The enemy at the Gates

[Earl Maltz]

Of course social conservatives were vigorously proposed to that 
"compromise."  It required them to give up everything that was important to 
them, while allowing supporters to hide behind the fig leaf of saying that 
they weren't voting for same-sex marriage.

At 09:43 AM 10/31/2005 -0500, Jennifer Hendricks wrote:
>The conservatives in Vermont were absolutely and vigorously opposed to
>that proposal, so that the marriage proponents who had compromised to
>that position lived to regret being "reasonable."
>
>Once you take that route, you have two sets of legal relationships that
>are identical except that one is called marriage.  The only reason for
>the distinction is to express religiously-based disapproval of one of
>those sets of relationships, which in my view violates the Establishment
>Clause and is contrary to Romer.  It also points up the issue raised
>earlier of what business the state has licensing a sacrament.
>
>Far better would be to let religious groups define what is holy under
>their beliefs and let government decide the legal benefits and burdens
>of domestic relationships, which would also provide an excellent
>occasion for re-evaluating how we allocate support and dependency in our
>society.
>
>
>
>Jennifer S. Hendricks
>Associate Professor
>University of Tennessee College of Law
>1505 W. Cumberland Ave.
>Knoxville TN 37996-1810
>865-974-6818
>hendricks at law.utk.edu
>
> >>> "Eric Freedman" <Eric.M.Freedman at hofstra.edu> 10/30/2005 11:37 AM
> >>>
>-Would social conservative oppose this proposal? -E.
>
>
>
>              ***********
>       Eric M. Freedman
>Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professor
>  of Constitutional Law
>       Hofstra Law School
>       Hempstead, NY  11550
>       LAWEMF at Hofstra.edu
>       Tel. 516-463-5167
>       Fax 516-463-5129
>   Home Office:
>    Tel. 212-665-2713
>     Fax 212-665-2714
>             ***********
>
> >>> <DavidEBernstein at aol.com> 10/30/05 11:30 AM >>>
>For those who believe there is a constitutional right for homosexuals
>to
>marry: Is the right a right to "marry," or to have available the same
>privileges
>and incidents of marriage as heterosexuals?  In other words, would the
>
>constitutional right to marry be satisfied by a state law providing
>homosexuals with
>the right to "eternal domestic partnership" that was, in all relevant
>legal
>ways, the same as marriage, except that the term "marriage" was
>statutorily
>reserved for heterosexual couples?
>
>In a message dated 10/30/2005 11:22:31 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>paul-finkelman at utulsa.edu writes:
>Earl:
>
>Is there much of a distinction between having the right to marry as
>being the "enemy" and the gates and being the person who wants that
>right to marry?   Recall the last great fight over the right to marry,
>
>involving interracial marriage.  The arguments were often the same --
>such relationships violate the law of god (recall the Bob Jones case);
>
>such relationship will destroy society; such relationships harm
>children; they are a bad moral influence on the commnity; if those
>couples move into our neighborhood, housing prices will go down, etc.
>The poeple who made such arguments against the right to marry (the
>"enemy at the gate" in this context would have been interracial
>marriage) also opposed the civil rights of one half of the group that
>might be involved in an interracial marriage (blacks) and considered
>the
>other half to be disreputable, often calling them godless, communists
>(or godless communists), and perverted.
>
>It seems to me that to argue that the *right* to marry is the "enemy at
>
>the gate" is essentially to argue that those who want that right are
>the
>enemy.  Those who oppose same sex unions should not hide behind some
>constitutional technicality about who the enemy is. Those who oppose
>same sex unions are in favor of denying fundamental rights to a class
>of
>people based entirely on their gender. They do this out of fear,
>paranoia, homophobia, or the belief that they are entitled to force all
>
>Americans to accept their religious views.  Same sex marriage does not
>
>harm them, they are not forced to participate in it.  Their churchs
>would not be forced to sanctify such marriages.  The marraiges in could
>
>not personally affect them in any way.  They are not even forced to be
>
>close to such marraiges, in the way that an integrated restaurant
>forced
>racists to sit next to blacks while they ate. Nor, can this be the
>equivalent of  the issue in Roe, where someone might argue that a fetus
>
>is a person (which many disagree with) and therefore might argue that
>choice harms a person.  Gay marriage involves only consenting adults
>and
>harms no one else. Thus, the issus is about fundamental rights for all
>
>people.
>
>Since same sex unions cannot possibly harm those who oppose them, we
>must assume that they oppose them becuase the marriages offend their
>sensibilities.  It srikes me as a sophistry at best to say that the
>"right" to marry is the "enemey at the gates" but that the people who
>want that right are not "the enemy."  It would be the equivalent of
>saying that the right to integrate was the"enemy" at the gates for
>Strom Thurmond or Lester Maddox, but that Martin Luther King, Jr. or
>Rosa Parks were OK folks.  But we know better.  Civil Rights advocates
>
>were the enemy at the gates, such as gay people and their straight
>allies and friends are the enemies of those who oppose civil rights for
>
>all Americans.   Let's at least be honest about who the enemy is!  If
>you oppose giving people equal rights -- especially in a democracy --
>it
>can only be because you think they are NOT "created equal" and NOT
>"endowed" with the "unalienable rights" of "Life, Liberty, and the
>Pursuit of Happiness."
>
>Those of us who believe in equality -- whether gay or straight -- are
>surely are the "enemy at the gates"  to those who oppose equality.
>
>Paul Finkelman
>
>David E. Bernstein
>Visiting Professor
>University of Michigan School of Law
>Professor
>George Mason University School of Law
>http://mason.gmu.edu/~dbernste
>
>
>
>
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