December
4, 2002, 8:45 a.m. Responding
to Sullivan
The gay-marriage
debate continues.
t
looks as though Andrew Sullivan and I are engaged in another one of our
periodic exchanges on gay marriage. Let me continue my response to Sullivan's
posts on my column, "The
Coming Battle." Sullivan had two posts on the subject on Tuesday,
December 3, and I
responded only to the first. That's because I was traveling Tuesday,
and only noticed the first of his two posts as I quickly monitored the
net from a Kinko's. In his second post, Sullivan makes an analogy between
the lifting of a ban on inter-racial marriages, and the legalization of
gay marriage. I do not see these issues as analogous. Sexual-orientation
matters to our social arrangements in a way that skin color does not,
and should not.
Explicitly and implicitly,
in virtually all of my pieces on gay marriage, I've argued against the
notion that gay marriage is analogous to classic "civil-rights"
issues. My original piece in the September 2000 issue of Commentary,
"What
is Wrong With Gay Marriage," is a good place to turn to see why
I think the issues are different. The problem with the civil-rights analogy
also underlies the entire "Gay
Marriage Debate" that we had on NRO last year. To give another
example, have a look at "Gay
in Hollywood," where I argue directly, against Sullivan, that
the gay-rights/civil-rights analogy is flawed.
I've noted that there
are many ways in which the Massachusetts case threatens to impose gay
marriage on the nation. Nationalization on "Equal Protection"
grounds is even more likely than on "Full Faith and Credit"
grounds. Sullivan claims it's absurd to suggest that gay marriage in one
state will mean gay marriage in all states. Yet in the very same blog
he shows that the court nationalized a right to interracial marriage on
"Equal Protection" grounds. While I do not believe that interracial
marriage and gay marriage are legitimate analogues, it's obvious that
Sullivan and many others do see them as analogous. So by his own standards,
Sullivan must believe that, on "Equal Protection" grounds, gay
marriage in Massachusetts ought to mean gay marriage in the entire United
States.
In general, I think
that Andrew Sullivan contradicts himself on this issue. In some of his
writings, Sullivan makes a "conservative" argument on gay marriage,
eschewing talk of rights. Yet when pressed, Sullivan reverts to a rights-based
case, arguing that the right of marriage (really the right to redefine
marriage) is a fundamental civil right. The latter position has to commit
him to the belief that gay marriage in Massachusetts ought to be generalized
nationally on "Equal Protection" grounds. Yet when arguing against
the Federal
Marriage Amendment, Sullivan claims that nationalization is an impossibility.
Finally, I note that,
while Andrew Sullivan has asked me to respond to a pointed question (as
I have done), Sullivan himself has never responded to my arguments in
either "The
Right Balance," (where I directly address his points on the federalism
issue) in "Code
of Honor," (where I directly address many of his other substantive
arguments for gay marriage) or in the Commentary
piece, "What is Wrong With Gay Marriage," (where I address
the contradictions in his stance, as well as many of his substantive points.)
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t
looks as though Andrew Sullivan and I are engaged in another one of our
periodic exchanges on gay marriage. Let me continue my response to 
