In debate over gay marriage, friends and foes need one another
Published: November 26, 2009
Updated: November 26, 2009
Same-sex marriage advances in one region, then retreats in another, making the United States a two-nation nation on this issue – now and for years to come. Advocates on both sides are in the majority somewhere, but in the minority somewhere else.
That’s why two church-state encounters this month, in two very different parts of the country, are instructive reminders that in a deeply divided society winners are very unlikely to take all.
First in Utah, where the Mormon Church – the dominant faith in the state with considerable religious and political influence – announced support for gay-rights legislation before the city council in Salt Lake City. After the church’s endorsement, laws banning discrimination against gays in unemployment and housing passed the council unanimously on Nov. 10.
Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., the Roman Catholic Church is asking for more religious accommodation in a proposed law legalizing same-sex marriage that’s expected to pass the city council in the next few weeks. Although the current bill has language ensuring that religious groups would not be required to perform same-sex weddings (actually, a legal redundancy, because such coercion is already unconstitutional), the church says that is not enough.
Catholic leaders argue that once gay marriage is legal, Catholic social-service providers with city contracts would be required to violate church teachings by, for example, extending employee benefits to gay married couples.
Taken together, these developments in Utah and the District of Columbia are a reminder that friends and foes of gay marriage need one another. In regions of the country with gay marriage – or trending that way – conservative religious groups need gay-rights supporters to enact protections for religious conscience. And in regions with constitutional bans on gay marriage, gay-rights advocates need conservative religious groups to support nondiscrimination laws that include sexual orientation.
Judging from the new legislation in Salt Lake City, we can say Mormon leaders appear to understand the need for give and take. While not retreating from its opposition to gay marriage, the church has reached out to support gay rights in a state where Mormons are in the vast majority. It remains to be seen whether D.C. city leaders will be as accommodating in the other direction. Public statements from city council members – proponents of gay marriage – suggest that most of the council is not interested in broadening religious exemptions in the proposed law.
However difficult it may be to bridge the divide, a good-faith attempt to find some common ground would be in everyone’s best interest. Losing the social services provided by the Catholic Church would be disastrous for thousands of Washington’s poor, including the third of the city’s homeless population now served by Catholic Charities.
As Americans continue to confront the tensions between gay rights and religious liberty in communities across the country, we might want to keep in mind the admonition of Roger Williams to his Puritan opponent John Cotton more than 300 years ago: Those who are at the helm should remember what it was like to be in the hatches.
As friends and foes of gay marriage will soon discover, how we treat others where we are in the majority may well determine how we are treated where we are in the minority.
Haynes is senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Washington, D.C.
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Reader Reactions
OW, holding the same degrees as someone else does not mean you know how to conduct a scientific study.
The way you do these things is guided by procedure and process. You just aren’t getting it. You don’t get away with just publishing a “study” or a “trial” and spouting an opinion. That’s why they have peer reviews. I pointed out these guys have never actually been through a peer review and they tried to get some legitimacy by making their own journal and reviewing themselves. You keep ignoring that little tidbit. They know their stuff is weak. You however, just want to be a believer.
Your AMA analogy is ilogical and really only an attemt to divert from the weak practices of the NARTH “scientists”. AMA falls under the same guideleines for peer review as any other group of that type. Opinions are one thing, but the scientific types will make you back it up.
Brian, thank you for your 7:40 PM post (and others). Note, the cite I gave in my 12/09/09 3:50 PM post is dated 12/08/09 (yesterday:one day old). Her cite to me was “last edited” 11/24/07. The Supreme Court ruling overturning all consensual noncommercial state sodomy laws in the USA was on 11/26/03. She says that “Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahome,[sic] and the Military still attempt to enforce the laws they have kept on the books.” As of yesterday only Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas had sodomy laws on their books. I don’t think she has a notion of how many antiquated laws are “still on the books” everywhere. However, typically, she cites nothing to support another of her absurd claims.
She claims that during the slave trade (about 1450-1760) most of Africa was a wild jungle, and tribal like place. So was the Americas where most slaves were sold; 95% in other than North America such as Brazil, the Caribbean, and the Spanish Empire. She says the slaves were happier being slaves than they would be if free. What science supports that belief?
She claims that “gay science doesn’t use real science.” I’ve never heard of “gay science,” have you? The more she writes about science and many other things, the clearer it becomes that she doesn’t have a clue what she is writing about.
Read her diatribe, carefully. It is ignorant. It is irrational. It makes no sense. She is a flat earther. How can anyone debate such a person?
And, she still doesn’t comprehend that Virginians can not vote to give or take anyone’s rights. She has “much assurance” that they will. Case closed.
Welcome to Culpeper. Having lived here for over 35 years I can tell you it has and is changing.
Brian, I read the ruling. It was not the ruling I was defending or trying to use on a case. It was my statement that there are still laws on the some states books that say it is a crime to commit sodomy that I was defending. And it is still true. Though the ruling by the Supreme Court would make them unenforceable, they have still not been repealed.
We all have our rights to believe what we want, and the right to vote accordingly is the most important. And I can write with much assurance that it will be a cold day in you know where before Virginians give gay people the right to marry.
You are really not making any point OrdinaryWoman. Any good prosecutor should already know of Lawrence v. Texas. That prosecutor would not even go after consenting gay individuals because they would already know that an attorney like me would bring it up and the case would be dismissed. To date I have not met one judge who ever ruled against a Supreme Court decision I used in the courtroom. How much time have you spent in a courtroom? I would like to know.
It takes more than just Googling for information. Individual states and their courts to include local courts within can’t rule above the Supreme Court. Your case isn’t even weak if you get what I mean.
I have said enough. Opa continues to do an excellent job as usual. I am not gay but I support all human beings having rights regardless of their religious beliefs or sexual orientation. You don’t have to but I do.
Opa is correct OrdinaryWoman. Lawrence v. Texas invalidated all state laws on consentual Sodomy. There are no states that make it illegal if consentual. You should check out the court ruling. Everything Opa stated is correct.
OrdinaryWoman here is the current law on Sodomy in the Commonwealth:
18.2-67.1. Forcible sodomy.
A. An accused shall be guilty of forcible sodomy if he or she engages in cunnilingus, fellatio, anilingus, or anal intercourse with a complaining witness whether or not his or her spouse, or causes a complaining witness, whether or not his or her spouse, to engage in such acts with any other person, and
1. The complaining witness is less than 13 years of age, or
2. The act is accomplished against the will of the complaining witness, by force, threat or intimidation of or against the complaining witness or another person, or through the use of the complaining witness’s mental incapacity or physical helplessness.
You are completely wrong on Sodomy being illegal. Read code and check out the word “forced” when you do. The age and the rest explain. Two consenting persons such as adults does not make it illegal. This is the law and does not support what you claim.
Here Opa, since you can’t dig for yourself, http://www.sodomylaws.org/
Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahome, and the Military still attempt to enforce the laws they have kept on the books.
Now, since I don’t want to say I told you so, as I like people to take each other for their word, and then if they don’t believe or like something someone said, then research it for yourself. It’s just SO EASY to find, that I find it childish that you constantly ask for cites. Unless, we are all just helping you do your homework cause you’re too lazy?
OPA, as far as the sodomy laws that are still on the books in some states today, just google it. I didn’t say they are actively pursued in a court of law, but then again, you have that same comprehension problem ELD has had in the past. The Supreme courts decision for the Texas case may have “effectively” invalidated state laws by making them hard to prosecute, but the laws are still on the books in some states, with Missouri being one that waited 3 years after this 2003 ruling to repeal their sodomy laws. (Personally, I don’t think we need our laws involved in that much privacy between consenting adults, my only beef is with same sex marriages giving any more rights to people just because of the way they choose to have sex does not constitute a marriage right).
Actually, ELD, I agree with you on the later part of your post directed specifically to me. It’s just the plain and simple truth. Though I don’t believe in slavery, the history is correct in that most of Africa was a wild jungle, and tribal like place, and white people did not have to leave the shores when picking up and paying for the slaves brought to them by their own people, or by a rival clan. And many are better off today because they were brought elsewhere. That’s just the facts. Many were treated far better as slaves then they would have been if they stayed behind in Africa. But many were not, and the belief of slavery is simply wrong, as neither of us dispute that.
Darwin is in a special group, because he truly believed they were not yet “evolved”, and because the blacks were way down on the totem pole in his mind, they were simply going to be naturally wiped out by a superior race…which of course, was us white people. Darwin cannot be compared to the tribal people selling off rival people for a buck.
Today, Afghanistan’s 93% gdp depends on opium sales. And without Americans buying it, they would stop making it and thus be even poorer. That doesn’t justify neither the sales of opium nor Americans for buying it.
NARTH writers and therapist hold all the same credentials, and some more then the average APA members. No different then when you look at the AMA members, who only account for less then 30% of all American doctors. So when they say they support something, big deal, they are not speaking for the majority.
Gay science doesn’t use real science. And what they do use, don’t hold water when other questions are asked and other answers are found when doing the same experiment. They’d like it to, but it don’t. And beings NARTH has helped thousands “come out straight”, vs the APA just telling them they’re ok; well that’s easy huh? If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Like I’ve said many, many times, if the majority of people believed in it, they would not be still fighting for rights they’re never going to get in every state.
OrdinaryWoman, you say, “sodomy laws are still on many state books.” Can you cite your source? Sodomy laws “have been invalidated by the 2003 Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas. On June 26, 2003, the US Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision struck down the Texas same-sex sodomy law, ruling that this private sexual conduct is protected by the liberty rights implicit in the due process clause of the United States Constitution. This decision invalidated all state sodomy laws insofar as they applied to noncommercial conduct in private between consenting civilian adults. Before that 2003 ruling, 27 states, the District of Columbia and 4 territories had repealed their sodomy laws by legislative action, 9 states had had them overturned or invalidated by state court action, 4 states still had same-sex laws, and 10 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. military had laws applying to all regardless of gender. In 2005 Puerto Rico repealed the sodomy law and in 2006 Missouri legislatures decided to repeal the anti-homosexual “conduct” laws - leaving only three states yet to repeal anti-homosexual “conduct” laws: Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas.” (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States). Pedophiles have no rights to commit pedophilia. Gays do have rights that “they are gaining” because laws can not deprive people of their rights.
El Debibble, thanks for your 2:12 PM post. I had taken a nap and you saved me a bunch of work. NARTH is what fits OrdinaryWoman’s definition of “junk science” although she readily accepts it as science. (See http://www.truthwinsout.org/narth/ ) “Major organizations that reject therapy to change sexual orientation include the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Counseling Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association of School Administrators, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Association of School Psychologists, and the National Education Association. NARTH’s leaders reject these claims, arguing that the psychological and psychiatric professional associations have become little more than the research arms of the gay rights movement.” (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_for_Research_&_Therapy_of_Homosexuality#Affiliations) I find it interesting that NARTH describes itself as “NARTH upholds the rights of individuals with unwanted homosexual attraction to receive effective psychological care, and the right of professionals to offer that care.”
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