July 07, 2004

Continuing The Same-Sex Marriage Strategy Wars

We couldn't quite decide whether to respond to WWP's response to our item on ballot measure inevitability over in the comments to the WWP item or right here. But we think our response might be a bit involved, and so we're doing it here. However, don't let that stop you from going over there and weighing in on the matter (whatever your position).

First, a slight correction, or clarification depending on how one read our original item. In his item, WWP writes:

... In one construct, those who pushed hard [too hard, some might say] for same-sex marriage are on a par with those who dared to point out the political pitfalls of pursuing such a course – and thus the two are equally accountable for the right-wing wrath that has now engulfed the issue.

This is among the many interesting [novel?] ideas advanced by b!X at Portland Communique late last week. ...

To be fair to ourselves here, we weren't so much advancing the idea as pointing out that it's the logical extension of applying consistency to the argument of the "process critics," who have begun to argue anew that Multnomah County should have taken a practical approach to the matter -- in other words, engaged in realpolitik -- and held back because their action would prompt right-wing blowback. But before we go on, here's what we wrote:

If one was truly concerned with so-called "practical politics," one would understand that it's nature is such that at any given moment, one deals with the existing situation practically. And so if one was truly concerned with the realpolitik approach, one would not have gone hogwild over what we've termed the "process distraction," since that only helped feed into the frenzy being whipped up by the right-wing opponents of same-sex marriage.

But the critics of the process don't appear interested in taking their own advice when it comes to their own feelings on the situation. Practical politics, it seems, does not apply to them. In the end, the realpolitk analysis -- if considered in full rather than just selectively -- would mean that if the County and its supporters were responsible for contributing to the backlash by not acting more slowly, so too would the process opponents be responsible for contributing to the backlash by not acting more quietly.

So, as we said, it's not that we were advancing this idea, but that we were taking the realpolitik argument of the "process critics" to its actual logical conclusion -- the one they don't bother to talk about themselves, because for them, the realpolitik argument is only to be made or considered if and when it happens to support their position, but not if an application of the same argument would happen to make them look bad.

Further, the above doesn't claim (or it wasn't meant to) that "the two are equally accountable for the right-wing wrath that has now engulfed the issue" (as WWP asserts about what we wrote). Instead, it merely says that the realpolitik criticism can be applied to the actions of both parties.

Moving along, let's look at WWP's skeptical questions.

What's the evidence that a ballot measure is the one and only surefire outcome?

For one thing, since there were intentions towards a ballot initiative prior to Multnomah County's decision (because of the same-sex marriage issue having become a topic of national concern anyway), we know that it would have been a goal regardless of what the County did or did not do. From that fact, it's not difficult to make a logical conclusion, looking at the various possible ways in which the issue could have played out locally, that a ballot measure was going to happen no matter what.

Look at our flowchart from our earlier post. It's fairly straightforward, and unless there's a potential path we missed, there's a trigger-point into a ballot measure along every one. And there's no possible path we can conceive of in which the existing desire for a ballot measure prior to the County's actions would have somehow simply dissipated.

Does every path to such a ballot measure really exact the same resistance and political friction? Why? If not, would it alter the bottom line? How?

This is actually one of the more interesting aspects of the matter. When we first drew up our flowchart, we had considered weighting the lines based upon an estimationg of how much political heat would be generated by each possible path. Alas, that didn't happen, and then we never returned to the premise.

This is, in fact, a crucial question, and there's no doubt in our minds that different possible paths would have generated different levels of political energy from the various parties involved. It's certainly arguable, for example, that in a hypothetical in which the County refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses, and in which therefore supporters of same-sex marriage filed suit against the County, there very well might have been less fanatical energy from opponents on the political end of things.

Of course, there's another itneresting hypothetical which muddles the criticisms further. For the sake of illustration, we're talking about the left-most path on our flowchart.

If the County had moved from a private discussion of the issue into a public discussion of the issue, and then moved to issue same-sex marriage licenses, we would still have opponents going to court to stop it (as we did in reality). And with the County making the move to issue actual licenses, opponents would have cranked up the political opposition as well -- meaning towards the passge of a ballot measure.

Now, it's entirely debatable whether the energy level from opponents would have been as high in this case as it was in how things went down in reality. But the interesting thing about this particular hypothetical is that it addresses the "process critics" by including a public discussion. It's possible that the "process critics" would therefore argue that this would have been the preferable direction in which to go, because it would take away the extra heat thrown at the County over the whole process issue. But in some ways, that makes our point for us, because it acknowledges that the criticism over the process helped stoked the fire of opponents of same-sex marriage.

Which brings us back to the practicality (realpolitik) argument made by the "process critics." If one truly believes that in politics one must be practical, then they should have been practical and toned down the process rhetoric against the County. That's not us arguing for or against a realpolitik approach, it's just us reiterating that some of the arguments from the process critics collapse under slef-contradiction when examined too closely.

Even if a ballot measure were the only possible outcome of such a political process, which scenario of events leading up to it affords the best opportunity to defeat it? Surely that scenario cannot be the one we are presently saddled with – short on time, friends and funds, but long on enemies and a war chest to match. Right?

This is something of a companion question to the one above, because it relates to how much oppositional heat would be generated by the various possible paths we could have taken. And so, in that respect, there are clearly different levels of opportunity to defeat a ballot measure.

For the moment (and we'll have to come back to this later, because we don't want to give it short shrift), let us just say this: Supporters of same-sex marriage had just as much time as opponents to organize and fundraise for the ballot measure fight. If they didn't do it, that's a failure of leadership and motivation -- which itself would be something of a criticism of how ready they are to fight, we suppose.

Other than that (again understanding that we'll come back to this point later, perhaps after there's another round of responses to what we and WWP are writing about all of this), we have one other subjective opinion here. Whether or not it was an intentional tactic on the part of the County, we think there's something to be said in the context of this particular civil rights fight to launch a political and legal process in which thousands of same-sex couples would be married before anyone could stop it. It turns the debate into a concrete rather than a merely hypothetical one. It makes it about real, actual people exchanging rings and vows and receiving County-issued licenses.

Ultimately, this is part of the very heart of the dispute amongst supporters of same-sex marriage over strategy: Is making the debate concrete in this way worth the extra oppositional heat created? We say yes, others say no.

And what's with the delusion that incremental politics doesn't work? Isn't that what's happening right now in Massachusetts? In California? In Canada? Do we see the religious right empowered in any of these places to the degree that they are in Oregon?

For our part, we don't believe that incremental politics never works. If we gave that generalized impression, it wasn't our intent. But as to at least one of the above specifics: Incremental politics isn't necessarily working in Massachusetts any better than what we're doing here in Oregon. In Massachusetts, one of the responses to the court was a push to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage in that state. Now, haven't we seen that response before? Oh, yes, it's just what we have going on here in Oregon, despite the fact that Massachusetts followed a different path than we did.

In fact, what they have in Massachusetts is a period in which same-sex marriages are legal, while opponents mmount a campaign to constitutionally ban it. That period of actual same-sex marriages being performed may by much longer than what transpired here in Multnomah County, but it's still resulting in attempts to ban it anyway.

So even if you want to consider what Massachusetts is experiencing a kind of incremental politics, it's still resulting in a similar dynamic to what we're facing here in Oregon. We might have a more "empowered" right-wing in this instance because, well, we tend to have a rather rapid and persistent right-wing here anyway. Our question (not just on the same-sex marriage issue, but nearly across the board) would be: At what point do we stop letting the right-wing take the initiative (no pun intended), stop letting ourselves be merely reactive, and instead step up and proclaim -- and push -- the way we want Oregon to be? Stop being afraid of them. They're wrong on almost everything.

Just to rehash one other thing. We brought up the incremental change matter in part to draw a comparison to other civil rights fights, ones in which civil disobedience -- physicially asserting ones rights despite the fact that it was illegal to do so -- was an option. As we stated in our flowchart post, when it comes to same-sex marriage, there's no way for same-sex couples to claim the rights they are denied by law until and unless a state actor assists them in doing so. We happen to believe in civil disobedience, and this was the only form of civil disobedience possible when it comes to this particular issue.

Query: Would it be better to win, incrementally, say, next year or the year after? Or to have your world view validated and proven right in 10 or 20 years?

Here we simply disagree that the premise is sound. Whatever form this supposed incremental change is suppsoed to take, it wouldn ot get us to state-sanctioned same-sex marriage "next year or the year after." In fact, it could easily be argued that the incremental route is more likely to result in possibly fast-tracked civil unions (which we continue to consider a canard and a cop-out), which we would then be stuck with because opponents of same-sex marriage and people stuck in the bogus "middle ground" would then be able to spend the next generation saying, "You've got civil unions, so shut up already."

Meanwhile, we've spent so much time on this item already that we're beginning to lose our focus, and possibly the reader's as well. There's stuff in here that still needs to be touched upon, but we'll leave this be for the moment and see where the conversation goes from here.

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