was abundant. The day before, May 8, voters in North Carolina — a key swing state Obama narrowly won in 2008 — had overwhelmingly voted to ban gay unions, making it the 31st state to take such a step.
Obama sat back in his leather chair, his legs crossed, his hands in his lap, composed and a bit detached. “Well, you know, I have to tell you, as I’ve said, I’ve been going through an evolution on this issue,” he began, in his usual roundabout way. “I’ve always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally.” He pointed to his administration’s repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and its refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. He’d hesitated to embrace gay marriage, he said, out of respect for tradition and a belief that civil unions offered enough protection to same-sex partnerships.
But now the president had changed his mind. “I’ve just concluded that, for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” he said.
he reasons for Obama’s about-face, as he explained them, seemed perfectly normal. His thoughts, he said, had gone to his own staffers “who are in incredibly committed, monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together.” He’d thought about the troops, fighting on his behalf, yet still facing the constraint of not being “able to commit themselves in a marriage.” He talked about the values he wanted to pass on to his own children and the emphasis his own faith placed on the Golden Rule.