Andrew Sullivan - Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con

In the annals of publishing, there is always something called good timing. In the case of this anthology, the original timing was perhaps too good. The first edition of Same-Sex Marriage came out in 1997. It followed several years of litigation around equal marriage rights for gay citizens, litigation that came to a head in 1993 in Hawaii and then subsequently in Vermont. The Defense of Marriage Act had already been passedbarring any federal recognition of state marriages for same-sex couples and entrenching the constitutional tradition that no state need recognize a marriage from another state. For years after 1993, every legal or political breakthrough seemed to presage a national convulsion. And yet each time, the issue subsided as courts and legislatures balked at the final step. Civil unions proliferated across Americafrom California to Vermont. But civil marriage never quite arrived.

Until 2003 when Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the ban on marriage licenses to gay couples violated the Commonwealth's guarantee of equal protection of the laws. When the court subsequently ruled in 2004 that no separate-but-equal institution of civil unions would suffice to meet constitutional requirements, civil marriage for gays came to America. The first time civil marriage licenses will be given to same-sex couples will be May 17, 2004. It also happens to be the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Courts ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which abolished educational racial segregation in America.

In response, president George W. Bush and some of his supporters in the religious right endorsed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution barring civil marriage rights to gays, and, in its initial language, casting grave doubt on the legal validity of even civil unions and domestic partnerships. Meanwhile, in events no one foresaw, mayors in San Francisco, New Mexico, and New York State began spontaneously granting civil marriage licenses to gay couples in defiance of the law. Thousands of couples began lining up outside San Francisco City Hall on Valentine's Day weekend 2004 to celebrate their relationships in an act of civil disobedience. The debate once again took off, with opponents claiming that anarchy was now afoot and supporters citing the San Francisco demonstrations as another Rosa Parks moment in today's civil rights movement. Another ferocious culture war battle beganjust in time for the election of 2004.

So we decided to update and revise this anthology. The new edition contains all the critical legal decisions on same-sex marriage that have emerged in the seven years since the original version. Some dated or superfluous material has been removed. The second edition also adds critical new polemical material, from writers as diverse as Maggie Gallagher, David Brooks, Stanley Kurtz, and Anthony Kennedy, as well as updates from Canada, Holland, and Belgium, where civil marriage is now available for all couples, gay and straight. The bulk of the new material is actually against marriage rightsbut that only reflects the fact that the social conservative argument against gay marriage has been playing catch-up with the pioneering proponents of the case. We have also added President Bush's endorsement of a federal amendment to ban gay marriage, as well as Senator John Kerry's impassioned speech against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. What has always been a matter of theological, legal, and civil debate is now also a central issue in the presidential election, with one candidate supporting an amendment to the Constitution and one opposed.

This isnt an exhaustive anthology on the issue; but it is, I think, the widest and fairest collection of views and data on the matter currently in print. If your mind is not made up, you will find arguments in this volume to tilt you in both directions, pro and con. Im an advocate of marriage rights, of course, but I have tried hard to include the most cogent arguments against the proposition. How we conduct this debate is almost as important as its conclusion. And in many culture war debates, there is little time on one side for the arguments of the other. This collection stands against that tradition. I hope it provokes debate, and discussion and thought. Use it to marshal your own arguments or to question your own beliefs, whichever side youre on.

And may the most cogent and reasonable arguments win.

Andrew Sullivan

March 2004