At the Brookings Institution last Friday, Jonathan Rauch and David Blankenhorn talk over their proposal for a compromise (federal civil unions in exchange for generous religious-liberty protections). Bill Galston moderates, and Prof. Robin Fretwell Wilson, one of the editors of Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts, is also on the panel.

Why compromise? Jon Rauch says: The consensus over the meaning of marriage has broken down. He predicts it will take decades, not a few years, to resolve the gay marriage issue. In the meantime, same-sex couples really need some federal recognition for practical reasons — like immigration. David Blankenhorn says: No one is more committed to marriage as a union of husband and wife than he is, but there is one principle that is even bigger — we’re Americans and we have to live with each other.

I may add some further thoughts of my own, but my initial response to Rauch/Blankenhorn’s proposal is here. Let me just say that I found listening to the exchange quite moving: We would all be better off if we could live in a world socially constructed by the likes of Jon Rauch and David Blankenhorn. (Sorry, I just returned from a Radcliffe conference and the lingo rubs off). In the meantime, Christian Broadcast News ran a nice story about the friendship between Focus on the Family’s Glenn Stanton and the philosopher and gay-rights advocate John Corvino.

Is the spirit of reconciliation bursting out all over?

[Editor’s note: Sentence and link inadvertendly edited out have been added since original posting.]