The Supreme Court will hear arguments this week regarding two important cases relating to gay marriage. The first involves the controversial Proposition 8, an amendment to the California State Constitution enacted in 2008, by 52 percent of the vote, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. The second involves the Defense of Marriage Act, a Federal initiative signed by President Clinton in 1996 which also defines marriage as between a woman and a man. In a nearly unprecedented move, the Justice Department under U.S. President Barack Obama has refused to defend the law, which will instead be represented by a group of private sector lawyers hired by the Republican sector of the House. The decision is expected to fall mostly along traditional voting lines amongst the justices, four liberals and four conservatives, with the key vote being that of centrist Anthony Kennedy, who in the past has voted both for and against gay civil rights, though with a recent trend in favor.
The President has voiced his position particularly strongly on California’s case, where he holds that since the Proposition affords gay people all the same rights and benefits as straight people, yet denies them the title of marriage, it is singling gay people out for unfair treatment. In both cases, the opposition’s argument centers on the supposed societal importance of distinguishing between unions that can produce offspring, and those that cannot. However, the true opposition in the case may come from conservative court justices who wish to build up precedent against the Federal Government intervening in state affairs.
As I watch all this I can’t help but laugh. Gay marriage in the U.S. will be a non-issue in a decade. More than 80 percent of Americans under 30 support the cause, and 58 percent overall now support it. Any attempts to block this recognition from happening are a laughable exercise akin to fixing a crumbling Hoover Dam with half a dozen pieces of scotch tape. Further than that though, and perhaps a bit more macabre, all of this debate takes place at a time when the institution of marriage as a whole is becoming so much less relevant in our country. The average age of first marriage is rising, the overall rate of marriage is dropping, and the divorce rate is now well over 50 percent. It’s not that I’m particularly gleeful at these figures (I could care less) but so much Conservative ire is directed at preserving the dead animal of American discipline and ideals through the avenue of halting gay marriage, when in fact the most imminent threats to the institutions of the Right are happening right under their noses.
The misguided, misled, and often mislabeled attempt on the part of the Right to reclaim, vaguely, 1950s American suburban splendor, manifested in things like the Tea Party, is undoubtedly doomed to failure. Mostly this is due to the misrememberance of past America as a perennially idyllic, smoother running, wiser time instead of the paranoiac, repressive hellhole it probably was. Some of the failure of the Right also though will be a failure to recognize a changing America of today, one that is going to be increasingly more racially diverse, increasingly less powerful globally, and even increasingly bilingual.
I’ve made myself very clear on the issue of gay marriage in the past. To me it is a case of right and wrong – one that is maybe not as far removed from the civil rights cases of the 1960s as we would like it to be. At some point it almost feels like arguing so vehemently over the issue does nothing but give credence to a side of the argument that simply has none. In other words, I’m sick of talking about something so obvious. What’s interesting to me in a larger sense is the odd sounding notion that even though we are talking about gay marriage now, fighting for it now, it may very well be that it is already an issue of the past.
We are living in an increasingly label-less world. As Americans we are exposed more today than we ever have been to different cultures, different value systems, different perspectives. Certainly the equal and fair representation of all these perspectives is the first step toward a more perfect union. But now that we’re so close, what happens once we get there? Oddly enough, I think it may then be the breaking down of these differences that occupies us then. The true embodiment of liberalism lies in the expression of individuality, in all its forms. Certainly we get that when we attach ourselves to a group or cause that shares our interests. Even this though, we must remember, at the end of the day, is a form of conformity, is a form of conservatism.
We may never stop identifying as left and right, gay and straight, black and white. But what we must do, once something as blatantly obvious as equal rights for everyone is established, is perhaps start identifying as Americans, as human beings, first.
Colin Smith is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, and a weekly columnist for the Daily Free Press. He can be reached at colin1@bu.edu.
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