From a blogger’s perspective, the one good result in the wake of the defeat of marital equality is the wealth of opportunity. There are so many possible angles just begging to be explored.
Some gay activists are now busy outing an allegedly gay State Senator who voted against marital equality. This has proven problematic in that though there have been many who have been “reamed” by the character in question, most of that activity seems to have taken place in a political context rather than a “romantic” one.
And even among those who’ve engaged in “romantic” liaisons with the pol in question, there is apparently not one person who isn’t too embarrassed to admit to it.
And that was before he cast his vote.
By my count, there are at least three gay members of the Senate who voted against expanding their own rights, possibly because they themselves would never have had the opportunity to use them.
As one wag told me, “we’ve gone from three men in a room to three men in a closet.”
Three men in a closet.
I will not name names, because I do not have the moral standing to do so, and because even though they may deserve it, I still find it distasteful. But they know who they are. They are cowards, whose lust for power apparently exceeds their power for lust. Cowards who are amigos in Lark Street bars, but enemies on the Senate floor. Cowards who tremble in secret at the thought of doing the right thing, and then tremble publicly in the act of doing the wrong one. Cowards who gladly take the Greek position, but bear no gifts.
The LGBT community was not only betrayed by some of their own, it was perhaps also let down by those who tried to help them.
An intercept from a former Senate Democratic Leader to a former colleague sums it up:
I understand the end result of the vote. If something as risky for some members as marriage equality is going down, members will vote no. But, please tell me leadership tried the trusty old way of dealing with it (like the decriminalization of pot and a couple dozen other votes I saw or supervised over the years). Leaders of both parties compile the list of members willing to vote yes only if it will pass. These members are gathered in a room off the floor. After the first run of the roll call, the arithmetic is done and the shaky members are marched in virtually holding hands to get to the magic number. Please tell me someone knew at least to try this?
Jim Alessi never should have been called in alpha order, nor should have Addabbo.
Later, in a more reflective mood, he told me:
Perhaps a problem with my strategy in today's Senate: it requires members to trust the leaders and the leaders to trust and respect each other—that if it goes bad (the vote) no one gives up the names of the members who were held out—although in the past we could figure out what was happening when the late-comers walked in, no one could prove a thing.
The inside Senate Dem answer to my inquiry seeking a response was that the fact that Addabbo was on the floor to vote first was testament to the reality that they lacked the votes and that they knew it. In fact, I was told that Mike Long had told Dean Skelos that any Republican who supported same-sex marriage would be denied the Conservative line, and that if the bill managed to pass because of Republican votes, all the Senate Republicans would be denied the line.
At first, no one thought Long was crazy enough to sink the entire ship to prove his point.
Then came Scozzafava, and now they believe.
My source added that the advocates were given the choice of pulling the bill, or going to a vote and losing; they chose the latter, it perhaps not having been made crystal clear that once the vote was a sure loser, supporters were going to be able to vote their districts rather than their consciences. I don’t think it was understood that if they were losing, they were losing big.
So now, where do we go from here?
Although I said most of what follows before, it now bears repeating.
As I said months ago, it is clear that society has evolved in such a manner where, to service the needs of families as they exist today, we must alter the laws to allow same-sex couples to avail themselves of the same bundle of rights, responsibilities, rebutable presumptions, tax benefits and tax penalties we afford to heterosexual couples who make the choice; to wit, the imperfect institution of marriage.
The important thing is that the ability to elect to live under such rules exists; I could care less what it is called, but am sympathetic to those who feel strongly that calling it by a name other than what it is, is, in effect, discriminatory. Thus, while, in an ideal world, I'd prefer that same sex marriage be called "marriage", I think that the rights of these families being protected is such an imperative moral obligation that "gay marriage" advocates should be prepared, if necessary, to sacrifice the name "marriage" if it will get the affected families the rights they should be allowed to avail themselves of.
I am aware that the Federal government recognizes only marriage, and not civil unions, so the argument can be made that only “marriage” will allow same sex couples to fully avail themselves of their rights . I would find this argument a compelling one–if not for the existence of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibits federal recognition of either sort of same sex union.
Moreover, while it seems clear that a strong effort will be made to amend DOMA, odds are high that if such legislation encompasses Federal recognition of same sex unions, it will encompass both kinds and call them all “Civil Unions“ (and the pressure for encompassing both kinds will come from both conservatives hoping not to further encourage passage of same-sex “marriage” legislation and liberals seeking to protect the maximum number of same sex couples).
I also think that society evolves over time, and that the state by state recognition of either kind of same-sex union, either through the passage of legislation, or by judicial fiat, will ultimately aide in the evolution of attitudes necessary to change the state by state snowball effect into a gradual avalanche. Each new step builds upon the next, making the next easier, in much the way that Lyndon Johnson anticipated when he steered the toothless 1957 Civil Rights Act through the US Senate, while ever lying in wait for the next opportunity to present itself, as it eventually did with the Kennedy assassination, and meanwhile manipulating events behind the scenes to set the stage for the eventual triumph of decency .
As such, a victory of this nature would serve the multiple purposes of improving people’s rights in the immediate term, while creating momentum for more change and gradually changing the attitudes of society through evolution and attrition
A lot of supporters of gay marriage belittle this sort of strategy, but I will note that Vermont, the first state to implement same-sex marriage through legislation, first spent several years with a law permitting same sex civil unions, which probably served to gradually ease the way for the new law. However, initially, even the legislation creating civil union was passed over great resistance. Now after its few years of existence, supporters of the concept include the Reverend Rick Warren, Ultra-Orthodox City Councilman Simcha Felder, Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and several members of the New York State Senate of both parties who yesterday voted against marital equality. .
As I’ve also noted, in the long run, the fight to stop same-sex marriage is probably doomed. The foundations of this sort of cultural conservatism are crumbling as we speak. My six year old son already believes that gay couples can get married, because he’s seen two-mommy and two-daddy families in his religious-based nursery school, as well as at the public school he now attends. In Brownstone Brooklyn, children have even seen same-sex parent families in the Orthodox Jewish nursery schools. As a leading Evangelical, Richard Cizik, recently noted, about four in ten Evangelical Christians have an LGTB friend or family member. Another generation and what so many fear so much will amount to oh so little.
But, the long run can take a long time, and families headed by same sex couples don‘t live in the long run–they live today in the here and now. Legal normalization of same sex relationships, by whatever name one calls it, not only protects the interests of those families, but will inevitably lead, over time, to the last barrier falling as well.
I understand the counter argument–that passing anything short of “marriage” will only undermine and delay the fall of the last barrier. I think Vermont proves that logic wrong.
Tom Duane and Danny O’Donnell deserved the opportunity to prove otherwise and go for all the marbles. Moreover, their constituency would settle for nothing less than a vote on the record, even without a guarantee of success, despite the quiet understanding among much of the state’s gay political leadership that this was not necessarily the best strategy for eventual victory. I think it was understood that a majority of the State’s gay community was willing to entail the sacrifice that forsaking the much easier victory would entail.
So what now?
We’ve now had the up or down vote and marital equality lost.
It is now time to call the bluffs of those like John Flanagan, Jim Alessi and Bill Stachowski who say they support civil unions (and those who, like Joe Robach, would be hard-pressed not to) and pass a civil union bill. The up or down vote on marriage has given Duane and O'Donnell the cover they need to now pursue civil unions, and civil unions would afford their constituency as many substantive rights as they are going to get until DOMA is amended (and probably even afterwards), while also creating momentum for more change and helping to gradually change the attitudes of society through evolution and attrition.
In fact, passage last month of a Washington state referendum allowing same sex couples every “marital” right but the use of the word itself, was spun by LGBT political advocates reeling from of the defeat of same-sex marriage in Maine, as a great victory for the LGBT community. And in a way, for the folks who reaped the benefits, it was.
Why not go for such a great victory in New York?