Massive social change? Yeah, probably...

Last week, by a 4-3 vote, the California Supreme Court effectively legalized same-sex marriage in the Golden Bear state, pending a proposition before the voters this autumn. Obviously, the Left is hoping that this decision--authored by a Reagan appointee no less--will not ignite the conservative base as the words and actions of Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret Marshall and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom did during the last election cycle. The Old Cranky Lady, for one, takes great pains to point out that there is no difference between Republican nominee John McCain and Democratic nominee Barack Obama on the issue.

This, of course, is misleading if not outright deceitful. If Mr. Obama is elected president, he will appoint the most liberal judges and justices since the Johnson administration. At least I hope so, after all, I did not endorse him very early on due to his foreign policy. Mad Mac, however, while he may stray from the GOP hard-liners of Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, definitely would not tilt the Supreme Court to a pro-same-sex marriage position. John Kerry's election would have ensured that end, regrettably, especially for victims of Hurricane Katrina, said election did not occur. Unlike the steadfast opposition of Bush-Cheney '04, Mr. McCain is more likely to focus on allowing the people to decide the issue; for example, he did not support the Musgrave amendment during the GOP's hold on Congress. No matter. With advisors such as Ted Olsen and Phil Gramm, a McCain presidency would offer no judicial relief to gay Americans.

In a broader sense, I have written on this issue for some time, always in full support of the right to same-sex couples to marry. I even floated the idea of an amendment to incorporate marriage, of two individuals, into the US Constitution. I also agree that denial of these rights by (now) forty-eight states is in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yet, I differ with many allies--and in some respects agree with the premise of Dennis Prager's analysis--that a movement toward national recognition of gay marriage would "radically change society." Most liberals bemoan such an assertion as "scare talk," which has a grain of truth to it, and believe, similar to allowing interracial couples to marry, we should just leave practitioners of alternative lifestyles alone.

What the California Supreme Court did, however, is something substantially different: it did not say that authorities should stop witch hunts or other tactics designed to ferret out "queers." Rather, the court said that the institution of marriage, defined as a man and a woman since the Middle Ages, requires a 21st Century revision, at least for Californians. The true question is just what effect this will have on society: in other words, what is the true homosexual percentage of the US population? Is it significantly higher than most believe? Would the lessening of the stigma lead to an increase of "gayness," as some conservatives maintain?

Well, all I can say is that it is my belief that if fully implemented--likely from a Supreme Court ruling as opposed to federal legislation--would lay the groundwork for the third major change in human society, i.e., the destruction of the patriarchy. Mr. Prager, of course, does not tread this far, but let's examine his work...

"It is difficult to imagine a single social change greater than redefining marriage from opposite sex to include members of the same sex."

I agree, but I'm surely willing to entertain that my prognosis, probably necessitating fifty years or more AFTER national recognition to occur, is wrong.

"American bans on interracial marriages were not supported by any major religious or moral system; those bans were immoral aberrations, no matter how many religious individuals may have supported them. Justices who overthrew bans on interracial marriages, therefore, had virtually every moral and religious value system since ancient times on their side. But justices who overthrow the ban on same-sex marriage have nothing other their hubris and their notions of compassion on their side."

Agreed, and we should further point out that Loving, a seminal case from Virginia, represented the High Court's validation of national legislative ideology, not a case of judicial activism, on par, say, with Brown.

"The modern secular liberal knows that he is not only morally superior to conservatives; he is morally superior to virtually everyone who ever lived before him."

Guilty. On the other hand, we do have a good case. Consider that women and minorities were excluded from the national discourse for centuries, leaving only (predominantly) white-male owners as the arbiters of right and wrong. Modern secular liberals also believe that they stand on the right side of human history, though, admittedly, similar to President Bush's claims vis-a-vis the Iraq invasion, this seems difficult for most to understand.

"If this verdict stands, society as we have known it will change."

D'accord, although we should say that this "change" is contingent upon many variables, not the least of which is whether a statistically significant number of women will gravitate toward their own sex for sensible reasons. I would further argue that this is particularly true toward females in the top-third percentile. Mr. Prager then concludes with what he deems an apocalyptic scenario, some of which is laughable and thus not deserving comment.

The key point, unaddressed by the author, is that only the patriarchy, its supporters (consciously) and adherents (unconsciously), would have anything to lose. The traditional man-woman marriage, at least in our society, invariably leads to a male-dominated society, which in some respects, has only the weapon of "tradition" to fend off the revolutionaries. And so it works. No one has any knowledge or understanding of a differing way of life and change on a large scale is nearly always feared. Most of us, in this century, are comfortable with the idea of two women or two men pursuing their own desires and dreams together, but how comfortable would we prove if it made up thirty to fifty percent of our population?

Mr. Prager's guess is "not very." His conclusion:

"I take it as axiomatic that a gay man or woman is created in God's image and as precious as any other human being. And I readily acknowledge that it is unfair when an adult is not allowed to marry the love of his or her choice. But social policy cannot be made solely on the basis of eradicating all of life's unfairness. Thus, we must love the gay person -- and his and or her partner as well. But we must never change the definition of marriage. The price to society and succeeding generations will be too great."

"Social policy cannot be made solely on the basis of eradicating all of life's unfairness," was an argument, in time, thoroughly rejected by the nation on the issue of race, yet largely accepted by the nation on the issue of gender--especially with the failed ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. I have long considered the same-sex marriage movement something of a (quiet) feminist flank attack after the demise of the ERA; in that debate, feminists failed to equate men with women, but to succeed now in equating "straights" with "gays" would immeasurably alter the social constructs of "man" and "woman." Truthfully, though, liberal activists can only provide the environment, they have, in some sense, as little control over how future generations respond to it as conservative ones. If more girls grow up wanting to be with women, well, things will change. If not, then they won't. In time, though, we will see what is biological and what is choice.