Why same-sex marriage isn't for the majority, or the states, to decide
A pop quiz this Friday: How many advances in U.S. civil rights came about because a majority voted for them? How many happened because states were allowed to decide for themselves? And how many -- if any -- came about because of constitutional amendments? And a special bonus question that I can't answer, but maybe you can: why aren't any journalists asking or answering those same questions?
Let's look at that another way: did a majority of voters in either the U.S. or Alabama decide that Rosa Parks should be allowed to sit in the front of the bus if she wanted? Or did that happen because Alabama was allowed to segregate public transit within its borders, without interference from the federal government? Did separate schools for white students and black students become extinct because of a referendum? Did couples of not only different genders, but different races, win the right to marry because their neighbors went to the polls and declared it OK?
Even in a democracy, the majority doesn't always get to decide. And rights issues are usually decided not by opinion polls or referenda, but by courts. Anybody with a high-school diploma ought to know that. But when politicians are interviewed on the subject of equal marriage rights, a lot of them keep talking about how the voters have to decide whether to allow same-sex marriage. So far, all the reporters just nod silently and then go on to the next interviewee, who generally says something about how it should be up to the states.
Since nobody else is asking this important follow-up question, I will: Sen. Kerry, you say you are opposed to same-sex marriage personally, but you say you believe the states should decide. I hope I'm summarizing your position accurately. Mr. Kerry, as you know, your own wife was born outside the United States, though she has made her home here and contributed a great deal to her adopted country. Are you aware, Mr. Kerry, that currently only the partners of heterosexuals are allowed to live here? Heterosexuals who don't have partners are even allowed to import complete strangers and marry them. Do you realize that even if every state in the union allowed same-sex marriages, that would still be the case? Why do you believe such discrimination is appropriate? And Mr. Edwards, Mr. Bush, and all you other candidates, please feel free to answer this question also.
And when you answer that question, gentlemen, please address it not just to me, but to people like my friends Jennifer and Zlata, who live in a small town in the Czech Republic. Jennifer is an aeronautical engineer, and had a great career in her home state of Texas. She met Zlata, a teacher, on an educational exchange, and the two fell in love and have now been together for more than a decade. In order for that to happen, Jennifer had to move to the Czech Republic, because Zlata wasn't allowed to move to the U.S. She might have been able to manage a visa for herself, but Zlata also has three children. Four visas, three of them for children, were out of the question. So Jennifer gave up her career as an engineer and became a teacher of English as a Foreign Language in Zlata's home town, working for less than 10 percent of what she earned in Texas.
Mr. Bush, you've come out in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Do you believe it's right for Jennifer to have to live abroad in order to be with her life partner? Do you believe that if the amendment is adopted, Jennifer will leave Zlata and come home to marry a man? For that matter, do you believe that proposed amendment will cause anyone in a same-sex relationship anywhere to trade their partner for one of the opposite gender?
Those of you who say it should be up to "the majority" and not the courts: why should this civil rights issue be decided differently? Is it because some people don't approve of homosexuality? In 1967, the same year the Supreme Court threw out anti-miscegenation laws that prohibited mixed-race marriages, the nation was shocked by a movie on that subject:
SAN FRANCISCO -- Chaos was the order of the day as thousands of married heterosexuals left their spouses in order to take advantage of this city's controversial new policy of allowing same-sex marriages. Wives and mothers left their suburban families sitting at the dinner table hungry as they threw down their aprons and ran off to elope with their girlfriends. Meanwhile, hundreds of husbands and fathers all over the nation called to leave messages for their wives as they gathered hand-in-hand with their beer buddies to stand in line at city hall for their chance to exchange rings and kisses.
"We knew this would happen as soon as same-sex marriages were allowed anywhere in the nation," religious conservatives announced at press conferences in major cities. "It was clear to us experts for a long time that equal marriage rights would destroy marriages and families everywhere, because obviously the laws allowing only opposite-sex couples to marry were the only thing keeping these individuals in their heterosexual unions."
"Hi, Honey," one groom-to-be shouted happily as the television cameras focused on him and his fiance. "It's been a great 15 years, but now that I'm allowed to marry a guy, it's over between us. I'm sure you understand, and hey, give my best to the kids!"
Didn't happen; ain't gonna happen. If there is an existing healthy heterosexual marriage, or even a salvageable heterosexual marriage, anywhere in this nation that is the least bit threatened by equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, it sure hasn't made the news: not before the current titular head of the Party of Lincoln announced that he wants to write bias into the Constitution, not after, either.
And even before the first 24-hour news cycle was up, the media machine was already getting bored with the constitutional amendment story: those things aren't easy to get approved, as correspondents pointed out as soon as Mr. Bush announced his pre-emptive plan to ensure that only some will have equal protection under the law.
So what was that all about? Did Republican strategists become concerned that their party's most conservative voters might stray -- and vote for Kerry or Nader -- if Bush didn't take a hardline stand against gay marriage? Or did they take a look at the latest poll numbers and conclude that their man could win without the support of gay and lesbian Republicans, or gay and lesbian swing voters, or even just conservative voters who don't believe the Constitution needs a rewrite, period, let alone the first rewrite that would take away rights? Bush lost a LOT of votes in throwing his support behind the homophobia amendment. Did he gain any votes anywhere, and if so, which candidate were those voters considering supporting?
I believe it was an act of desperation. As Bush himself explained yesterday, "There is no assurance that the Defense of Marriage Act will not itself be struck down." Nor is there assurance that it will be, but if it is, then Bush can tell his conservative followers that he tried his best. Except -- couldn't he have told them that anyway?
¶ 5:51 PM(0) comments |
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Lord of the Hats in the Ring?
He's annoying at any speed...but there IS a way candidate Nader can further his cause, and the Democrats', too
The fact that Ralph Nader is so persistently and profoundly right doesn't make him the least bit less annoying, and it doesn't seem to matter much whether you agree or disagree with what he has to say. Not that he's ever seemed to care all that much about being liked, of course: gadflies usually don't. But politicians have to. Just weeks ago, every Democratic presidential candidate who received even one percent of the vote was declaring himself a winner, of sorts -- at least Mom was proud of him. Now that all those guys have decided against seeking similar victories and gone back home, along comes Nader to tell us that if he can participate in the debate and get his message out, he'll be a winner, too -- we'll all be winners! Rejoice! But this is a presidential election, not a contest for a European parliamentary seat. Over there, the Extremo Christian Democratic Alliance or the Friends of Beer Party or the Reformed Peasants Coalition or even the Unreformed Working Girls Union might be able to pull together enough votes to get a seat for a single one of their members, just so as to have a voice in a parliamentary system, albeit a lone one crying out in the wilderness. Here, the Ralph Party would have to win a seat behind the desk in the Oval Office in order to win anything at all. And as we were reminded just four years ago, even winning a majority of the popular vote isn't enough: you have to have the all-or-nothing electoral votes of each state, and if there's a dispute about that then you'd best have a majority on the Supreme Court. Nader has always seemed like a pretty smart guy, but his deciding to run this year kind of makes me wonder if he's the kind of person who figures that if the lotto jackpot is at a record high and record numbers of tickets are being sold, his chances of winning must be better than ever.
So far, he has won something valuable indeed: time on television, more than 24 hours of it since he announced his candidacy on Meet the Press Sunday morning (remember when "the Press" on Meet the Press was more than one person?). And he has spent that time wisely, using his turn to talk* to focus on real and important issues and point out what he sees as the shortcomings of both parties, particularly the one now controlling the White House, the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, etc. As I listened to him go through his talking points all day yesterday, I kept thinking of his previous round of television interviews a few months ago, in which he responded to all inquiries about whether he would run by pointing out that he was supporting Dennis Kucinich. And I began to perceive a scenario in which candidate Ralph could do some good in this race after all.
If if if if if he were pure of heart like Frodo the hobbit -- well, if he were then he wouldn't be running for office, but just hypothetically, then Ralph could help rid the world of some of the evils he keeps telling us about. All he needs to do is carry the hat he's just tossed into the ring all the way into the mouth of the volcano. It will be an arduous journey over many months and many obstacles, pressing flesh and, if not kissing babies, then at least lecturing them on the importance of wearing seat belts, or the perils of corporate influences in politics. As an independent, he must go it alone, learning to shout above everyone else on cable news shows. Every time a reporter asks him a question, he can use his turn to talk, knowing that he has to be in the race and stay in it in order for the reporters to keep asking him those questions so that he can talk, and so on until, say, long about Labor Day. At that point, end of September at the latest, our long shot candidate would have to be strong enough to do what he must: toss that hat into the fires of Mt. Doom and urge his supporters to support the Democratic nominee.
Can he do it? Would he? That depends on which Ralph Nader we're dealing with here, because this Frodo is also part Gollum. There's the Ralph Nader who campaigned for car safety in the 60s and warns us about genetically engineered food in the 21st Century and who makes a whole lot of sense when he talks about what's wrong with our political system. There's also the Ralph Nader who thinks he can change that system by running for a position he can't possibly win, and who seems to get not just annoying but annoyed whenever anyone points out how pointless that is.
Ralph, if you really want to help us graduate from the Electoral College, if you really want smaller parties to have an influence in our nation's politics, then you know damn well that's not going to happen in an election year, and certainly not during a campaign. If you want it to happen, start working on it: after the election. Meanwhile, keep taking advantage of your turn to talk.
*When a reporter asks a politician a question -- any reporter, any politician, any question, anytime, anywhere -- it means only one thing: it's the politician's turn to talk.
¶ 5:45 PM(0) comments |
What's a Second-Day Lede?
"Second-day lede" is journalistic jargon for putting a new spin on a story for a second or subsequent news cycle. A 'lede" is the lead sentence of an article, deliberately misspelled to make it more easily recognizable as jargon. Once upon a time, news moved in daily cycles, but now it has become a constant flow of rewrites and "second-day ledes."
Second-Day Lede is also the name of this blog, where you'll find commentary on the news, and especially on the industry that cultivates, harvests, processes, packages, distributes and delivers it to us.
A veteran of more news cycles than she'd care to admit, Janet Dagley Dagley entered the profession of journalism at the age of 17, covering local government meetings at night for the Dayton Daily News in Ohio, later moving on to the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition). Over the years she has worked as a freelance writer, editor, and radio producer in the U.S. and Europe. Although she has won numerous awards, she lost both times major metropolitan dailies submitted her work for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing, and also lost on Jeopardy! (though she did win a trip to Hawaii). Most recently, she was editor of AIRSPACE, the journal of the Association of Independents in Radio, a U.S.-based group of public-radio producers, and a member of the AIR Board of Directors. She has been blogging independently at The Dagley Dagley Daily since February, 2003.
¶ 3:45 PM(0) comments |
...another look at the news and the industry that delivers it to us
"Second-day lede" is journalistic jargon for putting a new spin on a story for a second or subsequent news cycle. A 'lede" is the lead sentence of an article, deliberately misspelled to make it more easily recognizable as jargon. Once upon a time, news moved in daily cycles, but now it has become a constant flow of rewrites and "second-day ledes."
Second-Day Lede is also the name of this blog, where you'll find commentary on the news, and especially on the industry that cultivates, harvests, processes, packages, distributes and delivers it to us.
Who's writing this stuff?
A veteran of more news cycles than she'd care to admit, Janet Dagley Dagley entered the profession of journalism as a teenager, covering local government meetings at night for the Dayton Daily News in Ohio, becoming a full-time staff writer at 18 and later moving on to the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition). Over the years she has worked as a freelance writer, editor, and radio producer in the U.S. and Europe. Although she has won numerous awards, she lost both times major metropolitan dailies submitted her work for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing, and also lost on Jeopardy! (though she did win a trip to Hawaii). Most recently, she was editor of AIRSPACE, the journal of the Association of Independents in Radio, a U.S.-based group of public-radio producers, and a member of the AIR Board of Directors. She has been blogging independently at The Dagley Dagley Daily since February, 2003.
