On one side in this war is the American tradition of equality. Once proponents of same-sex marriage were able to frame the issue as one of equal rights, they became a virtually irresistible force. The appeal to equality has a deep resonance in a country whose founding document opens with the assertion that "all men are created equal." The knowledge that this basic principle was violated for a very long time with regard to blacks, women, and other disenfranchised groups makes most Americans all the more sensitive to demands for equal treatment.
To this, one can add another strong American tradition: separation of church and state. Objections to same-sex marriage are couched mostly in terms of religious faith, and the imposition of private religious beliefs on individuals who may not share them strikes most of us today as fundamentally un-American. Also on the side of same-sex marriage supporters is the conviction that how we govern our intimate relationships is a fundamental matter of privacy and freedom.
And indeed, this summarizes the two dimensions of morality recognized by people on the left: fairness and harmlessness. To this, one can add another strong American tradition: separation of church and state. Objections to same-sex marriage are couched mostly in terms of religious faith, and the imposition of private religious beliefs on individuals who may not share them strikes most of us today as fundamentally un-American. Also on the side of same-sex marriage supporters is the conviction that how we govern our intimate relationships is a fundamental matter of privacy and freedom.
On the other side is the equally powerful American tradition that gives faith a central role in civic life. Even aside from the traditional Judeo-Christian condemnation of same-sex sexual relations as sinful, the belief that marriage is a fulfillment of God's purpose of bringing men and women together for the task of creating future generations is central to most religious belief.
...marriage, especially for traditionalists, amounts to giving a union the approval of the community—including, implicitly, their own. Indeed, many gay advocates concur: to them, the goal of marriage, rather than civil unions or domestic partnerships with most of the same legal rights, is full cultural acceptance. And, while no one suggests that churches opposed to same-sex marriages could be required to perform them, other thorny conflicts between religious liberty and gay equality have already arisen (for instance, should a Catholic adoption agency that has a contract with the state be forced to place children with gay and lesbian couples?).
...traditionalist objections to same-sex marriage include not only religious scruples but concerns about the consequences of sexual liberation that are shared by many people on secular grounds—concerns about a cultural environment in which 40 percent of children are born out of wedlock and half of all marriages end in divorce. Is it bigoted to believe that it is ideal for children is to have a mother and a father, or to worry that same-sex marriage will further uncouple marriage from childbearing and thus make it far harder to answer the question, "Why wait for marriage before having children?" Traditional views that stigmatize divorce and single parenthood and emphasize complementary male/female roles in the family have been losing ground for some time (for better and worse); but, until now, they have not been equated with bigotry and thus implicitly declared beyond the pale.
Tradition is one of the three moral axes not considered by the left....marriage, especially for traditionalists, amounts to giving a union the approval of the community—including, implicitly, their own. Indeed, many gay advocates concur: to them, the goal of marriage, rather than civil unions or domestic partnerships with most of the same legal rights, is full cultural acceptance. And, while no one suggests that churches opposed to same-sex marriages could be required to perform them, other thorny conflicts between religious liberty and gay equality have already arisen (for instance, should a Catholic adoption agency that has a contract with the state be forced to place children with gay and lesbian couples?).
...traditionalist objections to same-sex marriage include not only religious scruples but concerns about the consequences of sexual liberation that are shared by many people on secular grounds—concerns about a cultural environment in which 40 percent of children are born out of wedlock and half of all marriages end in divorce. Is it bigoted to believe that it is ideal for children is to have a mother and a father, or to worry that same-sex marriage will further uncouple marriage from childbearing and thus make it far harder to answer the question, "Why wait for marriage before having children?" Traditional views that stigmatize divorce and single parenthood and emphasize complementary male/female roles in the family have been losing ground for some time (for better and worse); but, until now, they have not been equated with bigotry and thus implicitly declared beyond the pale.
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