Those of us who view gay marriage as a slam-dunk, open&shut
equal-protection issue don't need to rely on any precedent.
The 14th amendment says that "no state shall ... deny to any person
under its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws".
If there is a man whom my sister can marry but I can't,
then we are not equally protected, so the state's treating us
that way is unconstitutional. END of discussion. Or at least it ought to be.
Couples as opposed to individuals are a little more complicated because "deny to any person"
does not say exactly the same thing as "deny to any couple".
It is hard, though, to deny the couple withOUT denying either or both of the people in it -- SO hard that when that FINALLY (in 1968) reached the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, they dismissed
the claim that bans on inter-racial marriages did NOT violate the equal protection clause -- because white people and black people were both equally prohibited from marrying someone of the opposite race -- with extreme prejudice.
The Loving precedent is of course directly relevant to President Obama because he himself has campaigned on the fact that the marriage that produced him would have been illegal in over a dozen states back when it occurred. The bigoted argument made and dismissed in Loving can also be made in the case of gay marriage -- that it does not violate the equal protection clause because gay people and straight people alike are EQUALLY prohibited from marrying someone of the same gender.
More to the point, though, President Obama is trained as a constitutional law professor. And finally, just purely as a matter of personal morality, of a basic sense of fairness and the pursuit of justice, of his life goals, he is PRESUMABLY a supporter of equality and fairness in general.
So my question is this:
IF YOU ARE BORN into support of THE MOST DIRECT precedent supporting gay marriage, namely the one on inter-racial marriage, and IF YOU ARE A PROFESSOR of the laws relating to forcing this,
CAN YOU SERIOUSLY be opposed to gay marriage?
Might it be more likely that Obama CHOSE TO LIE about this IN ORDER to get elected so that
HE COULD APPOINT justices who would OBVIOUSLY Do The Right (if not right-Wing) Thing here?
Lying in the name of truth is not necessarily ethical, but would it be MORE ethical OR LESS to DELAY the arrival of the needed legal ruling BY GRANDSTANDING about how much MORE committed to the equal protection clause you are THAN the electorate at large?
The gay take on politicians' lying for the greater good is might as well be Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. It is NOT about the closet; it is NOT about lying long enough to get ahead in the system in order to change it -- the damage you do along the way in THAT case is TOO great; this society HAS evolved beyond THAT point. Given, however, that Obama was behind McCain in the polls as late as 09/09/08, was it really reasonable for him to tell the truth during the campaign? And given that he may have to replace not only Souter, but Stevens and Ginsburg as well, BEFORE he gets a chance to replace Scalia and thereby cut the knot, is there really anything to be gained by gay activists' whining that Obama has not YET "been a forceful advocate" on this issue?
TIME IS ON OUR SIDE.
Generational evolution is moving OUR way and WE WILL get a court majority on this within MOST of our lifetimes.
We also now have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to win a grassroots battle OF the rainbow, BY the rainbow, and FOR the rainbow, on the basis of WHO WE ARE AND WHAT OUR NEIGHBORS KNOW ABOUT US, withOUT ANY help from the top.
In this battle (for a Yes-to-gay-marriage referendum next year in California), for Obama to show up volunteering to help would be NOT ONLY inconsistent with his public prior positions, it would be -- FAR WORSE -- OPPORTUNISTIC. It would appear as though he stayed out of the fray back when we NEEDED him on Prop.8 and HE was running, but NOW, when he no longer has anything to lose, when we ARE WINNING, wants to show up TO TAKE CREDIT.
I don't need that. The movement and California don't need that. President Obama doesn't need that. The only way he needs to weigh in
is if Schwarzenegger or other leading moderate Republicans endorse us, and the party as an institution starts to risk getting outflanked on human rights.
There are some people who NEED to be condemned for not helping us on this issue: black ministers, for starters. But President Obama IS NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE. NOT EVEN if he is saying nothing and not EVEN if (as he said throughout the campaign) he is LYING by saying THE WRONG thing. Just find something or someBODY ELSE to whine about.