Posted by Dale Carpenter:
Republican mayor says "I Do" to SSM:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_09_16-2007_09_22.shtml#1190249963
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican, announced today that he's
changed his mind and now supports gay marriage:
· I am here this afternoon to announce that I will sign the
resolution that the City Council passed yesterday directing the
City Attorney to file a brief in support of gay marriage.
· My plan, as has been reported publicly, was to veto that
resolution, so I feel like I owe all San Diegans an explanation for
this change of heart.
· During the campaign two years ago, I announced that I did not
support gay marriage and instead supported civil unions and
domestic partnerships.
· I have personally wrestled with that position ever since. My
opinion on this issue has evolved significantly -- as I think have
the opinions of millions of Americans from all walks of life.
· In order to be consistent with the position I took during the
mayoral election, I intended to veto the Council resolution. As
late as yesterday afternoon, that was my position.
· The arrival of the resolution -- to sign or veto -- in my office
late last night forced me to reflect and search my soul for the
right thing to do. . . .
· As I reflected on the choices that I had before me last night, I
just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people in
our community that they were less important, less worthy and less
deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage -- than
anyone else -- simply because of their sexual orientation. . . .
· I do believe that times have changed. And with changing time,
and new life experiences, come different opinions. I think that's
natural, and certainly it is true in my case. . . .
· I have close family members and friends who are members of the
gay and lesbian community. These folks include my daughter Lisa and
her partner, as well as members of my personal staff.
· I want for them the same thing that we all want for our loved
ones -- for each of them to find a mate whom they love deeply and
who loves them back; someone with whom they can grow old together
and share life's wondrous adventures.
· And I want their relationships to be protected equally under the
law. In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell
them that their relationships -- their very lives -- were any less
meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife Rana.
[Thanks to [1]journalist Rex Wockner for providing the text of the
mayor's message.]
Leave aside for now the merits of the California marriage litigation
San Diego will now support. Leave aside also the tactical question
whether a pro-gay marriage ruling from the California Supreme Court
would be worth the risk of a backlash producing a state constitutional
amendment banning both gay marriage and civil unions.
A couple of things in the mayor's statement really stand out. First,
he is willing to reconsider his views about even fundamental matters
in light of experience, and allow those views to evolve and adapt over
time. It's obvious that Smith's personal experience with gay people
among his friends, staff, and family has had a deep effect on his view
about marriage. He no longer sees gay marriage as alien to marriage
because he has seen gay relationships up close. Second, in light of
his experience, Smith sees no meaningful distinction between his own
marriage and the relationships gay people form.
Years ago, Michael Sandel distinguished liberal toleration from moral
argument. Mayor Smith's claims are not liberal arguments for
toleration of nasty behavior. They are substantive and highly
contested claims about the good of lasting homosexual relationships.
They do not argue for some formal "equality" or abstract "liberty" by
trying to bracket the question whether homosexual acts are immoral;
instead, they confront the moral objection to homosexuality itself.
Liberal toleration was sufficient to convince Americans (including
their courts) to do away with stigmatizing and pointless sodomy laws.
That's why the laws could be eliminated in a country in which the
majority of the population still viewed homosexual acts as immoral.
Doing so simply signaled tolerance. Liberal tolerance might even be
enough to sustain support for civil unions.
But allowing gay marriage goes further because it affixes a stamp of
approval. The most committed opponents of gay marriage understand
this, and that's precisely why they oppose it. Maggie Gallagher once
said that losing on gay marriage means "losing American civilization."
Losing gay marriage for Gallagher and others means not just losing on
some words in the family code or on some abstract debate over how to
define fundamental rights. It means losing a world-view. The advantage
they have in public debate is that they address the moral questions
that matter to people, while gay marriage supporters are trained to
recite the oath to liberal tolerance: "The government should not
legislate morality." That line worked with sodomy laws but it won't
work with marriage. Americans understand marriage itself to "legislate
morality," so arguing amorally for gay marriage is like arguing for
touchdowns in a baseball game.
It's possible for those with moral objections to homosexual acts to
support gay marriage as good policy. But for most Americans,
supporting gay marriage will mean seeing it and the love of gay
couples it memorializes as good things, as moral things, not as merely
neutral things, and certainly not as distasteful things we must abide
as the price of preserving individual liberty and pluralism. They will
have to cross the gap between tolerance and acceptance, which one
Republican mayor has now done.
References
1.
http://wockner.blogspot.com/2007/09/republican-san-diego-mayor-embraces.html
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