{"id":1358,"date":"2003-11-19T10:10:48","date_gmt":"2003-11-19T14:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2003\/11\/19\/what-now\/"},"modified":"2003-11-19T10:10:48","modified_gmt":"2003-11-19T14:10:48","slug":"what-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2003\/11\/19\/what-now\/","title":{"rendered":"What now?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, there’s plenty, but we can’t blow it.<\/p>\n

Unless you’re living in a vaccuum, you’ve heard about the Supreme
\nJudicial Court of Massachusetts ruling that the Constitution of the
\nCommonwealth requires that same-sex couples be entitled to the rights,
\nprivileges, and obligations of marriage.<\/p>\n

This is great.  Whatever your religious beliefs regarding
\nmarriage, the civil compact that we live under requires that we do not
\ndiscriminate agaisnt other people in the legal protections that we
\nafford them, no matter how much we may disagree with them.  A just
\nsociety is one in which one’s affective identity memberships do not
\nengender discriminatory practice on the part of the state.  I.e.,
\nthe state should not deny legal protections and obligations from a
\nperson on the basis of some characteristic the person contains, no
\nmatter how few people share that characteristic.  As John Stuart
\nMill, perhaps the clearest disciple of modern liberalism noted,<\/p>\n

If all mankind minus one,
\nwere of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary
\nopinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one
\nperson, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing
\nmankind.<\/p>\n

\nNow, the focus will be on the next step (I’d guess other states or the
\nU.S. Supreme Court and the 1996 “Defense of Marriage Act” and its
\negregious rewrite of the “full faith and trust” clause), but there’s an
\nevent that intervenes — the Presidential election.<\/p>\n

(An aside.  The President said, “Marriage is a sacred institution
\nbetween a man and a woman. Today’s
\ndecision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court violates this
\nimportant principle. I will work with Congressional leaders and others
\nto do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of
\nmarriage.”  What does George Bush know of the sacred?  Does
\nhe have any training in divinity or theology?  Is he a religious
\nleader?  Is he a pastor or bishop of his church, the United
\nMethodist Church?  Can he provide any evidence that he’s in the
\nsacredness business?  And since the answer to the above questions
\nis “No,” then I’d like to thank him to keep his nose out of the
\nsacredness and sacramentality business.  He’s the president, not
\nthe preacher, pastor, or priest.)<\/p>\n

The issue of the place of gays in our society is going to be the
\nhot-button culture wars issue of 2004.  There are people convinced
\nthat Western society and the Republic will both fall if we don’t keep
\nthe gays from equal treatment and “preserve marriage.”  (Although,
\nstraight people, you’ve done a good job with fucking up marriage on
\nyour own, which makes me wonder sometimes why we gay people want to get
\nin on the deal….)  If we push too hard (which might mean “at
\nall”) in the next 12 months, then that could solidify a Republican
\nvictory in the election.  People who regard this as at all
\nimportant and who oppose the extension of this basic equality to their
\nfellow Americans will vote with the Republican party next year. 
\n(A coda: don’t misinterpret me and say that I think that Republicans
\nare opposed to the extension of this basic equality; while most
\nprobably are, not all Republicans are.  But all those who regard
\nopposition as an important issue will vote Republican.)  And,
\nfair-weather friends that the Democrats have been, they’re much more
\nlikely to take the just course of action in the end.<\/p>\n

But please, my dear gay activist friends, please don’t file any suits
\nuntil 3 November.  Let us get someone in office who will do us a
\nfavor in legislation approval and judicial appointment.  Keep as
\nmuch of the gasoline as possible away from the fire that we’ll see in
\nthe next election cycle — it’s likely to burn us otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, there’s plenty, but we can’t blow it. Unless you’re living in a vaccuum, you’ve heard about the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruling that the Constitution of the Commonwealth requires that same-sex couples be entitled to the rights, privileges, and obligations of marriage. This is great.  Whatever your religious beliefs regarding marriage, the civil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-lU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}