How Far It Will Go

Derek, I think the question of "How Far This Will Go", as regards the granting of marriage licenses by mayors and registrars throughout the country, is not the important one for the winning of this debate in the US. I take that going far means being able to make the marriages stick, having them stand up in courts from the locals to the state supreme courts to the federal supreme court.

However, even if all the licensings hold through the supreme court, that will not signal victory, as long as the constitutional amendment hangs credibly over. Some have already argued that the amendment is not likely to pass this year, but I think no one has credibly argued that the amendment possibility can be dismissed out of hand. Thus, the important impact will be to deflate the amendment threat.

How to do? Well, those who back the amendment are under the impression that what they are doing is simply protecting the institution of marriage in keeping with the desires of the vast majority of americans, in the face of social tinkering at the edges of a few liberal theorticians of activist judges who drink chardonnay with gays at those parties they all go to together. Their calculus is simply that if only 10% of the country wants gay marriage, they can certainly get that 3/4 of a vote through the House and Senate, and 3/4 of the states.

What should be done at this stage is to demonstrate that the fraction of the country which is against the amendment is much larger than the 25% needed to stop it.

There are several contributing approaches. However, an importantly useful one would be to have mayors in every state come forward to offer licenses to same-sex couples. This would demonstrate that gay marraiges are supported not just by a few people on the coasts. So, the addition of NM and NY are important to the movement -- and I hope that it continues state after state.

Like all political movements, what's needed are feet.