WHY NOT CIVIL UNIONS? Washington Post editorial

...We support gay marriage. It is, in our view, wrong to deny to people in loving, lifelong relationships the benefits and rights that normally attach to being married. At the same time, we are skeptical that American society will come to formally recognize gay relationships as a result of judicial fiats, and we felt that the 4 to 3 majority on the Massachusetts court had stretched to find a right to gay marriage in that commonwealth's 224-year-old constitution.

Now the same majority has stretched still further, finding that the state constitution not only grants to same-sex couples a substantive right to marry but also dictates the nomenclature of the unions. When moral certainty bleeds into judicial arrogance in this fashion, it deprives the legislature of any ability to balance the interests of the different constituencies that care passionately about the question. Given the moral and religious anxiety many people feel on the subject and the absence of clear constitutional mandates for gay marriage, judges ought to be showing more respect for elected officials trying to make this work through a political process.
The judges' action has increased the likelihood of a state constitutional amendment that could ban gay unions under any name. Politicians at the federal level now more than ever will trip over one another to swear allegiance to traditional marriage and push a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay unions in all states. The case for this noxious proposal rests on the claim that judges are forcing gay marriage down people's throats in an anti-democratic fashion. In refusing to allow the people of Massachusetts to choose civil unions as an alternative, the court seems bent on playing to this caricature.

more
posted by Eve at 9:42 PM | link

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home