Extended Phenotype

I promise to stop commenting on San Francisco’s frenzy of same-sex marriages at some point.  

Here’s what set me off today.  Dave Gibson, writing about Newsom in American Daily, says:  “With the moral fiber of this country unraveling at an ever alarming rate, it is not surprising that so many people seem to find this event as “no big deal.”  Well, like many, I think this is a big deal, although I suspect not in a way that Mr. Gibson would approve.  Regardless, it’s interesting to note that whatever the result of this week’s events in San Francisco, it hasn’t yet caused the city to slide into the sea, people to turn into pillars of salt, or a plague of locusts.  Check for yourself.  Looks pretty normal to me…

What mostly interests me is this notion of declining moral fiber.  I’m guessing that we’re not the first generation where half the population has complained that the other half is destroying their society’s moral fiber.  I’d be interested in the history of this notion, because I suspect it goes back quite a ways.  Temperance, Victorian England, Salem witch trials….

Like a number of writers this week, however, I find it oddly inconsistent to see the Religious Right oppose same-sex marriage on the basis that traditional concepts of marriage safeguard our families and children, while ignoring the effects of divorce.  Given its effect on the traditional nuclear family, isn’t divorce even more of a contributor to our declining moral fiber?  Shouldn’t the Religious Right do something about divorce, too? Well, it turns out they are…

Here’s what I don’t understand about a proposed “two-state” solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  All variants of a “two-state” solution (that I’ve seen) end up creating a Palestinian state out of discontiguous territories.  And I’m not just talking about Gaza and portions of the West Bank.  Within the West Bank itself, the territories proposed for “sovereign control” by a Palestinian state are discontiguous, unless Israeli settlements are removed from the West Bank much more fully than is currently proposed.

So here’s what I don’t get:  why does virtually none of the discussion surrounding a “two-state” plan address the insanely difficult infrastructural problems this will create?  I’m no expert, either on the Middle East or on urban planning and engineering, but even I can figure out how difficult it’ll be.  How do the Palestinians create water and sewer systems, electricity, phone systems, and other needed infrastructure, if every system has to cross the territory of another country to link up the discontiguous areas?  

Surely, you’d say, the Israelis would cooperate in allowing the Palestinians to run pipelines, electrical transmission lines, fiber-optic cable, and so on, between their territorial chunks.  But why would they?  Once the Palestinian state is independent from Israel, it’s not like the Israelis are going to spend tax dollars to help maintain such an infrastructure, and it’s not like the animosity is going to go away just because they manage to somehow partition into two states.  Especially if one of the two states isn’t able to function, provide services to its citizens, or effectively defend its territorial “chunklets.”

So I don’t get it, unless the answer is that the “two-state” solution isn’t meant to work in the first place, or unless the Palestinian Authority has just decided that a crippled, unworkable country is better than none at all.  After reading Edward Said’s interviews with David Barsamian in Culture and Resistance, I just keep looking at the maps and wondering how anyone thinks this is a real solution.  

After his whuppin’ in Wisconsin yesterday, we’ve heard contradictory reports about whether Dean intends to continue.  Last night, I read that Dean was going to fight onward to the March 2^nd primaries, but this morning I’m reading a “Democratic source” that says Dean will pull out of the race today.  I’m sorry, but it’s about time.  We’re wasting time and ink over Howard Dean, when we should be spending the next couple of months getting the entire party behind the front-runner.  Unless a miracle happens for Edwards on March 2^nd, Kerry is going to be our nominee.  Everyone who isn’t happy about that simply needs to get over it and focus on how to beat Bush.  We need the party unified because the real battle is gaining the support of folks in Ohio and Arizona, which will be potential tipping points for winning this election.  Howard Dean ran a fascinating campaign, which we’ll talk about, post-mortem, and dissect for years to come, but he’s now a distraction from the real work.  

 The discussion over same-sex marriage and Gavin Newsom has been lively in the blogging community this week.  Kevin Drum’s post this morning points towards the key reason why everyone ought to be concerned about this issue:  creation and defense of civil rights and freedoms is an ongoing venture.  I’m a straight white male, so why should I care about this issue?  The answer is simple.  The Constitution isn’t a rule book.  It’s a blueprint, which has to be interpreted anew by each generation.  That’s why it’s flexible and lasting as a “platform” for our society – if it spelled out specific “dos” and “don’ts,” much of its relevance would have faded by the mid-1800’s given changes in technology and society.  And so, in answer to those who ask “why now” on the issue of same-sex marriage, overturning Prop 22, and putting the FMA back in the waste basket:  there’s never a good time to define our civil rights because the job never stops. 

Many people in our society don’t support the right of same-sex couples to marry, or even to join in civil unions.  The country is pretty much evenly split on the issue, in fact.  Culturally, we can all understand why, as well.  A large percentage of the population seeks to follow social change wherever it leads; another equally large segment seeks a “return” to the traditional social structures associated with European Christian communities.  The problem with the second plan, of course, is that the country is not culturally homogenous. Whose notion of morality should win? The best we can do, ultimately, is interpret the Bill of Rights in such a way that people from all cultural backgrounds are treated equally.  The rights of fundamentalist Christians are equally as important as the rights of atheists, which should be equal to the rights of Arab-Americans, and so on.  

Nobody “wins” a culture war, and if history has shown us anything, it’s that anytime the majority acts to restrict the rights of minorities, as a people we come to regret it later on.  Today the issue is same-sex marriage.  Thirty-five years ago, the issue was racially mixed marriages – a right which today is uncontested nationwide in any public forum.  Yet in 1967, laws in 16 different states prevented interracial marriage.  Finally in 1967, the Warren Court struck down Virginia’s laws because they (and by extension similar laws in 15 states) violate the Fourteenth Amendment.  Chief Justice Earl Warren said it best in the majority decision in Loving v. Virginia:

We have consistently denied [388 U.S.1, 12]  the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.

These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. [case references removed for brevity] To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

How is this relevant?  Conservatives would likely say that the Fourteenth Amendment was part of a post-Civil War attempt to remove the effects of slavery on African-Americans, and doesn’t necessarily extend to sexual preferences.  Such a reading of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, relies on determining “original intent” rather than relying upon the text itself.  In this case, we can be as narrowly constructionist as we like:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The Fourteenth Amendment does not say anything about race, nor does it exempt specific classes of citizens from equal protection.  It says, quite simply, that no state has the right to abridge the privileges of its citizens or deny equal protection of the law.  Today, the gay and lesbian communities are fighting for equal protection, just as thirty years ago, racially mixed couples had to fight for their marriage rights.  How does the argument in Loving v. Virginia not apply to same-sex couples?  Earlier, women had to fight for the right to vote.  Nor have white males been exempt from discrimination, if you go back far enough.  Until 1843, free men in Rhode Island were only allowed to vote if they owned land worth a certain amount.  It took Dorr’s Rebellion in 1841 to change this and bring the vote to all free white men.

Civil rights have never been automatic in any society, including our own.  Democracy doesn’t make civil rights automatic, it just makes them possible.  And the civil rights we deny one group today sets a precedent for denying any of us a right we cherish in the future.  To me, the best argument for supporting same-sex marriage, defeating the FMA, and overturning Prop 22 in California is this:  every right I help guarantee someone else is a step towards rights for all of us.