The party line
So Hillary Clinton was on “Face the Nation” this morning, spouting the party line that she was for civil unions but against gay marriage. When John Roberts asked her why she was against gay marriage, all she could come up with was “That’s an idea that’s not supported by a lot of Americans” or some such. Well, so was desegregation, Hillary. Did that make it the wrong thing to do? Was it not worth doing because it was politically dangerous?
In order to help Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle, Howard Dean and others deal with this issue, I’ve written up a little sample rhetoric on gay marriage for them to use. They don’t even have to credit me! It’s for the greater good, I say. Here it is:
I think what’s important here, Tim, is to understand the difference between civil and religious marriage. Religious marriage is a sacrament, and I don’t believe the government has any business telling any religion who they can and cannot marry. But civil marriage is a legal contract that’s enforced by the state, and that confers rights on the citizens that enter into that contract. I believe Americans are a fundamentally fair people. And this is about fairness – allowing people who want to enter into committed relationships, relationships that strengthen the society, to get the rights conferred by civil marriage.
There’s a lot of talk about civil unions these days – trying to create a system alongside civil marriage that would involve the same rights. But why create a new system, a new bureaucracy, to try to simulate something already in place? Is that fair? I don’t think it is. “Separate but equal” didn’t work in the civil rights era, and it doesn’t work here. I know there are a lot of Americans who are uncomfortable with homosexuality. But that unease shouldn’t be enough reason to deny basic rights to citizens of the United States of America.
Not that they’ll ever in a million years use this sort of argument. But they should. And if it only took me five minutes to come up with, I bet their high-priced speechwriters and message-makers could do an even better job. I’d like to see them at least try.
I’d love to hear a candidate (other than Al Sharpton, who as a reverend is surprisingly in support of gay marriage) say those words. Unfortunately all of them, on both sides of the party line, build too much of their policy around polls.
I tivo’d Hillary on Meet the Press, and after reading this I watched it to see what she had to say.
I didn’t hear her say anything on the subject. It was mostly about Iraq and Afghanistan, and a little bit about whether or not she’d accept the nomination if a deadlocked nominating convention offered it to her.
How did I miss that?
I screwed up. She was also on “Face the Nation,” and I mixed up which show she said that on; probably because I mostly only watch Russert. It’s fixed in the post now.
You know, it’s that word “marriage”. So much of the word “marriage” is inextricably bound up — for a lot of people — with religion. I think that’s why “union” comes up. It’s a pacifier, so to speak. Ideally it would be used to describe any legal “combining” of people and control the rights anr responsibilities therein for any two people. My husband and I got the legal paper because health insurance is damned expensive for singles. I’m not sure for whom the word is more imporrtant.
Interesting, too, is the idea that you can go to your house of worship and do the ceremony with your holyperson of choice, but you aren’t REALLY married until the state says you are — but if you live in “sin” for a certain period of time youo are automatically married in some states.
I loved the NPR commentator that said gay union should be established right now so gay people can suffer the same sort of taxation the rest of married America does ;> I’m for it. You’d think the money argument would carry more weight, considering the impact it has on everything else.
That would take work, Adam, and thinking. Neither are popular virtues today.