WHY THE BACKLASH? New York Times reports

In today's Sunday Times there is a story on "Gay Marriage Jitters" here, speculating on why the sudden increase in opposition to gay civil unions, which jumped from 49 percent to 57 percent in the last few months. The reporter argues (not entirely logically given the poll is about civil unions) the problem is the word "marriage" which Americans view as a religious word.

He asked a number of interesting people to comment, however.

Prof. Norval Glenn: "I know a lot of people who want to give all the rights and privileges to gay couples that married people have, but they don't want to change thge traditional meaning of the term marriage. We are more traditional in how we define marriage in this country than is the case in most of the Western World."

Tony Kushner (playwright): "In a secular democracy, this is a legal question, not a religious question. The debate over gay marriage should not be on religious grounds."

David M. Smith (strategist for Human Rights Campaign): "Gay people pay into Social Security all of their lives, but if something happens, gay partners aren't covered. When you taslk about things like that, people support those rights in large numbers. They get uncomfortable when it's packaged in the notion of marriage because of the religious sanction that people perceive marriage to be."

Prof. Andrew J. Cherlin: "I think the average American dispproves of homosexual sex, but tolerates it, much as they respect rights of privacy and self-expresssion. For the average American, civil unions sound like tolerance, but marriage sounds like approval."

Paul Rudnick (playwright): "I guess on a certain level it's the difference between sympathy and equality. When people can view gay people as somehow underprivileged, woedful and in need of social work, it's just easier to feel a kind of regal sympathy for them.:

Dr. Peter Wolfson (psychoanalyst): "said the prospect of gay marriagfe threatens people with a government stamp of approval on homosexuality. 'If that's the case, it's a normal form of sexuality, and that threatens people with their own fear of homosexual impulses in themselves.' . . .The prospect of gay marriage, Dr. Wolfson added, also strikes at the traditional nuclear anchor of American life and powerful childhood forces. 'It challenges the basic black and white sterotypes we grow up with. And once that black and white is challenged it brings us all into this crazy zone of existential uncertainty.'"

William Schneider (CNN public opinion analyst): "Look, if you don't call it marriage, you'll get more support."

posted by maggie at 6:31 PM | link

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