Now that the latest round of Republican pandering has fizzled, it seems like a time to re-examine the progressive opinion on the gay marriage "debate." The discussion thus far has been best summarized by Jon Stewart when he opined that "I think it's a debate about whether you think gay people are part of the human condition or just a random fetish."
As far as discussing the FMA goes, I believe Jon Stewart is incorrect; in fact, I believe this issue can be best debated--in a way that appeals to both sides of the political spectrum--in terms that have absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality. I'll explain below the fold.
Quite simply, amending the Constitution was never intended to be a simple process, as it requires a super-majority of Congress and ratification by a super-super-majority of the states. As a result, amendments have only been ratified 27 times in the Constitution's 217 year history.
Even more interesting trends appear when you look at the amendments themselves. For the sake of argument, I've broken the amendments down into five categories:
1. Amendments that give additional rights to individuals/the people
2. Amendments that remove rights from individuals/the people
3. Amendments that give additional powers to the federal or state governments
4. Amendments that remove powers from the federal/state governments
5. Administrative amendments
Sorting the amendments by the above guidelines, they breakdown as follows:
Category 1: 11 total: I, II, VI, VII, IX, XIII, XV, XIX, XXI, XXIV, XXVI
Category 2: 1 total: XVIII
Category 3: 2 total: X, XVI
Category 4: 5 total: III, IV, V, VIII, XI
Category 5: 8 total: XII, XIV, XVII, XX, XXII, XXIII, XXV, XXVII
The fact to notice is that, in our country's history, only ONE amendment has ever passed that explicitly removed rights from the people. Unsurprisingly, that amendment--Prohibition--is also the only amendment to be outright repealed.
Hence, the simplest and most generically appealing way to fight Congress' attempt at legalized discrimination is to argue that such an amendment goes against historical precedent. An identical argument can be used to fight the Flag Burning Amendment and whatever other base-rallying nonsense they decide to put forward.
I'll freely admit that this argument does absolutely nothing for the advancement of gay rights; the intention here is to reframe the debate and thereby remove the issues of gay marriage and flag burning amendments from Karl Rove's bucket of tricks. Advancement of civil rights issues has always been a slow, gradual process in the American political landscape, but even with the periodic cycles of conservatism, we have never moved too far backwards. Let's try, at least, to keep it that way.
Overall, gay marriage does not have to be a wedge issue, even though there are those who would like to use it as such. While many like to preach about "sanctity of marriage" or "sanctity of the flag," there are even more among us who believe in the sanctity of the Constitution. Let it be known that people are equally free to reject or accept homosexuality; however, legislating such matters goes against our nation's history and our Constitution's function. Let us take a lesson from Prohibition and be, at the very least, tolerant libertarians.