GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

Ever since the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) passed in 1996, gay groups have been attacking the constitutionality of the law. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s (NGLTF) initial statement in the wake of DOMA’s passage called it “unnecessary, discriminatory and probably unconstitutional.” When I pointed out on the Ricki Lake Show a few years ago that DOMA had been passed by Congress and signed by Bill Clinton, top Human Rights Campaign (HRC) lawyer Lara Schwartz retorted that DOMA was unconstitutional. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s (GLAAD) media resource kit on marriage says “many believe” DOMA violates the Constitution.

In addition, many same-sex marriage proponents have argued that the Supreme Court case in Loving v. Virginia contains a federal constitutional right to “marry” a person of the same sex.

Now, Lara Schwartz doesn’t get to decide what laws are or are not constitutional. She doesn’t get to determine what the Constitution does or does not mean. The people who get to decide that are Ruth Bader Ginsberg, John Roberts, and the other seven members of the U.S. Supreme Court. Which is quite promising for gays and lesbians. Ginsberg and Breyer are Clinton appointees. John Paul Stevens is the most liberal member of the court. David Souter, according to a 2003 cover story in the gay newsmagazine The Advocate, may be gay himself. And Anthony Kennedy has written two stirring pro-gay opinions overturning an anti-gay law in Colorado and sodomy laws nationwide. That’s five votes. You only need five votes.

So the gay community is pushing for the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA and declare that Loving v. Virginia‘s right to marry applies to same-sex marriage, and thus implement same-sex marriage nationwide, right?

Wrong.

This week nine gay-rights groups, including NGLTF, HRC, and GLAAD, released a six-page set of instructions to same-sex couples about why they shouldn’t sue, even if they think suing will get them their “rights.” It says, “Most lawsuits will set us all back.”

Now, gay groups cannot have it both ways. If they think courts are unlikely to find that there is a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage, and that DOMA would probably be found constitutional after all, then they need to stop claiming otherwise. If they believe their rhetoric, but wish to put their resources elsewhere (the document says “these efforts take time and money, and we don’t have unlimited resourses”), that’s fine, but they should respect the choices of people not under their thumb to file federal lawsuits.

That’s not what’s been happening. Same-sex couples in California and Florida who felt they had promising cases for a federal right to marry had to fight – not homophobes but gay-rights groups – every step of the way, groups who complained that the lawsuits weren’t “coordinated” with national strategies. Now, if these groups were run democratically like the National Organization for Women and the NAACP, I could see their point. But the boards of gay groups consist of two types of people: wealthy donors, and “affirmative action” appointees, usually people of color, youth, and transgender people. The actual opinions of the general membership are never taken into account. So these staff people appointed by people who got their positions because they are rich or because they make liberal people feel openminded believe they have the right to stop same-sex couples who never had a chance to influence these groups from suing for what they feel is their own rights? It’s seriously messed up.

Gay groups can admit there is no federal right to marry your own sex, and that DOMA is constitutional. Or they can get out of the way and let LGBT people sue for their rights. But to claim that these phantom rights exist, while doing everything they can to prevent the experts (the Washington Nine) from determining whether they exist or not, is just more gay doublespeak.

Hat tip: GayPatriot.