Andrew Sullivan And George Will: Wrong On California’s Gay Marriage

George Will on Prop 8:

“The much narrower victory of Proposition 8 suggests that minds are moving toward toleration of same-sex marriage. If advocates of that have the patience required by democratic persuasion, California’s ongoing conversation may end as they hope. If, however, the conversation is truncated, as Brown urges, by judicial fiat, the argument will become as embittered as the argument about abortion has been by judicial highhandedness.”

Andrew Sullivan on George Will on Prop 8:

“I’m emotionally conflicted on this. As someone who has spent much of my adult life making the case for gay equality and for civil marriage as the sine qua non of such equality, I’d love marriage to be real in California for all Californians. But intellectually, I’m not conflicted. I’m with George.”

Here’s why George Will, and by extension, Andrew Sullivan, are wrong: It’s the wrong comparison. Will is putting gay marriage in the same arena as abortion. Thinking that it is makes it so, and it’s not. Roe vs. Wade ensured abortion became a civil rights decision, but it is far too entrenched in religion and what some see as morality. Gay marriage, while some would have us believe it is a religious or morality issue, is far more of a civil rights issue, and there are much better arguments for it living there. The best comparison, and most similar argument? Interracial marriage: Loving vs. Virginia.

I don’t for a moment suggest that gay marriage or abortion are validly anything except civil rights issues. Religion has no bearing on the laws in this country, nor should it. 

Moving the argument away from religion and into the civil rights arena, which is where it should live, makes the “Loving” comparison more applicable. Which then takes the argument to the logical conclusion of now. Gay marriage, same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue. George Will would have us be “patient.” Or, as I’ve called it, “tolerant.”

But as I wrote a few months ago in “Defending Your Life #1: Majority Rules?“, 

“Attorney Evan Wolfson, who is the founder of Freedom To Marry, and wrote “Why Marriage Matters”… makes some compelling arguments for marriage, including this one:

The California Supreme Court “in 1948 became the first to strike down race restrictions on the freedom to marry. Polls at that time showed that 90 percent of Americans opposed marriage equality. In the best-named case ever, Loving v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court in 1967 upheld marriage equality nationwide, despite polls showing 70 percent opposed… If fundamental rights can be stripped from a minority on a mere show of hands, why bother having courts and constitutions?”

Right now, across the country, there’s about a 50-50 split on making gay marriage legal. In 1967, forty-two years ago, there was a 70-30 split against making interracial marriage legal. We’ve waited long enough. The longer we wait, the greater strength the Right will have to do what they did in California: out-maneuver and out-spend us. The time is now. The time is right, and so is gay marriage.