Krauthammer lies, oversimplifies

Charles Krauthammer, in typical right-wing fashion, offers a ludicrous oversimplification of the same-sex marriage debate.

Pushing the "activist judges" meme of which conservatives have grown so fond (Bush repeated the phrase about a thousand times during his speech on Monday), Krauthammer indicts what he and other conservatives have characterized as the relentless spread of gay marriage across the country:

Most notoriously, in Massachusetts a total of four judges out of seven decided that the time had come for gay marriage. More recently, in Georgia and Nebraska, judges have overturned (state) constitutional amendments banning gay marriage that had passed with more than 70 percent of the vote.

In fact, this is not what happened. The justices did not capriciously decide that "the time had come" for men to marry men and women to marry women. The court did what courts do. It interpreted a law with respect to precedent and to the constitution.

In ruling on a challenge to a state law deying same-sex couples the right to enter into civil marriage contracts, the Massachusetts Supreme Court determined that the prohibition was unconstitutional.

In their complaint the plaintiffs request only a declaration that their exclusion and the exclusion of other qualified same-sex couples from access to civil marriage violates Massachusetts law. We declare that barring an individual from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution.

Conservative demagoguery relies upon the creation of scapegoats and boogeymen. It has been this way throughout American history. So-called activist judges join the sad fraternity which includes Spaniards, blacks, feminists, gays and liberals, among others. This tactic reeks of desperation, as such contrivances always do.

Conservatives cannot muster a single rational argument as to why gays and lesbians should be denied the right to enter into civil marriage. Marriage is, after all, just a contract. If a gay woman can lease a car, by what right does the state forbid her to get married?

The complete lack of an intellectual basis for their opposition to same-sex civil marriage leads conservatives to argue around the subject, rather than the subject itself. It was laughable to hear participants at Monday's Alliance for Marriage press conference claim that banning gay marriage was the key to keeping heterosexual fathers from abandoning their families. When asked how, exactly, such a ban would accomplish that, they literally had no answer.

Conservatives invoke tradition in their arguments against same-sex marriage. They say marriage should always be what it has always been. But, the "definition" of marriage has been evolving throughout its existence. It was once nothing more than a financial arrangement between families, in which a girl of child-bearing age was bartered into domestic servitude. There are, no doubt, many conservatives who believe the restoration of that tradition is long overdue. We must agree to disagree.

The slippery-slope argument is always part of any debate with conservatives. If a man can marry a man, they ask, then what is to stop another man from marrying two women? I don't know. I'm not entirely convinced that he shouldn't be allowed to do so, as long as the women have reached the age of consent and don't mind sharing.

If a man can marry a man, conservatives hiss, what is to stop another man from marrying a dog? As I explained earlier, civil marriage is a contract. Dogs don't have the legal standing to enter into contracts. Therefore, a man and a dog cannot get married.

The majority of Americans oppose gay marriage, conservatives howl, therefore we must amend the constitution to prohibit any state from making it legal. Well, the majority of Americans once agreed that interracial marriage was akin to bestiality. That argument began to lose currency once the law deigned to recognize black people as fully human. Today, mixed couples can go out to dinner together without being killed by angry mobs. Oh, sweet freedom!

History has proven conservatives wrong in every social justice debate this country has ever had. Conservatives always resist change. It is what makes them conservatives. They resist progress because it is progress. There is no more substance to their argument against same-sex marriage than there was to their argument against allowing women to vote.

To his meager credit, Krauthammer does express disapproval of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. However, he cannot do so without demonizing judges who have found within their state constitutions no basis for making gays and lesbians second-class citizens. And, while he blanches, for now, at the thought of amending the U.S. constitution for this purpose, he encourages the people of Massachusetts to do so on the state level.

Typical.