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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

A Modest (Marriage) Proposal

posted by on August 19 at 10:35 AM

Let’s pretend that it’s November and Barack Obama is 20 points ahead—thanks, in part, to a collective decision on the part of the traditional media to stop eating John McCain’s ass and actually hold the McCain camp accountable for its crude race-baiting, anti-Christ-baiting, accusations of treason, and lies.

Hey, we’re fantasizing, right?

So let’s say Obama is on the verge of getting his ass elected. That’ll mean he’s also on the verge of having to make good on a campaign promise he made to us queers: He’s going to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which bars any federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Obama’s pledge to repeal DOMA—or work with Congress to repeal it—recalls Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign promise to end the military’s ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military—and we all know how that worked out.

Repealing DOMA would make the splashiest benefits of marriage—social security, joint tax filings, the ability of a foreign partner to obtain citizenship, etc.—available to legally married same-sex couples. Of course same-sex couples can only be legally married in California or Massachusetts at the moment (fuck you again, Washington State Supreme Court, and fuck you hard), while New York State, on the orders of it governor, will recognize their marriages (hello? Christine?). Which means that there are only three states where, if DOMA were repealed during the first Obama administration, same-sex couples would enjoy all the rights, responsibilities, and protections of legal marriage, the big ones granted by the federal government and the more numerous-but-less-crucial ones granted by the states.

Now pro-gay legislators would sign on for a DOMA repeal, of course. We’re not going to have any trouble lining up the votes of Barbara Boxer or Jim McDermott and Barney Frank and, um… those guys. But just as there weren’t enough “thinking Americans” to put Adlai Stevenson in the White House (look him up, kids), there aren’t enough pro-gay legislators in Congress to repeal DOMA.

Unless…

We need to come up with an argument for repealing DOMA that would play well in anti-gay states, places represented by anti-gay Republicans and anti-gay Democrats. So how about this:

If DOMA is repealed then gay and lesbian couples that wish to marry, and gay and lesbian singles that would like to marry one day, will have a huge incentive to leave anti-gay states like Mississippi, Alabama, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, etc., for states where we can enjoy our full marriage rights, states like California and New York and Massachusetts. So a Congressman from Dumbfuck, West Virginia, could vote to repeal DOMA and then go home and spin his vote to his hateful constituents not as a pro-gay vote—heavens no!—but as an anti-gay vote. He voted to repeal DOMA so that those those sinful gays and lesbians would quit West Virginia for Massachusetts. And then the congressman from Dumbfuck could remind his constituents that God sent a hurricane in the shape of a giant wrathful fetus to destroy New Orleans because the gays were about to host a big street party and God is all powerful and so He could so totally send one to West Virginia if he felt like it. And so anything the congressman from Dumfuck could do to encourage native-born gays and lesbians to leave the state, and discourage gays and lesbians from moving into the state, was really in their best interests of his God- and fetus-shaped-hurricane-fearing constituents.

It sounds crazy, I realize, but Christian bigots are already fantasizing about mass gay migrations. When discussing a bill that would make it possible for American gays and lesbians to sponsor their foreign partners for US citizenship, Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council said that his organization would “prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States.” Driving gays and lesbians out of the country may be a bit unrealistic, as even Mr. Sprigg might admit, seeing as we homosexuals reproduce ourselves out of the bodies of heterosexuals. By the time Sprigg finished rounding up all the gays and lesbians in the country and exporting us to, say, the EU (pick me! pick me!), he’d have a fresh generation of homos on his hands.

So it seems plausible that Mr. Sprigg, the Family Research Council, and the good people of Jesusland, USA, would embrace policies—the repeal of DOMA at the federal level, a halt to all efforts to amend state constitutions in California and Massachusetts to ban gay marriage—that resulted in American homosexuals exporting ourselves (in greater numbers than we already do) from states where we’re not wanted (Virginia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Michigan, etc.), to states where we are wanted (California, New York, Massachusetts).

Unfortunately Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry thinks my “trail of queers” idea is a bad one.

“I don’t think we win by buying into messages or arguments that adopt our opponents’ invidious premises, i.e., the suggestion that gays are bad and should be driven from the state,” Evan wrote in an email. “The opposition will not be mollified, and we lose a chance to move the middle through authentic engagement.”

Blah blah blah—authentic engagement and all that. But I honestly think my approach is more pragmatic, and will result in DOMA being repealed sooner rather than later.

UPDATE: In comments elswinger writes: “Not once have I ever heard him say [he was going to repeal DOMA]. If he had we would be seeing commercials from the McCain camp about it.”

From Obama’s Open Letter to Gay Americans: “I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether.”

And Google “obama doma” if you want to see how exercised the religious right is about Obama’s “threat” to repeal DOMA.

RSS icon Comments

1

Really, don't you have anything better to do?

I mean, this is not just unlikely in the first year.

Ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell - no prob.

But DOMA? Congress has to lead on that one, and you know it.

Posted by Will in Seattle | August 19, 2008 10:40 AM
2

Dan must still be feeling the after affects of his alt-HempFest celebration.

Posted by Providence | August 19, 2008 10:45 AM
3

Dan, this is just silly. I don't remember too many evangelical conservatives ever saying, "I think it's fine if gays get married, just not in my state!" These aren't "live and let live (elsewhere)" people. To them homosexuality is a SIN and even one gay marriage, anywhere, anytime, somehow mysteriously makes their own marriages meaningless. That sort of stuff doesn't stop at state boundaries and pragmatism doesn't enter into their calculations.

Posted by David | August 19, 2008 10:57 AM
4

Asking "Christians" to take a reasonable view about ANY kind of equality has always seemed a bit silly to me. Ma Daddy has always voted against "special" rights for homos like me because he has to. (He's a preacher with three gay sons.) Convincing his ilk that "giving" us federal equality would cause us to move out of places like Virginia, Oklahoma and Mississippi IS NOT A BAD IDEA.


They just might buy into it.

Posted by Eddy968 | August 19, 2008 10:59 AM
5

Imagine the egg on their face when The Homos don't move to Washington State and stay put. Oh, you'll have Homo Crow laws enacted after that kinda deception

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 19, 2008 11:07 AM
6

But hey, if this works, let's try to convince rabid pro-lifers not to overturn Roe v. Wade on grounds that if murdering unborn babies is legal in liberal states and illegal in conservative states, then birth rates will go down in liberal states and up in conservative states, thus they will soon outnumber us and be able to run the country however they want. Surely none of them would object to (what they consider) murdering unborn babies if it was only in other states and served their long-term pragmatic interests.

Posted by David | August 19, 2008 11:08 AM
7

But hey, if this works, let's try to convince rabid pro-lifers not to overturn Roe v. Wade on grounds that if murdering unborn babies is legal in liberal states and illegal in conservative states, then birth rates will go down in liberal states and up in conservative states, thus they will soon outnumber us and be able to run the country however they want. Surely none of them would object to (what they consider) murdering unborn babies if it was only in other states and served their long-term pragmatic interests.

Posted by David | August 19, 2008 11:10 AM
8

I think this may just be crazy enough to work.

And the opposition uses dirty tactics and aren't using "authentic engagement". Liberals need to stop trying to play nice with people that NEVER will play nice. It's why we keep getting our asses kicked.

We're like the little kid with glasses on the playground. We keep hoping people will realize that what their doing is wrong, when really we just need to grow a pair and use some of our own dirty tactics to 1 up them.

Simply playground rules do apply to real life, especially politics.

Posted by Original Monique | August 19, 2008 11:15 AM
9

Yeah, but if you're going to come up with an inauthentic argument don't make it a ripoff of the Roma lifestyle.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 19, 2008 11:30 AM
10

Instead, remove all laws that give any legal, financial, gov'tmental or otherwise benefit to "marriage". Make the feds recognize civil commitments or the de jure slang word for "same thing only different" that isn't marriage.

Push it forward as a religious freedom giving marriage back to the churches! Let Jesus define marriage. And of course, the churches who discriminate will continue to not marry homos and the sanctimonious xians hung up on the marriage word can continue to be hung up on that word. That's the freedom we advertise. The flipside is that the homos can call their relationship "marriage" with the sanctity of whatever religious tradition they want, or lack of, because who cares as long as the government is out of the word defining business.

Posted by StC | August 19, 2008 11:47 AM
11
That’ll mean he’s also on the verge of having to make good on a campaign promise

"Dreamer, you silly little dreamer
So now you put your head in your hands, Oh no!"
I think maybe @2 got it right.

Posted by Epimetheus | August 19, 2008 11:51 AM
12

Interesting idea, but it'll just encourage 'em to advocate the idea of sending us all OUT of the United States. And no, it won't be to E.U. countries (not even to those E.U. countries that hate gays, like Latvia, Lithuania, or Poland). It'll be to places like Iran or Saudi Arabia, where (to quote someone I went to high school with) "they REALLY know how to 'cure' those gays." Yikes.

And honestly: everyone knows who Adlai Stevenson is (I, II, and III actually!). We all went to school.

Posted by James | August 19, 2008 12:00 PM
13

I appreciate the effort at pragmatism, Dan, but are you insane? Would you have predicated support for the Voting Rights Act or Brown V. Board of Education so long as the African Americans migrated North? Has it occurred to you that some queers might actually like the states where they reside (aside from the bigotry of some citizens)?

Counter-proposal: We offer the DOMA-folks the exclusive use of the word "marriage" if they'll give queers all the rights but we have to call it something else? Marriage stays "defended" but they also pass federal "civil union" legislation for same-gender couples. Oh, that's right, that's Obama's position already...

Posted by Andy Niable | August 19, 2008 12:12 PM
14

First, it's not just Christians against same sex marriage. I work with Jews and Muslims who aren't in favor of it either (personally I don't care who gets married).

Second, Dan, please provide a link to where Obama has said, in public, he would repeal DOMA. Not once have I ever heard him say it. If he had we would be seeing commercials from the McCain camp about it.

Posted by elswinger | August 19, 2008 12:24 PM
15

From Obama's open letter to the gay community:

"I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether."

He also said it in the LOGO debate.

Posted by Dan Savage | August 19, 2008 12:36 PM
16

Christine cannot, by executive order, recognize out of state same sex marriages as did the governor of New York, because, unlike New York, Washington has a DOMA

Posted by Andrew | August 19, 2008 12:46 PM
17

@7, that would involve overturning Roe v. Wade

Posted by Andrew | August 19, 2008 12:49 PM
18

Dan, I know you're a fan of William Shirer, as am I. You should know then, that this idea starts us on a very dangerous slippery slope. The Nazis started exporting Jews before they started exterminating them. Once you accept the idea that a group of people is undesirable, it becomes okay to get rid of them by any means necessary.

Posted by Dr. T | August 19, 2008 12:57 PM
19

Everyone that is taking Dan's post seriously needs to go back and read the title of this post again and then think about it for a minute.

Posted by TIny Dancer | August 19, 2008 1:04 PM
20

Or we could all move to 1 empty state every 2 years and vote in new senators: Wyoming, Alaska, the Dakotas...

Posted by chicagogaydude | August 19, 2008 2:03 PM
21

It would be easier to convince those Jesus morons that Christ was a raging homo.

Posted by Vince | August 19, 2008 3:19 PM
22

Dan. Thanks. I hadn't read it and when I read your post the link wasn't there. I hope Obama is a man of his word. Sorry that I doubted you.

Posted by elswinger | August 19, 2008 3:22 PM
23

OMG, I have an idea that could work! How about if the raging homophobes who think homos should be exported each cough up the money to permit one gay person to emigrate to the EU or New Zealand or some other civilized country as an entrepreneur - usually about $100K? I would totally turn gay (I'm already bisexual) if I could emigrate to NZ.

Put your money where your big Xtian mouth is, closet cases.

Posted by Geni | August 19, 2008 3:24 PM
24

The right knows that DOMA ending would open the door for challenges to gay marriage bans based on the full faith and credit clause wide. They won't let it get repealed without a damn nasty fight, and a lot of the conservative dems won't back it.

Posted by Ferin | August 19, 2008 8:05 PM
25

These people want to hurt gay people. If they could export them to Iran where they would be killed, they would. I don't think any of the Bible thumpers are going to buy your argument, because it isn't mean enough and they are bullies who want to be mean.

Interestingly, the reverse argument may work on fence sitters. If California, New York and Mass. attract all the intelegent, creative gays and lesbians (the ones with the means to move) the economic benifits will flow to those states and away from the hate-states. Some of the more moderate hate-states might eventually want to avoid economic loss.

Posted by Robert | August 19, 2008 8:35 PM

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