A lesson in politics

In an interesting exercise of political muscle, the governor today announced that the gay marriage question will be fast-tracked to the Oregon Supreme Court. The ACLU will sue the state to recognize same-sex marriages on constitutional grounds, and the state and counties are expected to cooperate.

The announcement lays bare what some observers have known for some time, that basically there are two kinds of folks who are opposing the wave of same-sex marriages.

First, of course, are the social and religious conservatives, who espouse the usual "Bible-based" arguments against gay marriage. Their lawyers are in courts pressing their case on two grounds: that the state's marriage statute may be vague but surely limits marriage to one man and one woman; and that counties do not have the authority to interpret fuzzy areas of constitutional law and enact policy changes as a result.

The other sort of opponents are the one who actually support gay-marriage, but oppose the political route taken so far by commissioners in Multnomah and Benton counties. Why is this? These "supportive opponents" know full well that the legal maneuvers being pursued by the conservatives could be concluded in a matter of weeks, if not days. And if these arguments prevail [and there are many reasons to think that they might], it could spell an end to same-sex marriage for quite some time. Basically, what began politically can be just as easily undone politically.

The better solution, of course, is the constitutional approach. There are many reasons to think that once the state's marriage statute is contested, the supreme court will toss the limits on gay marriage, as the attorney general has suggested. The problem is that this approach normally takes months, if not years. Folks in this camp "oppose" gay marriage not on the merits, but because they know they can be outmaneuvered in a judicial process that measures injunctions by days, but constitutional changes in years.

Today, supporters of gay marriage and the "other opponents" have dreamed up a pretty clever way around this problem of timing. And not only that, they managed to leave the original, conservative opponents out of the discussion altogether.

Oregon. We love dreamers.

Comments

[The One True b!X]

Oregon. We love dreamers.

Hah.

Of course, the true opponents aren't left out altogether, because the Defense of Marriage Coalition will be allowed into the case as an intervenor. Nonetheless, this new "case management agreement" does result in a very curious constellation of involved parties, wherein even the party being sued (the State of Oregon) technically agrees with the party doing the suing (the ACLU of Oregon), with Multnomah County intervening to support the constitutional matter. And then the DOMC intervening to do who knows what, but in essence opposed on all sides, since the state in essence believes the same things the ACLU and the County does.

Funky.

[Ampersand]

I disagree with you about strategy.

No matter what, the issue in the end is "what does the state Constitution say about gay marriage," and the Oregon Supremes will be the ones to answer that question.

But if the O.S.C. ruled in favor of gay marriage without local politicians instituting it first, what we'd have is Massachusetts: There would be nationwide editorials condemning "gay marriage by judicial fiat" and so on. Resistance to the alleged "tyranny of the courts" is an issue tailor-made for the far-right. And it leads to enourmous backlash (it was Massachusetts, far more than San Francisco or Portland, which led to the Federal Marriage Amendment being proposed).

No approach is perfect, but I think the way it was done in Oregon is better than how it was done in Massachusetts. This way, if the O.S.C. rules in favor of gay marriage, they won't be instituting a change out of the blue; they'll merely be ruling on a change that local officials have already set in motion.

Plus, I think having actual married same-sex couples whose families can appear on TV and talk about why being married matters puts an important human face on the issue.

[PanchoPdx]

The OSC will decide the constitutionality of ssm, but that won't be the end of the story. The OSC may interpret the Constitution, but the People of Oregon own it, and they will get to weigh in on this.

The route chosen by Linn and Co. will likely result in the passage of a constitutional amendment (via initiative or legislative referral) banning ssm. Once that is in the constitution, it will take decades to get it out of there.

It's time to recognize Linn's gambit for what it was, a desperate attempt by a inept politician to become relevant. She figured that if she is thrown out of office, she can tell her grandchildren that she was a martyr for civil rights (even though her actions will delay the eventual recognition of those rights).