Civil rights activists scored a huge victory this week when President Obama decided to refrain from having the Justice Department defend the blatantly discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Finally, our elected leaders are beginning to understand that it is simply not OK to use people’s civil rights as political tools. As happy an occurrence as this is, though, the decision has been in the works for some time. Obama has long stated that his views on gay marriage are evolving, and mainstream American culture has grown more and more tolerant. The march towards full equality is slow, but as long as we have elected leaders courageous enough to stand with minority rights, success will come.
And what makes this victory even sweeter? Well, the support from the right, of course! The new libertarian brand of conservatism has finally decided to be intellectually consistent, and it has realized how hypocritical it is to call for smaller and more limited government and still ask for Big Brother to micromanage people’s personal lives. Wait, what’s that? Really? Conservatives have been rabidly attacking the decision as evidence of the “triumph of neo-pagan Epicureanism” and an attack on the American family? Oh. Well, I guess I can’t say I’m surprised.
All kidding aside, this whole thing is getting ridiculous. There were all the expected attacks from the usual sources. The Family Research Center put out a statement demonizing the decision, WorldNet Daily has been full of scathing opinion pieces, and other religiously affiliated groups and politicians have voiced their anger. As upsetting as these attacks can be to hear, it’s the price of doing business in a democracy. There will always be some hardcore traditionalists. But what is really disappointing is how prevalent these attacks still are, and that they are coming from people who should know better.
Take Jeffrey Kuhner of the Washington Times. It’s from his column that the “neo-pagan” quote comes from. The whole article is full of such unadulterated hate that it turns the stomach. He rails against gays and their allies, saying that they are part of a larger “culture of death” that threatens the very bedrock of society. He also makes some odd claims, such as blaming “internal moral rot” (one assumes he means a disregard for traditional moral values like marriage) for the collapse of Babylon, Rome, and Greece. Excuse me for paying attention in history class, but I seem to remember those empires fell because of complex social, political, and military issues. Blaming gays for the collapse of three giant empires is an obvious attempt to demonize gays.
Kuhner also makes the same old tired claims that allowing gay marriage would lead to legalization of pedophilia, bestiality, and polygamy. This is another claim that doesn’t make sense. Let’s look at the states that have legalized gay marriage. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, D.C, New Hampshire, and Vermont all have legalized gay marriage. And in any of these states, is bestiality a recognized, legally sanctioned union? No. Is pedophilia treated with anything less than disgust and jail time? No. So where is Kuhner getting any support for his argument? Honestly, I have no idea. He makes these bigoted and inflammatory statements not because gay marriage will actually hurt anyone, but because he doesn’t like gays. Perhaps he would come back with the classic “I don’t hate gays I just don’t like gay marriage.” But in my mind, if you don’t want another group of people to have the same rights as you do, it means you don’t like that group of people.
President Obama made an excellent decision when he abandoned DOMA. It’s also a politically smart idea; for the first time, a CNN poll found last summer that 52% of Americans supported same-sex marriage. The bigoted right notwithstanding, it’s heartening to see that politics sometimes do follow the will of the majority, and that the majority cares about the minority. This is something we haven’t often seen, and I, for one, hope it continues.
