Marriage’s Best Chance
Robert Knight and I are not as far apart as he seems to think.

Mr. Kurtz is also a fellow at the Hudson Institute
August 16, 2001 9:50 a.m.

n, "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.