A week ago I had an article here at NRO about whether the American Political Science Association would cave to its activist pro-gay-marriage members about whether to stick to its planned meeting in New Orleans in 2012, and what policy it would adopt for the future about state and local policies on same-sex unions where it considers holding a meeting. Yesterday the APSA council met and decided to go forward with the New Orleans site for 2012. But in a vague statement, APSA President Dianne Pinderhughes has also said that the Association will, in future, consider state-level as well as local policies relevant to its decisions, and she emphasized that “communities hosting APSA meetings will be expected to assure the civil rights and safety of all APSA members.” So did the council adopt Proposal 1 or Proposal 2 (see my discussion last week), or some third option? The statement doesn’t say.

Anyway, the mention of “safety” is a nice touch, since no one really thinks anyone’s safety is the real issue but it makes one sound “concerned” to say so. It’s the reference to “civil rights” that is the battleground in this debate, for the precise question, between proponents and opponents of gay marriage, is just what are a person’s civil rights when it comes to marriage. And, as the APSA council has no business forgetting, the Association’s constitution says “[i]t will not commit its members on questions of public policy nor take positions not immediately concerned with its direct purpose” of the study of politics.

It looks like a compromise at the moment–lawsuit avoidance accompanied by pious intimations that APSA will click the liberal ratchet forward every notch it can, when it can. Members who dread such incremental politicization should stay on the alert.