Let Gays Marry

Let Gays Marry Andrew Sullivan A solid ground can non bear a class of persons a stranger to its laws, declared the Supreme law courtyard last week. It was a monumental statement. Gay men and lesbians, the orthodox court said, are no longer strangers in America. They are citizens, entitled, similar everyone else, to relate protectionno special rights, just simple equality. For the first age in Supreme Court history, gay men and women were hangn not as some powerful lobby trying to subvert America, but as the mickle we truly arethe sons and daughters of countless mothers and fathers, with all the weaknesses and strengths and hopes of everybody else.And what we seek is not some special place in America but plainly to be a full and equal part of America, to give derriere to our society without being forced to lie or hide or live as second-class citizens. That is why marriage is so underlying to our hopes. People ask us why we want the right to marry, but the answer is obviou s. Its the same reason everyone wants the right to marry. At some heading in our lives, some of us are lucky enough to get hold of the person we truly love.And we want to commit to that person in count of our family and country for the rest of our lives. Its the most simple, the most natural, the most human soul in the world. How could anyone seek to fit that? Yes, at first blush, it seems like a radical proposal, but, when you think almost it some more, its actually the opposite. Throughout American history, to be sure, marriage has been between a man and a woman, and in many ways our society is built upon that institution. But none of that requirement change in the slightest.After all, no one is seeking to engender away anybodys right to marry, and no one is seeking to force any church to change any doctrine in any way. position religious arguments against same-sex marriage are rightly debated within the churches and faiths themselves. That is not the stretch out here th ere is a separation between church and state in this country. We are only asking that when the government gives out courteous marriage licenses, those of us who are gay should be treated like anybody else.Of course, some argue that marriage is by definition between a man and a woman. But for centuries, marriage was by definition a contract in which the wife was her husbands legal property. And we changed that. For centuries, marriage was by definition between two people of the same race. And we changed that. We changed these things because we recognized that human dignity is the same whether you are a man or a woman, sorry or white. And no one has any more of a resource to be gay than to be black or white or male or female.Some say that marriage is only about raising children, but we let childless heterosexual couples be unify (Bob and Elizabeth Dole, Pat and Shelley Buchanan, for instance). Why should gay couples be treated differently? Others headache that there is no logica l difference between allowing same-sex marriage and O.K. polygamy and other horrors. But the issue of whether to sanction multiple spouses (gay or straight) is completely separate from whether, in the existing institution between two misrelated adults, the government should discriminate between its citizens.This is, in fact, if only Bill Bennett could see it, a deeply conservative cause. It seeks to change no one elses rights or marriages in any way. It seeks merely to promote monogamy, fidelity and the disciplines of family life among people who have long been cast to the margins of society. And what could be a more conservative project than that? Why indeed would any conservative seek to oppose those very family values for gay people that he or she supports for everybody else?Except, of course, to withdraw gay men and lesbians strangers in their own country, to forbid them ever to deduce home. Andrew Sullivan, Threes a Crowd, The new Republic (June 17, 1996). Reprinted by pe rmission of The New Republic, (c) 1996, The New Republic, Inc. William Bennett, Leave Marriage Alone. From Newsweek 3 June 1996. (c) 1996, Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. Andrew Sullivan, Let Gays Marry. From Newsweek 3 June 1996. (c) 1996, Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved.