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"It's
a Sin," his reply to my earlier piece, "Middle
Ground," Robert Knight makes a telling error.
Although Mr.
Knight claims that I "shrug at the homosexual agenda in all
but marriage," readers of National Review Online know better.
I have vigorously, repeatedly, and publicly opposed Vermont's civil-unions
law, and most other reforms sought by gay-rights activists. Two
of my pieces of special importance in this regard are "The
Problem With Equivalence," and "The
Ashcroft-Logger Alliance." While my position may not be
that of Mr. Knight, in the latter piece, I clearly state that, with
only a very few exceptions, we ought to firmly defend, not simply
marriage, but the whole range of our current legal and institutional
arrangements regarding homosexuality.
Knight's mistake
is important because it says something crucial about his attitude
toward the Federal Marriage Amendment. Knight seems to assume that
because the Federal Marriage Amendment does not explicitly forbid,
say, Vermont-style civil unions, the amendment or its supporters
actually endorse these innovations. But that is in no way the case.
It is entirely possible to support the Federal Marriage Amendment
while also energetically opposing civil unions.
The important
point is that an amendment containing a blanket prohibition of even
limited domestic-partnership benefits stands absolutely no chance
of passage. An observation which Mr. Knight does nothing to rebut.
So Knight will maintain his admirable consistency, yet come up empty
handed. The result will be court-imposed national gay marriage.
Will such an outcome advance or retard Mr. Knight's stated goal
of a return to the moral system of the fifties? The Founders created
a system that allowed the people to pass laws that the Founders
themselves may or may not have approved of. That is democracy. We
must work within the realities of the political present. That is
something the Founders would have understood very well.
Nothing in
the Federal Marriage Amendment forces state legislatures to pass
domestic-partnership laws. Conservatives have every opportunity
to oppose such laws in their own states. If the battle to stop such
laws cannot be won at the state level, it cannot be won at all.
That is Mr. Knight's fundamental error. There is a difference between
fantasizing about an amendment that will accomplish all of one's
goals, and actually passing it. The only viable way for Mr. Knight
to achieve his own stated ends is to combine support for the Federal
Marriage Amendment with successful state-by-state campaigns to block
domestic partnership benefits. That will be difficult enough for
him to achieve. But passage of a federal amendment to his liking
will simply never happen, and in holding out for that, Mr. Knight
will lose all — locking into place the new moral system that he
says he abhors.
While it is
true that I do not work within Mr. Knight's religious framework,
it is not at all true that my stance lacks a moral dimension. I
am deeply concerned for social and family stability precisely because
I see such stability as a moral imperative. By the same token, the
religious understanding of the family contains profound sociological
insights. We are not as far apart as Mr. Knight seems to think.
And that is why it is all the more important that we join forces
in backing the Federal Marriage Amendment, the best and most realistic
chance we have to preserve and protect traditional marriage.
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