President Obama on Marriage Neutering

If President Obama's publicly stated position that marriage is between a man and a woman is his sincere belief, then he holds a belief that lines up with...

1) The understanding of those who wrote and adopted the Constitution of the United States of America and every amendment.

2) Every previous POTUS.

3) Just about each person, if not every person, who has served on the Supreme Court of the United States.

4) A majority of voters in any state where voters have directly voted on the matter.

5) The law in 40 states and the practice in 5 more.

6) The law in most countries around the world.

7) The sacred texts and traditions of every major world religion.

8) Thousands of years of human history, including in places and times in which homosexual behavior was openly practiced and accepted by society.

9) The opinion of some homosexual people.

10) Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Jr., and every great moral thinker or civil rights leader in history.

If I had to guess, I would guess that Obama really does believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I would also guess that he cares more about scoring points with certain political activist groups than that belief, and so he's looking for a way to get credit for neutering marriage in national law without also getting the blame.

Recently, he made news in this regard. Here's Peter Nicholas' article in the Los Angeles Times.

President Obama, in saying this week that his view of same-sex marriage is evolving, stirred expectations that he may announce a new position in coming months, fundamentally altering the national debate.

I'm not sure how, unless this means that he's going to publicly tell federal agencies like the Department of Justice to take a dive in court cases defending DOMA. I'm not expecting Congress to send him legislation to neuter marriage.

A declaration from a sitting president that he supports gay marriage would be "a game changer," one proponent said, and would provide cover to other politicians, especially to local and state officials as they decide which way to vote on bills permitting gay couples to wed.

Ah. I see the thinking. But it smacks more of wishful thinking to me, and then hoping that other people will believe that their vote has to change because someone else's opinion has.

An immediate goal, the White House said Thursday, is the repeal of a Clinton-era law, the Defense of Marriage Act, that defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman. The law holds that couples who don't meet this description are not eligible for federal benefits.

I like it when people seeking federal benefits argue that DOMA is unconstitutional, but fail to notice that nothing in the Constitution authorizes most of those federal benefits programs in the first place, and based on the 9th and 10th Amendments, that would make those unconstitutional, too.

Obama, using the forum of a news conference, gave a window into his thinking about a volatile social issue on which there is no clear public consensus.

On what other issue would "no clear public consensus" be used to describe a situation in which SCOTUS has never ruled in a way different than the laws of those 40 states, and in which every popular vote has been on the same side?

So, if gays can fight and die for their country, why can't they marry people they love, Obama was asked by ABC's Jake Tapper.

Gays have always been able to, and always have, fought and died for their country. The military used to screen out people who admitted, when asked, to engaging in homosexual sodomy, then changed to not asking about it. The difference now is that gay military personnel will be able to tell everyone they work with about their sex lives without getting fired for doing so. And that they can do this no more means we need to neuter marriage for everyone than it means we need to pay for genital mutilation surgery for everyone who wants it.

"I struggle with this," the president said. "I have friends, I have people who work for me, who are in powerful, strong, long-lasting gay or lesbian unions.

And they are extraordinary people, and this is something that means a lot to them and they care deeply about."

That is a non sequitur. They are already allowed to vote however they want. There's nothing in that statement that indicates why Obama, or anyone else, should vote contrary to their own understanding of marriage. Think about it. When do you see anyone quoted in the media saying, "I have friends, I have people who work for me, who are wise, intelligent, loving, accomplished people. And this is something that means a lot to them and they care deeply about, and they voted to uphold the bride+groom requirement in their state marriage licensing. So I don't want to force them, through their state government, to issue marriage licenses to brideless or groomless couples."? Why is someone's desire to have their sexual or personal attraction called the same thing as a different kind any more important than someone else's deeply held convictions about marriage, family, and public policy?

The article then goes on to invoke fauxmentum and poll dancing.

Today, the paper ran an editorial on the subject. It's almost like the editorial board is unaware that there is already a homosexuality media.

The president could spare himself that struggle if he would analyze the issue logically. If he did, he would recognize that it's irrational, once same-sex couples are given the practical advantages of marriage, to deny them married status.

Maybe they're right. Maybe civil union laws should not be written so that government will treat participants exactly as though they are married spouses.

Civil unions, while a vast improvement over the absence of any recognition of same-sex relationships, are almost by definition second-class arrangements.

It is logical, practical, Constitutional, and necessary to treat different behaviors and different kinds of voluntary associations differently. It is certainly okay to call them by different names.

The temptation is to think that Obama knows this, and that his reluctance to endorse marriage equality is more political than personal.

I think they have it backwards – that Obama knows that a bride+groom pairing is inherently different from other kinds of relationships, but he may be willing to ignore that for political reasons.

"JonWrightLA" at 8:49 PM December 29, 2010:

My husband and I have been together for 13 years + and were registered domestic partners up until the pre-Prop 8 window opened and we got married. Becoming registered domestic partners was a private and legal act we did alone in our home and was about as exciting as signing escrow instructions. Getting married, however, was a totally different experience-- from having to get in line at the LA County Clerk's Office to pay for a license, to a wedding in our back yard in front of friends and family, officiated by a dear friend who is a retired Presbyterian minister and complete with a fantastic wedding cake from Porto's!

You could have had the ceremony even before you registered as domestic partners. Anyone can have that ceremony now. It isn't illegal. Nobody will stop anyone.