Marriage Note: Add One More

Portugal will have same-sex marriage very soon:

Sources close to Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates, who is forming a new government following September elections, said Oct. 23 that legalizing same-sex marriage will be one of the new team’s first actions.

"The measure is part of the official program of the party and according to government sources, the move will be done as soon as [formation of] the government is complete," writes correspondent João Paulo from PortugalGay.pt.

Let's see, that makes it:

The Netherlands
Belgium
Canada
South Africa
Spain
Norway
Sweden
and now Portugal


and in the U.S.,

Massachusetts
New Hampshire (as of Jan. 1)
Vermont
Connecticut
Iowa
with New York and D.C. in a race to see who gets to be next.

There's a certain sense of inevitability about this.

I skimmed over a headline sometime in the last couple of days that wondered "Why has marriage become the core issue in gay rights?" That's not such a hard question to answer.

David Link posted this commentary at Independent Gay Forum on the Maine loss and the state of gay civil rights otherwise, and makes a good point:

A lot of people are pondering the state of gay marriage in the wake of our loss in Maine. But I think Tuesday’s election results should get us all thinking about a more important, and much deeper storyline: the state of anti-gay prejudice. The full results of the off-off-year election show that after literally centuries of predominance, anti-gay prejudice is seeing its final days.

The loss in Maine actually makes that point. While the conventional wisdom characterizes it as a “stinging setback for the national gay rights movement” – and that’s from our friends at the NY Times -- that’s correct only if you think gay rights equals marriage. Marriage is the only issue we lose any more, so of course it presents a tantalizing story for the mainstream press, who get to sympathize with us while just doing their job reporting the news of our incomprehensible political impotence.

But on Tuesday in barely noticed elections elsewhere in the country, we won voter approval of (1) domestic partnerships in Washington; (2) an anti-discrimination ordinance in Kalamazoo; (3) an openly gay city council president in Detroit; and (4) an openly lesbian mayoral candidate in Houston. That seems to say something about the state of anti-gay prejudice in this country.

It's simply that the broader issue of acceptance is very close to being a done deal. Majorities in this country favor equal protections in the workplace, housing, and public accommodation, some form of recognition for our relationships (although "marriage" is still a sticking point, but more on that below), repeal of DADT, and the other basic issues that the national "leadership" is still schmoozing about at their cocktail parties. And note that these are not the upcoming generation of voters. These results come from the general voting population. (And as usual, the feds are way behind the curve.)

Which is why marriage is the key issue.

First, it's the ultimate measure of social acceptance. I've gone into this before, in my comments on marriage as a social definition, a life-stage marker, and the like. This is what has the anti-gay right in fits: they're losing on every other issue, and it's only going to get more and more glaringly obvious that society is leaving them behind. Even Illinois, which somehow in the last couple of generations went from fairly liberal (the first state to repeal its sodomy law) to blue-purple (it took thirty years to get a gay-inclusive civil rights law), has a marriage bill in the state senate. (And we don't have binding voter referendums in this state.)

And the methods of the right on these fights are indicative of their desperation. They don't have an argument against marriage, so their campaigns are waged on "save the children." I've commented on that before, too.

So that's why marriage is the defining issue: it's the final touch, the cherry on top, of gay inclusion in society at large. And that's why the Maggie Gallaghers and Peter LaBarberas and Matt Stavers are fighting so hard and so dirty -- they don't want us included, because then they'll have to find someone else to hate, and they're running out of targets.