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05 Nov 2008 06:48 pm

Inviting A Backlash?

Dreher reacts to 8's passage:

...by appealing to the courts to impose something as radical as same-sex marriage, something that has never in the history of human society existed, they invited this backlash. Now, traditional marriage has been constitutionalized, and same-sex couples are worse off than before, because they only way they can get marriage now is by amending the state constitution.

It was a foolish strategy, and if the US Supreme Court should in the next decade or so discover a same-sex marriage right in the US Constitution, there will swiftly arise a movement to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman. Yes, the Federal Marriage Amendment failed in the Senate in 2005, but I think that's because the idea of court-imposed gay marriage was an abstract threat. In California, it was a reality, and that appears to have galvanized voters.

Actually, of course, the legislature had twice voted for marriage equality in California, it had existed in Massachusetts for several years, and in Spain and Canada and elsewhere for years. As for strategy, it was not a strategy. Couples sued for their rights, and the court responded. And the Federal Marriage Amendment is as dead as a doornail. As for Gavin Newsom, well, yes: a total idiot. Always was. Always will be. But this movement is deeper and broader than any politician, let alone a non-entity like Newsom.

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