Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The President’s Still Contorted Position on Same-Sex Marriage


The Public Discourse ^ | 5/14/12 | Carson Holloway



Given the legal principles involved in recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages, it’s hard to see any coherence in President Obama’s statement.


The president has recently received a good deal of credit from liberal commentators for having come out clearly in support of same-sex marriage. Having once opposed it, and having more recently said that his position was evolving, he has now said that he is in favor of it. The credit he is getting for this supposedly brave stand is undeserved, however, because the president’s position is still, on a close examination, very muddled. It is sufficiently inconsistent to lead one to suspect that it arises from a deep confusion or, alternatively, an equally deep cynicism about the principles at stake.

These contradictions are readily apparent to anyone who takes the time to read the full transcript of the president’s interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts, in which he made national news by announcing his new position and discussed the reasons for it at length.
To begin with, it is noteworthy that the reasons the president gives for coming to support same-sex marriage do not in fact fully support such a decision. He indicates that he held back from supporting same-sex marriage because he thought civil unions would sufficiently protect the rights of gay Americans. Later in the interview he justifies his embrace of same-sex marriage on the grounds that it will grant gays legal recognition for their committed relationships, allow them to take on the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual married couples, and to have hospital visitation rights. All of these things, however, could be achieved without same-sex marriage. What remains, then, apparently, as the real justification for same-sex marriage is that its absence treats same-sex relationships “differently” in some symbolic sense.
(Excerpt) Read more at thepublicdiscourse.com ...

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