Reconciliation on Gay Marriage?

David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch have an essential essay today at the New York Times, "A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage":

It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill ....

Linking federal civil unions to guarantees of religious freedom seems a natural way to give the two sides something they would greatly value while heading off a long-term, take-no-prisoners conflict. That should appeal to cooler heads on both sides, and it also ought to appeal to President Obama, who opposes same-sex marriage but has endorsed federal civil unions ....

In all sharp moral disagreements, maximalism is the constant temptation. People dig in, positions harden and we tend to convince ourselves that our opponents are not only wrong-headed but also malicious and acting in bad faith. In such conflicts, it can seem not only difficult, but also wrong, to compromise on a core belief.

But clinging to extremes can also be quite dangerous. In the case of gay marriage, a scorched-earth debate, pitting what some regard as nonnegotiable religious freedom against what others regard as a nonnegotiable human right, would do great harm to our civil society. When a reasonable accommodation on a tough issue seems possible, both sides should have the courage to explore it.

Read the whole thing, here (via Memeorandum).

I doubt we'll find a better case for gay marriage compromise than this. As Dale Carpenter notes:

Rauch and Blankenhorn are among the ablest defenders of their respective positions, pro and con gay marriage, in the country. Both have written excellent books on the subject. What they say will be noticed by all sides, especially because they say it together. There will be strong objections on both sides: from SSM opponents who oppose recognition in principle and not just for instrumental reasons, and from SSM supporters who will worry about the practical consequences and who will wonder why such marriages alone will be qualified by morals exemptions ....

The devil is in the details ... but the op-ed starts a conversation about federal legislation that might be politically achievable in the near future.

Here's Rob Vischer's response, at PrawfBlawg:

For someone (like me) who believes that the legal treatment of same-sex relationships should remain a state-level responsibility, who believes that the law will (and should) do more to support long-term, committed relationships among gays and lesbians, and who is concerned that the rhetoric of "marriage equality" has shown a tendency to minimize the importance of religious liberty (especially institutional religious liberty), what's not to like about this proposal?

Not too much, in my opinion, but here's a taste of the "strong objections" that Carpenter envisions, from Pam Spaulding:

I have a problem with this already, though I see where they are trying to accomplish - getting same-sex couples access to the rights and benefits of civil marriage and cede the word marriage to those who cannot decouple it from religious marriage in their heads ... but Blankenhorn and Rauch's solution, by accommodating the "misunderstanding" about the word marriage -- rather than redefining it (something that has occurred countless times in the past), chooses to draw an institutionalized line of discrimination. Many of the same excuses for bans on interracial marriage revolved around religious objections to it, with scripture cited about the morality of race mixing ....

Sorry to say, our opponents are acting in bad faith. They attempt to sway positions with outright lies, such as conflating homosexuality with bestiality, thus leading to, say, man-goat nuptials, something that has nothing to do with any sane religious conviction, btw. That's extremism and intellectually bankrupt fear-mongering. The problem with the religious right is that they don't want any compromise, because the ultimate goal is to have government intervention and control on all matters of sex and reproductive freedom -- those are issues that extend way beyond civil marriage or social security benefits for same-sex spouses.

If anything, the marriage equality movement has been the faction constantly forced into compromise in the form of separate and unequal domestic partnerships and civil unions. These are incremental gains that have had a positive impact on same-sex couples, but it has also created this patchwork faux equality that is causing the legal machinations we are seeing.

The flawed premise of this op-ed is that both sides of the issue have equal power; that's illogical. The side on the status quo in this case holds the power and doesn't want to cede any of it, obviously, because it sees that granting the power of civil equality is threat to its vision of the country and the existence of marriage as they understand it. The side of social change always has the uphill battle, and the law leads, not follows the people when it is a contentious issue. And even when the law extends civil rights, that doesn't mean the public is ready to or willing to accept that change. We're clearly still fighting race-based civil rights issues, and that reflects a society that has not fully matured on the matter. It will be no different as LGBTs win civil rights, one by one.

Actually, Pam Spaulding imputes things to the traditionalist side that are virtually unheard of outside of the radical left's fever swamps? Bestiality? I've been blogging about this issue for months, and I can't recall the word ever being used by conservatives, or anything close to it. Not only that, where Blankenhorn and Rauch eschew taking sides, Spaulding adopts the stance of victimology. But Indeed, those "misunderstandings" on definition of marriage are found among gay rights advocates on the left, not of traditionalists, so her point's evasive, if not dishonest.

No doubt the left will smear advocates of even a fair-minded and reasonable proposal as bigots and religious fanatics. That said, I appreciate Blankenhorn and Rauch's serious effort to point the way ahead. We'll be seeing a lot more controversy over the issue, and real soon, considering the pending California ruling on Proposition 8.

So, stay tuned ...