EDITORIAL
Gay marriage ban would only be divisive
It was hardly surprising that President Bush — in response to a question — said he is interested in achieving a federal law that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
On that point, Bush is firmly in step with the conservatives who helped elect him president and apparently in step with a majority of opinion across the country as well.
For instance, a recent USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll found that opposition to gay marriage was running about 57 percent to 40 percent among those polled.
And he is in step with what appears to be the majority sentiment in Hawai'i. After our Supreme Court ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage was impermissible under the state Constitution, voters approved a constitutional amendment that granted the Legislature the right to define what "marriage" means under state law.
In 1994, lawmakers passed a law saying marriage is a union between a man and a woman.
Adding fuel to this fire was a statement, issued yesterday by the Vatican, that termed same-sex unions "gravely immoral." The Episcopal Church, USA is also struggling right now with this issue.
But as we learned only too well during the long struggle for racial civil rights, majority opinion is not always the true arbiter of what is right.
Society evolves over time. Sometimes politicians and the laws they write are ahead of society; probably more often they lag behind.
Bush's comments on same-sex marriage were in response to a question prompted by a recent Supreme Court ruling that threw out a Texas sodomy law that made consensual homosexual sex a crime.
Justice Antonin Scalia, in dissent, warned that the decision could open the door toward recognition of same-sex marriage.
The problem with Bush's proposal is that it would simply further politicize and divide society over an issue that should not be so divisive.
Congress has already passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which would allow states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages if they are allowed in another jurisdiction.
Bush's proposal would put the federal government even more firmly in the middle of regulating, encouraging and rewarding marriage than it already is. If anything, the solution to the same-sex marriage issue is to work toward the day when government is out of the marriage business altogether.
That's not an easy prospect. The enormous web of legal obligations and rights centered around marriage today will not be easily untangled.
But surely there is no reason to create more division and more entanglement.
In his comments, Bush sought to be generous, saying while he opposes same-sex marriage, he wants America to be a "welcoming" country that avoids polarization on the issue of homosexuality.
That's a positive sentiment. But based on what he said, one suspects the president is having difficulties being welcoming within his own heart on this specific topic. Using a biblical analogy, he said:
"I am mindful that we're all sinners and I caution those who may try to take a speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own," he said.
It's one thing to say the traditional definition of marriage should be defended in the law. It's quite another for a national secular leader to suggest homosexuals who seek committed relationships are "sinners."
