Once Again Sex Is Changing American Politics
I wish I had been wrong, but by 1980 abortion had entered American national politics -- as both a political litmus test and the engine that fueled the clout of the religious right.
Last month, I felt the same mixed emotions when the highest court in Massachusetts ruled that same-sex couples could not be excluded from marriage. My initial delight was tempered by the fear that another religious war and political backlash on gay marriage will short-circuit the need to oust the Bush administration.
Not all conservatives, of course, are against gay civil unions or marriage. There are "libcons," as New York Times columnist William Safire has dubbed himself, who believe that homosexuals deserve every civil right enjoyed by heterosexuals.
The real danger, as former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has recently noted, comes from religious conservatives -- President Bush's ground troops.
Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, instantly announced plans for protests in Massachusetts. Sandy Rios, president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative religious policy group, immediately told her 1 million radio listeners, "We fully intend to use this as a litmus test for office from president to street sweeper." Across the country, religious conservatives began mobilizing for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay marriage.
Why are abortion and gay marriage so threatening to religious conservatives?
In part, it's about sex. Birth control caused a historic rupture between sex and procreation and abortion symbolized this dramatic break with centuries of tradition. Gay marriage is yet another assault on the historic link between sex and procreation.
Europeans have frequently noted that beneath America's sex-saturated popular culture lies a society that is deeply conservative and fearful about sexual matters.
They're right; such social change has been profoundly unsettling in this country. If sex is no longer exclusively for procreation, what moral values should guide our sexual behavior? Is sex simply for pleasure? Does love matter? What will reinforce fidelity to long-term relationships in which children can be raised with love and stability?
It is not sufficient to note that half of heterosexual marriages end in divorce or that single men or women and gay couples have been bearing and raising children outside of marriage since the 1970s.
Perhaps the most persuasive argument is that gay civil unions or marriage can strengthen family values. Wouldn't we prefer that more people have the opportunity to pledge fidelity and commitment to a partnership that requires responsibilities from each person?
The immediate danger is that the new fundamentalist crusade against gay marriage may end up shaping the terms of debate for the 2004 presidential election. If that should happen, gay marriage could eclipse necessary debates about Bush's foreign and fiscal policies.
Let's never forget that the right to enter a civil union is about the state's promise of equal protection under the law. Religious fundamentalists do not have the right to impose their views on the rest of the nation.
Religious wars, moreover, are terribly dangerous. As Reich reminds us, "However important religion is to our spiritual lives, there is no room for liberty in a theocracy." Amen to that.
This article was first published in the San Francisco Chronicle and is reprinted with permission.