Same-Sex Marriage
I am in favor of same-sex marriage. I don't just tolerate it; I think anyone should be able to marry.
And I think that the opposition of religious groups supports my view. In a country that cannot and should not ever have an official religion, the opposition of a religious group is an impermissible attempt by a faction (more on that later) to impose its views on others.
There's a theme here.
The First Amendment says that:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
While President Bush says:
The sacred institution of marriage should not be redefined by a few activist judges...I called on the Congress to pass an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of a man and a woman as husband and wife. The need for that amendment is still urgent, and I repeat that call today.
Neither should an activist President, or an activist Congress, make such definitions.
Don't believe me? See Federalist No. 10, at
Yale Law School's Avalon Project:
Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.
Factions are bad, because they result in the imposition of majority rule over the rights of minorities. If a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage passes, the measure will be decided by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.
If you find my argument interesting, you'll like Paul Kurtz's article "Two Competing Moralities: The Principles of Fairness contra 'Gott Mit Uns!'" in Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 24, Number 4. Kurtz says that the dispute between ideas of marriage is a battle of conflicting moralities, and that the morality that would ban same-sex marriage is based on Biblical inerrancy and xenophobia rather than science and fairness.
Which is a good segue into part two of this post.
The Jewish "View" of Same-Sex Marriage
I'm Jewish. There are Jewish authorities on both sides of same-sex marriage, from
"Same-Sex Marriage, In The Jewish Tradition" by Rabbi David Ellenson, president of the Reform seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, to
"Orthodox Response to Same-Sex Marriage" by Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, Executive Vice President of the Orthodox Union, the umbrella organization of Modern Orthodox Judaism.
I agree with Rabbi Ellenson, but Rabbi Weinreb makes a point that actually supports my position:
We can also debate the wisdom of a constitutional amendment defining marriage. It can be argued that any tampering with the U.S. Constitution, a document that arguably has done more for the Jewish people than any other secular document in historical memory, is a risky proposition. However, whatever your position on the constitutional amendment, the inclusion of same-sex relationships in the definition of marriage is something that any Jew of conscience should oppose.
So Rabbi Weinreb is saying that Jews should all oppose same-sex marriage, but should also maybe oppose a Constitutional amendment because of the beneficial effects on Jews in the United States. Because of the Constitution and the First Amendment, in the U.S., the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority -- which has not favored the Jewish people over the last three thousand years -- has been restrained from acting through the organs of government. Goverment-sanctioned antisemitism has been the Jewish experience. And because the government has been so restrained(*), Jews and Judaism have flourished in the United States since its founding, and we have reciprocated (cf. Haym Salomon). This supports Publius's point.
Anyway, this entry has been stewing long enough -- (past) time to release it to the world.
Extra Credit: there's an excellent documentary about Jewish gays and lesbians -- Orthodox gays and lesbians, that is -- called Trembling Before G-d. I recommend it highly.
*.See Justice Louis D. Brandeis's dissent in Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928):
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.
Stop the Surveillance Bills!
