A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage?

David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch have an interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times that suggests a middle ground of sorts on the ongoing battles over gay marriage which would provide LGBT couples with many of the same rights and benefits that derive from marriage yet still reserve the term "marriage" for heterosexual couples. The proposal would in effect create a "separate but equal" status which would not necessarily be available in all states due to certain prerequisites on state law provisions. Nevertheless, the proposal would have the potential to provide LGBT couples many more rights than are now available. The reality that the authors fail to address is the fact that in many states it will not be possible to get civil union laws enacted anytime soon, especially in anti-gay states like Virginia, and many LGBT couples would remain less than full citizens.

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The other interesting aspect of the proposal is that it would help expose the myth that Christianists are only out to "protect marriage." Anyone who has seriously followed Christianist organizations knows that their true goal is to denigrate LGBT citizens and make us societal outcasts. "Protecting marriage" is merely a convenient smoke screen to hide their true hate-based agenda. These people will never agree to civil union laws which would give any form of legitimacy to gay unions. Truth be told, if they could, these folks would happily re-enact the sodomy laws and imprison gays if they could. They have no good will and seek only to impose their religious beliefs on all citizens. Here are some highlights on the proposal:

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IN politics, as in marriage, moments come along when sensitive compromise can avert a major conflict down the road. The two of us believe that the issue of same-sex marriage has reached such a point now.

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It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill.

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[W]e agree on two facts. First, most gay and lesbian Americans feel they need and deserve the perquisites and protections that accompany legal marriage. Second, many Americans of faith and many religious organizations have strong objections to same-sex unions. Neither of those realities is likely to change any time soon. . . . Linking federal civil unions to guarantees of religious freedom seems a natural way to give the two sides something they would greatly value while heading off a long-term, take-no-prisoners conflict. That should appeal to cooler heads on both sides. . . . If religious exemptions can be made to work for as vexed a moral issue as abortion, same-sex marriage should be manageable, once reasonable people of good will put their heads together.

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But clinging to extremes can also be quite dangerous. In the case of gay marriage, a scorched-earth debate, pitting what some regard as nonnegotiable religious freedom against what others regard as a nonnegotiable human right, would do great harm to our civil society. When a reasonable accommodation on a tough issue seems possible, both sides should have the courage to explore it.