Gay Relationships Are “Different Things,” And “Different Things Can Be Treated Differently”

North Carolina Republican lawmaker Paul Stam, having won his decade-long attack to get a vote for a ban on same-sex marriages written into his state’s constitution, debated Democratic lawmaker Rick Glazier at the University of North Carolina Law School today. Stam, almost quoting Maggie Gallagher of NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, verbatim, said, “Different things can be treated differently if the things or people are in a very different relationship.”

Stam, who has been one of the most-​outspoken in favor of discrimination –likening same-​sex marriage to incest and polygamy – attributed his comment to Aristotle, who, ironically, some believe had homosexual relationships. Gallagher is infamous for stating, “It is not discrimination to treat different things differently.” In fact, it is, by definition.

Glazier asked Stam where the line is drawn. “Does that mean that [LGBT people] don’t have the right to public office?” he asked.

“Towards the end of the event, Stam — who supports the measure — suggested that allowing gay and lesbian people to marry would open the door to polygamy and challenged Glazier to respond to his ‘slippery slope’ argument,” writes Igor Volsky at Think Progress.

Glazier pushed back hard, arguing that gay people are not “things” and they “ought to be treated the same” as anyone else. He countered that the government has “no compelling governmental interest” to deny marriage to a gay couple while allowing two straight people to wed. He then outlined with his own “slippery slope” argument against starting on the path of denying rights to minority groups:

GLAZIER: We engage here in an incredible slippery slope. So if gay folks aren’t allowed — don’t have the fundamental right to do the one thing that as human beings we all want to do, which is to decide who we want to live with, who we want to marry, who we want to have a relationship with. Then explain to me, maybe you should tell the folks, does that mean that they also don’t have the right to public office? That’s a lesser constitutional right to run for public office than it is to decide who you’re going to spend your day with.

As far as polygamy is concerned, the argument is bunk, and has nothing to do with same-sex marriage.

The good news here is what was reported by Estes Gould at The Daily Tar Heel, UNC’s student newspaper.

Students crowded into the room until it reached capacity, then moving into an overflow room to watch N.C. Reps. Paul Stam, R-Wake, and Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, talk about the amendment.

…

Students who attended the event overwhelmingly sided with Glazier, applauding his best arguments during the debate.

Many attendees carried signs protesting the legislation. Law professor Noor Kapoor’s sign called the state “as bigoted as you think” for passing it through the legislature.

Andy Rodenbough, a law student who attended the debate, said he came to see people in the law profession speak on a political and legal issue.

“This amendment absolutely must be defeated,” he said.

In a reception after the debate, where the representatives spoke and answered questions from students, Glazier said the amendment is a “winnable battle.”