Michael – It sounds to me that the Tennessee folks are getting a bit carried away with some of this. But I think you hit on the right point. If you read Andrew Sullivan today, he makes it sounds as if he thinks this measure is completely illegitimate even though it seems its actual intent is to ban gay marriages in their county. Andrew has been saying time and again that he favors federalism. But you wouldn’t know that from the way he’s talking about the various anti-gay marriage movements in the states. He calls efforts in Virginia along these lines a “full-scale anti-gay legislative pogrom.” Now, I haven’t followed what Virginia is doing exactly and I am opposed to sodomy laws generally speaking. But the use of the word “pogrom” speaks volumes, I think, about Andrew’s analysis these days. What is a legislative pogrom anyway? Presumably it’s not very similar to an actual pogrom since those are usually defined as the organized, state sanctioned massacre of a whole community. Last I checked, nobody was riding around on horseback burning gay homes and killing homosexual men, women and children.
If there were actual pogroms against gays in this country, obviously I would be against them. Moreover, I wouldn’t argue that federalism protects the “right” of local communities to commit violence against homosexuals. This is an important point, because when Sullivan and other gay activists use language like “pogroms” and invoke a direct analogy to Jim Crow and the 1960s Civil Rights movement they are using the rhetoric of anti-Federalism. Obviously, it’s fine to criticize what Tennessee or San Francisco or any other community does. But there’s criticism and then there’s argumentation whose logic demands federal action. Lynchings and the like are examples of activities where the national government has the right and obligation to intervene in states and local communities. If Andrew really believes there’s no moral difference between denying gay marriage rights and Jim Crow, he should stop saying he’s a federalist because clearly he’s — at least not morally. If I say I’m in favor of federalism for X but then in the same breath say it’s akin to murder if a state does not-X, I’m not really making a federalist argument.
Similarly, I think Sullivan all too often sounds like what he’s really saying is federalism for thee, but not for me.
In short: federalism demands that you accept the legitimacy of local policies you disagree with, otherwise you’re not a federalist, you’re an opportunist.