Rock Hackshaw has a piece on marriage equality up, here, that I'm going to have to comment on. He's wrong, in my considered opinion, but wrong in a way that is instructive.

First, we need to acknowledge that the opposition to marriage equality is not even, in that sense, about marriage. It is about the acceptance of gays and lesbians in our society. That's the often enough unspoken context of this debate; one eschewed by advocates, who prefer to merely address the charges made by opponents, and by the opponents themselves, who often enough make their case not with actual gays and lesbians, but with the depraved hordes that they believe lie in wait beyond our ranks: the polygamists, the bestialists, and so on.

So it is in this case as well. I'll say to the charge that marriage equality opens the floodgates to polygamy and what not else simply this: show me the people who are demanding that. Then demonstrate to me that marriage equality will have the consequences you point to. You won't be able to, for one very simple reason: there is no constituency arguing on behalf of, say, bestiality, and your argument essentially comes down to the assertion, unproven and unprovable, that any change in the institution of marriage will destroy it. That's a non-sensical claim; the institution will be strengthened, not weakened, when a new class of citizens joins it. Marriage has undergone significant shifts over the past century, beginning with the end of the idea of marriage as a life-long contract. Whether that's good or not is another subject; but the institution's continued vitality is demonstrated, I think, by the fact that gays and lesbians care enough about it to want to join in its practice.

There's a very basic logical fallacy here: why would people want to join something that would be destroyed, unless they had confidence in its continued relevance? I ca't help but think of battles to integrate country clubs, where much the same arguments were made; lo and behold, women now play golf in various places, and the game itself shows no sign of expiring. Would that it did.

Rock further states:

Marriage has always been proscribed; there have always been gender and age pre-requisites, but no “single” person is prohibited from marriage: it’s just that their spouse must be of the opposite sex.

...and:

Look, equality has always been an abstract concept; I can even agree that it is a viable social goal. It’s just that trying to move from abstraction to reification is rather complicated for the most part.

This is one variegated argument, and it runs as follows: there is inequality in the law, and removing it is difficult and bound to face resistance.

To this I say, with Harlan, that the Constitution does not know or tolerate classes among citizens. The legal issue here isn't actually that the law can and does distinguish between individual citizens; for example, you need to fulfill certain requirements, laid out in law, to be able to pilot a Boeing. The corollary is this: what the present law does is state that gays and lesbians, as a class, can never meet the requirements for marriage as long as they belong to that class. In short, being gay is a permanent disability in the eyes of the law, one that no action of the individual can overcome. By contrast, to stay within the previous example, if you want to fly a jet, you can have your faulty eyesight corrected and take lessons; I could, if I so chose, take the steps that would allow me to fly a plane, which is presently not a right I have.

However, do what I will, I can never get married under present law.

To take that further, one could of course mention that I could, indeed, marry a woman; thing is, I have no such interest. Nor is it, in my mind, a legitimate demand of the state to require this of me. If you can't, say, search my home without a warrant, you most certainly can't take the much further and more violative step of telling me with whom I must live in that home.

Nor, frankly, is the positive appeal to inequality one that seems either very effective or very attractive. We've had this debate before, for example, about female suffrage. It was claimed at the time that question was current that extending the franchise to the weaker sex would corrupt the seriousness with which affairs of state must be contemplated. Before that, we had a national debate about extending the franchise to men who did not own real property, or didn't meet certain fiscal requirements; letting them take part in the deliberations of the nation would, it was said at the time, also surely corrupt the lofty debates among the propertied classes.

In short, none of this is new. The story of America is one of an ever-expanding reach of civil equality, irresistible as the tides. Gay and lesbian Americans are presently the ones being excluded from full participation in our society. I can't foresee, nor can anyone, what the next steps, the victories and reverses in that fight will be.

I can, however, tell you the outcome. We will sit at the table of brotherhood, just as did all those who came before us. It is but a question of time.

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