GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

The Sacramento Bee reports:

Meanwhile, two heterosexual Southern California college students — Ali Shams and Kaelan Housewright — want to take the state out of the marriage business.

Their proposed measure calls for the term “marriage” to be removed from state laws and replaced with “domestic partnerships.”

Shams maintains the measure would provide equality to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation, while preserving marriage as a religious and social ceremony. “This is a compromise,” Shams said. “It says ‘Get rid of marriage as a state institution. Make it a religious institution, keep politics out of it and stop the fighting.’”

This idea, which is hardly new, is not a compromise. Good compromises give both sides a lot of what they want, and leave both sides annoyed that they didn’t get everything they want, but still happy that the compromise is better than the conflict.

How is this a compromise?

The traditionalist side of the argument is trying to preserve marriage, as a state institution. None of us have been talking (publicly) about preserving marriage in our churches and synagogues. And the other side is trying to undermine or destroy the traditional definition of marriage, as a public institution. In fact, I fail to see what “marriage equality” people would have to give up with this “compromise.”

Now, I have proposed a handful of real compromises on this blog. But the marriage-equality folks are never all that interested, because they are so sure of the righteousness of their cause, and their eventual victory, that de-fanging this issue as a matter of public controversy is utterly unappealing to them.