Gay marriage as a conservative value.
Want to feel better about the gay rights' cause today? Go read this Newsweek article by Theodore Olson, a longtime conservative and Reagan/Bush Republican who is one of the two attorneys bringing the court case to try and overturn Prop 8 in California.
Olson's eloquent, heartfelt explanation of why he, a conservative, is taking this case is a great illustration of the ridiculous contradiction in conservatives opposing the desire of gays and lesbians to participate in conservative values, i.e. marriage and children and domesticity. Andrew Sullivan has said this before, that conservatives ought to be encouraging gays and lesbians to marry, not forbidding it...aren't they the pro-family and pro-marriage party, as opposed to us free-loving Democrats? Olson brings up the distinction between marriage as a civil contract and marriage as a religious institution as well as how unsupportable it is to leave civil rights decisions to a popular opinion.
A few choice quotes.
Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples? Tellingly, when the judge in our case asked our opponent to identify the ways in which same-sex marriage would harm heterosexual marriage, to his credit he answered honestly: he could not think of any.
---
When we refuse to accord this status to gays and lesbians, we discourage them from forming the same relationships we encourage for others. And we are also telling them, those who love them, and society as a whole that their relationships are less worthy, less legitimate, less permanent, and less valued. We demean their relationships and we demean them as individuals. I cannot imagine how we benefit as a society by doing so.
----
We do not tell persons who have a legitimate claim to wait until the time is "right" and the populace is "ready" to recognize their equality and equal dignity under the law.
Olson's eloquent, heartfelt explanation of why he, a conservative, is taking this case is a great illustration of the ridiculous contradiction in conservatives opposing the desire of gays and lesbians to participate in conservative values, i.e. marriage and children and domesticity. Andrew Sullivan has said this before, that conservatives ought to be encouraging gays and lesbians to marry, not forbidding it...aren't they the pro-family and pro-marriage party, as opposed to us free-loving Democrats? Olson brings up the distinction between marriage as a civil contract and marriage as a religious institution as well as how unsupportable it is to leave civil rights decisions to a popular opinion.
A few choice quotes.
Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples? Tellingly, when the judge in our case asked our opponent to identify the ways in which same-sex marriage would harm heterosexual marriage, to his credit he answered honestly: he could not think of any.
---
When we refuse to accord this status to gays and lesbians, we discourage them from forming the same relationships we encourage for others. And we are also telling them, those who love them, and society as a whole that their relationships are less worthy, less legitimate, less permanent, and less valued. We demean their relationships and we demean them as individuals. I cannot imagine how we benefit as a society by doing so.
----
We do not tell persons who have a legitimate claim to wait until the time is "right" and the populace is "ready" to recognize their equality and equal dignity under the law.