Sullivan Watch
Andrew Sullivan was understandably distraught over the blow to gay marriage in California … Oh No You Don’t. He joins Drum in bemoaning the failure of his guy Obama to take a courageous stand in its defense. In fact, Obama is against it, or says he is, so advocacy would have complicated his message and possibly his election. Here Sullivan notes the black vote for Prop 8. That’s all a matter of California politics, the ugly underreported underside of Obamist bigotry … not my problem. I’m just concerned about my Casio G-Shock’s atomic time receiver. It’s supposed to be getting highly accurate time corrections from Colorado Springs or some place like that. Solar recharge, too, with about a zillion tiny solar panels on the face. Pretty cool.
But checking the readout, I’m wondering which is off. Sullivan or my second ticker?
We’re overdue for a Sullivan switch … Notice of right reserved to switch here. I forget where he is on Iraq at this point. Is he due to get back on or back off? Greenwald, by the way, notes Obama’s long, emphatic opposition to DOMA, when tends to suggest he was for gay marriage before he was against it, and may be for it again. Or at least against DOMA, while still being … whatever. Greenwald notes that while Democrats lied, marriages died:
Democrats have a particular responsibility to erase the stain of DOMA. It was Bill Clinton who signed DOMA into law. It passed overwhelmingly in the Senate (85-14) with massive Democratic support, including from Democratic icons such as Paul Wellstone, Chris Dodd, Pat Leahy, Tom Daschle, Patty Murray, Harry Reid, Barbara Mikulski, and the new Vice President-elect, Joe Biden (interestingly, Democrats ranging from Russ Feingold and Dianne Feinstein to Virginia’s Chuck Robb and Nebraska’s Bob Kerrey voted against it).
The politics are not nearly as difficult as many might imagine. While same-sex marriage is still obviously controversial, the extension of equal rights to same-sex couples is not. “Civil unions” — the vehicle for that outcome — has emerged as an interim majority consensus.
Repealing Section 3 of DOMA — even if one left Section 2 in place — would enable the equal granting of federal rights to same-sex couples without having any effect on the definition of “marriage.” [While Section 2 is, as indicated, symbolically wrong, it is also legally irrelevant, since either: (a) states are already allowed, under the various exceptions to the Full Faith and Credit Clause, to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages from other states (in which case Section 2 of DOMA is superfluous); or (b) the Full Faith and Credit Clause requires states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states (in which case DOMA's Section 2 is unconstitutional)]. All of DOMA should be repealed, but repealing Section 3 is, without question, a politically palatable compromise (it’s what Hillary Clinton advocated in the primaries, in contrast to Obama, who advocated its full repeal). Doing that would grant equal rights to same-sex couples without changing the definition of “marriage.”
This would be a vital step that Democrats could take quickly and easily. But are they likely to do so? The conventional Beltway wisdom has already ossified, quite predictably, that Obama and the Democrats must scorn “the Left” and, despite polling data showing widespread support for equal rights for same-sex couples, such a move would be deemed by Beltway media mavens as coming from ”the Left.” Nancy Pelosi is running around decreeing that “the country must be governed from the middle,” while Harry Reid emphasizes that Democrats have received no mandate from the election. And, most significantly of all, Democrats are being told they must avoid the ”overreaching” of Clinton’s first two years, defined by his attempt to eliminate the ban on gay people serving in the military — something likely to scare Democrats from touching any gay issues.
Combine all that with the fact that only a small minority is actually affected by DOMA’s injustices, that many Democrats will insist none of this is worth the “risk,” and that many Obama supporters will refuse to criticize anything he does … Even as leading Democrats flamboyantly condemn Proposition 8, and even with Obama’s long record of emphatically vowing that he will support DOMA’s repeal, there will be very strong currents pushing Democrats to do nothing.
Obama and Congressional Democrats deserve some time to figure out what they will do and what they will prioritize. It’s irrational to criticize them for things they haven’t done. It’s probably politically wise for the first steps they take to be related to the economy, and there are numerous other non-economic priorities of vital importance that nobody should wait for (restoring habeas corpus, closing Guantanamo, imposing a government-wide ban on torture). But repealing DOMA, and certainly its most destructive part, is a quick and important way to establish who they are, and doing that is consistent with, not contrary to, prevailing political sentiment.
Tends to suggest there’s no particular advantage for gays in voting Democratic. Or in encouraging others to do so.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:59 am on Thursday, November 6, 2008
4 Responses to “Sullivan Watch”
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November 6th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I know a lot of people who will indulge in the knee-jerk reaction of saying, “Oh, well, gay marriage jeopardizes the institution of marriage,” but actually not one of them can say exactly how. The truth is, none of us really cares about gay marriage one way or the other. We want to know what will happen to national security, jobs, insurance costs, housing costs.
I propose this: if anything, “civil unions” threaten the institution of marriage more than actual marriage. A civil union is unquestioningly easier to dissolve than a marriage, and might lead to a cavalier approach to human commitment all around, gay or hetero. I don’t see how that’s a good thing for our society, since I still believe in the concept of the family, whatever its makeup.
November 7th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I wonder when St. Andrew the Gobsmacked is going to go nuclear on Obama the way he did on Bush over the whole gay marriage thing.
I predict….never.
November 9th, 2008 at 2:30 am
“Combine all that with the fact that only a small minority is actually affected by DOMA’s injustices,”
1. The gay portion of the general populace is about 2-4%.
2. The portion of gay marriage needies is much less than 10% of the gay populace.
If all the needies were to gather in Yankee Stadium, would they fill it?
Cheers
November 9th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Also, from Wuzzadem:
“For your information, Mr. Greenwald has written a New York Times bestselling book on executive authority, broken a story on his blog about wiretapping that led to front-page stories on most major newspapers in the country, and Russ Feingold read from my blog…”
… lest you forgot.
Cheers