Huck vs Stewart: Gay Marriage Edition

Jon Stewart and Mike Huckabee debating gay marriage on the The Daily Show. Well worth watching.

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New York To Recognize Gay Marriage

By edict of Governor Peterson state agencies will have to recognize gay marriages from other states.

From the BBC:

State Governor David Paterson has given state agencies until 30 June to change rules to recognize gay marriages.

The news came hours after California said it would start issuing marriage licenses to gay couples from 17 June.

The move does not legalize same-sex marriage in New York, but it means many bureaucratic restrictions experienced by gay couples will be lifted.

These include issues concerning family health care plans, property inheritance, tax breaks and adoption rights.

I'm not a proponent of gay marriage per se. However I am a firm believer that the less government meddles in the relationships of two consenting human adults the better. Marriage was primarily a religious matter until fairly recently and in my opinion it should have stayed that way. So on that note I say...

Nice first step New York.

Making Marriage a Private Affair

From the NY Times:

WHY do people — gay or straight — need the state’s permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.

For 16 centuries, Christianity also defined the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple’s wishes. If two people claimed they had exchanged marital vows — even out alone by the haystack — the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married.
...
Not until the 16th century did European states begin to require that marriages be performed under legal auspices. In part, this was an attempt to prevent unions between young adults whose parents opposed their match.

The American colonies officially required marriages to be registered, but until the mid-19th century, state supreme courts routinely ruled that public cohabitation was sufficient evidence of a valid marriage. By the later part of that century, however, the United States began to nullify common-law marriages and exert more control over who was allowed to marry.
...
Possession of a marriage license is no longer the chief determinant of which obligations a couple must keep, either to their children or to each other. But it still determines which obligations a couple can keep — who gets hospital visitation rights, family leave, health care and survivor’s benefits. This may serve the purpose of some moralists. But it doesn’t serve the public interest of helping individuals meet their care-giving commitments.

Perhaps it’s time to revert to a much older marital tradition. Let churches decide which marriages they deem “licit.” But let couples — gay or straight — decide if they want the legal protections and obligations of a committed relationship.

This article raises a point I made before in regards to the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Who marries who isn't the government's business. That until the latter half of last century it wasn't even the state's business. Giving the number of unwed mothers in the US I'd argue that the standards for what constitutes a valid marriage needs to be greatly relaxed if only to ensure that children produced in less formal relationships are provided the financial support and increased stability that they deserve. As for wiping out legal marriage altogether I'm not entirely convinced its the best course. Based on my previous argument I'd prefer to see the standard relaxed to "provable legal marriage" which could be established after the fact if need be. The ironic thing is that the party that has traditionally supported reduced government meddling in people's private lives would now be the first to oppose such changes on the grounds of religion/family values. As though somehow our great grandparents were less moral than we are today. Gotta love the GOP base's logic.

Giuliani Sells Out to Values Voters?

I missed this but fortunately Sideways Mencken didn't.

From The Hill:

Perkins: Giuliani supports marriage amendment

Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, told The Hill Saturday that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
Perkins said Giuliani told him in a private meeting that if the Defense of Marriage Act appeared to be failing or if multiple states began to legalize same-sex marriages, then he would support the constitutional amendment.

Giuliani did not mention the amendment or the issue of gay marriage during his address to the Values Voters Summit, but that position could win him favor with some social conservatives who view the former mayor warily.

Perkins said that was not enough to assuage his concerns about Giuliani, but “it was nice to hear.”

If what Perkins said is true this may be the first step in Giuliani selling out to reap the religious rights votes and that says a lot about Giuliani. He'd do well to remember how much flack Mitt Romney has taken over his changing stances on value based issues.

Iowa Judge Rules Gay Marriage Legal

From The Nation via Yahoo:

The Nation -- Iowa will in all likelihood remain the state that opens the process of nominating the Democratic and Republican candidates for president in 2008. As such, it is a "must visit" and "must impress" state for contenders in both parties.

Iowa is now something else, however.

With the decision of a county judge to strike down Iowa's law banning same-sex marriages, the state becomes a front-line battleground in America's ongoing political wrestling match over gay and lesbian rights.

When Polk County Judge Robert Hanson concluded that the state's prohibition on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and ordered the county recorder in Des Moines to issue marriage licenses to six gay couples, he did not merely give an unexpected courtroom victory to plaintiffs likes Iowa City's Jen BarbouRoske, who declared Thursday, "This is kind of the American Dream."

Hanson also reshaped the presidential races of both parties.

Democratic and Republicans candidates will not be able to campaign in Iowa -- as all will be doing in coming days and weeks -- without addressing the ruling and the broader issue of same-sex marriage.

Of course, most of the candidates have already done this with varying degrees of specificity. But now they will be thrust into the center of a real-life struggle in a state where they will be spending a great deal of time between now and the day in December or January when Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses are held.

As Judge Hanson's ruling is appealed, and as conservative legislators move to counter it, the same-sex marriage debate will move much closer to the front of the agenda -- not just in Iowa but, because of the caucuses, nationally. more

Which means you can expect certain GOP candidates to start touting a ban on Gay marriages again to mobilize the base behind them. Of the current frontrunners odds are high that Giulliani won't be among those pursuing the politics of division. Additionally both John Mcain and hopeful Ron Paul are both opposed to a constitutional ammendment banning gay marriage. That leaves Huckabee, Thompson, and Romney left on the pro-ammendment side of the column.

This issue is an excellent barometer of the status of the GOP. If a candidate who opposes the ban on gay marriage gets the nod we might well be looking at a more moderate GOP in the future. Lets hope that proves to be the case.