WHY GAY MARRIAGE WON'T BE LIKE ABORTION: Josh Chafetz

...As social tolerance of gays and lesbians has increased, more and more gays are open about their sexual orientation. More and more people know someone who's openly gay. And once a significant number of gay marriages happen, people will know gay married couples, gay families. Just as the opposition to interracial marriage fell away once interracial marriage was a fait accompli, so too, I think, will opposition to gay marriage.

Why hasn't this happened with abortion? Abortion is different in two relevant respects: (1) It is intensely private, whereas marriage is inherently public. People know who is married and who isn't -- people don't know who has had an abortion and who hasn't. It might be harder to think that people who have abortions are bad people if you know that someone you know and respect had an abortion. But you're unlikely to know that, since it isn't something people talk about. (2) Abortion is a one-time action. Someone can have an abortion and yet later decide that abortions are wrong. If an anti-abortion activist finds out that a friend had an abortion, she can talk to her friend, try to convince her that what she did was wrong, and maybe convince her that, no matter what, she should never have an abortion again. Marriage, on the other hand, is a continuing bond. To tell your married gay friend that you oppose gay marriage is to tell him that you disapprove of the way he is living now and has made a commitment to live for the rest of his life. That's a very different, and much harder, thing to tell someone. In other words, political decisions on abortion are reversible with only prospective consequences. But once there are married gay couples, any change in the law will also have retrospective consequences -- that is, it will invalidate existing marriages. That's a really, really hard thing to do, especially when so many people know and like the gay couple down the street.

That's why I think gay marriage will come to be, not only a legal reality, but also a socially accepted institution. The culture wars may continue, with new issues flaring up all the time, but some issues basically get settled for good, the way interracial marriage did. I think the same will, ultimately, be true of gay marriage.

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posted by Eve at 9:38 AM VOTE

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