He touches on a lot of the same issues I've discussed, but obviously from a more personal perspective.
Even if gay couples who adopt are more stable, as New York found, don’t their children need the security and protections that the court believes marriage affords children? And even if heterosexual sex is essential to the survival of the human race (a point I’m willing to concede), it’s hard to see how preventing gay couples from marrying increases heterosexual activity. (“Keep breeding, heterosexuals,” the Washington State Supreme Court in effect shouted, “To bed! To bed! To bed!”) Both courts have found that my son’s parents have no right to marry, but what of my son’s right to have married parents?
A perverse cruelty characterizes both decisions. The courts ruled, essentially, that making my child’s life less secure somehow makes the life of a child with straight parents more secure. Both courts found that making heterosexual couples stable requires keeping homosexual couples vulnerable. And the courts seemed to agree that heterosexuals can hardly be bothered to have children at all — or once they’ve had them, can hardly be bothered to care for them — unless marriage rights are reserved exclusively for heterosexuals. And the religious right accuses gays and lesbians of seeking “special rights.”
*****
These defeats have demoralized supporters of gay marriage, but I see a silver lining. If heterosexual instability and the link between heterosexual sex and human reproduction are the best arguments opponents of same-sex marriage can muster, I can’t help but feel that our side must be winning. Insulting heterosexuals and discriminating against children with same-sex parents may score the other side a few runs, but these strategies won’t win the game.
The more I think about it, the more I think the New York and Washington high courts are 1) passing the buck and 2) setting up a major league ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. The NY and WA courts' rulings are so ridiculously lame I can't believe a legitimate jurist could make them with a straight face. I'd like to think the majority justices are saying, "We know this argument is bullshit, but we're not going to stick our necks out and get them chopped off. We're just going to pass the buck and make the U.S. Supreme Court rule gay marriage is okay."
Part of the problem is what happened in Hawaii. The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the state couldn't ban gay marriages, (on equal protection grounds, btw) and before the ink was dry on the opinion, the Hawaii legislature slapped the court down with a statute expressly banning gay marriages. There are movements afoot to do the same thing in Massachusetts, right after the Massachusetts high court did the same thing.
Seems to me the state courts don't want to step forward on this issue anymore. Probably just as well. The ultimate decision authorizing gay marrage is going to have to be at the Federal level, anyway.
P.S. For more from Dan Savage on gay marriage, I recommend "The Committment," his account of his own internal debate about whether or not to marry his partner. I loved it.
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