As I write this on Monday, President Bush is speaking in support of the proposed Constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.
The vote in the Senate is scheduled for later today. If it passes both the Senate and the House by a two-thirds majority, it will then have seven years to be ratified by all the states.
Regardless of what I think about gay marriage, I don’t think the Constitution is the place to legislate against it. Our Constitution, in deriving its power from the people (that’s you and me) was designed to minimize the intrusions of government in peoples’ lives.
The authors of this robust document had experienced the despotic and brutal rule of the British crown, and worked hard to create a government framework that would protect us against unfairness and interference, regardless of what mischief future politicians could dream up.
One of their techniques was to push regulatory power down as far as possible, stipulating only what states could NOT regulate (such as interstate tariffs), and leaving them, and not the federal government, free to regulate other issues as they see fit.
Constitutional amendments should be reserved for momentous issues such as slavery. Even if you are against gay marriage, it is not an evil on a par with slavery. Gay marriage doesn’t force anybody to do anything against their will and it does not treat people like property. By banning slavery, we became a greater nation. By banning gay marriage at the Constitutional level, we become a smaller one.
Furthermore, banning gay marriage through constitutional amendment seems about as likely to succeed as Prohibition. Gay people are going to keep on being gay; they’re going to continue to fall in love and make long-term commitments to each other; they’re going to struggle with health care and other legalities; some will add children to their families.
In a world where 50 percent of straight marriages end in divorce, talking about the sanctity of marriage as a sacred bond between man and woman seems delusional. Domestic abuse, child neglect, adultery and other evils are carried out behind the shield of this precious institution, so it’s hard to see how allowing same-sex couples to join the fun could hurt anything.
Of course, if the amendment is passed, it won’t be outlawing something that people are already used to (like Prohibition did with drinking) but it will still inspire a lot of attempts to get around it, subvert it and find ways to give gay couples the same economic and legal advantages that heterosexual couples enjoy.
I can’t see how the ban on gay marriage will create the equivalent of speakeasies, bathtub gin and gangsters with Tommy guns that are our remembered icons of Prohibition, but maybe my imagination just isn’t up to it.
Most pundits actually give the amendment little chance of passing either house of the Congress, let alone winning the required number of states in seven years. I think the proponents of the amendment know that. They’re cynically putting on a show in an attempt to curry favor with the religious far-right as we go into the primaries this election year.
What a waste of everybody’s time.
Elizabeth Gage writes a weekly column for Free Lance that appears each Thursday.
