Good news, bad news

Last night, there was good news and bad news on the gay marriage front. In Maine, a law including gay people in marriage was vetoed by 52-48. In Washington, a civil unions law granting gay people all the rights of marriage (it was touted "everything but marriage" by its supporters) was ratified 51-49.

The only difference between the laws in both states was the word "marriage." In both states, the civil law was extended to cover gay people; in Maine, gays were incorporated into existing marriage law; in Washington state, gays were given all the rights, protections, and privileges of marriage law in the form of an extension to existing civil union law. In both cases, there was no difference at all in the civil law under consideration because in both cases gay people were to enjoy all the legal standing of married people. The only difference was the word "marriage" in Maine as opposed to "civil union" in Washington. I conclude that we live in a country where about half the people don't care about the content of a law; they care only about the manner in which a law is described. I also conclude that about half the people of the country cannot distinguish between civil, secular law on the one hand and religious rites on the other. This fact also implies that about half the country does not understand or believe in or accept separation of church and state. Evidently they think either that the church is an extension of the state or that the state is an extension of the church. In either case, it's a profound failure to understand American constitutional law.

So election night was 50-50 for gay people. In Maine, gays will still enjoy civil unions. In Washington state, gays will enjoy marriage in every sense except the word "marriage." And we can be encouraged by the vote. I've written before and have believed for a very long time that on this issue, gay people must simply wait for an inevitable victory. Examine the votes of these and other similar contests and you'll discover that the winning margin for the anti-gay bigots is based on the vote of the elderly. People 60 and over are the base on which this anti-gay reaction is built; younger voters tend to support gays. As a voting block, these elderly people are simply impervious to reason and argument; until their dying day, they will never even consider equality for gay people. Happily, their ranks are diminishing daily. Nature and mortality will soon eliminate this political base. The vote tallies for the last 15 years on this issue track the mortality statistics: on average about 1% of Americans die each year (primarily the elderly) and on average gays have gained a percent of support each year. We are now within a few percentage points of prevailing. In about five years or so, the anti-gay reactionaries will have largely exhausted their supply of elderly bigots. Younger generations support gay people and their rights; people under 35 overwhelmingly support gays. Attrition and replacement will achieve for gay people what appeals to reason, facts, science, equality before the law, and simple human decency have not. The future does not belong to the bigots. They are taking their bigotry to the grave.