Moving the middle on marriage

August 19, 2010

Posted by Lanae Erickson and Jon Cowan on politico.com:

"This month, a federal district court judge in California struck down Proposition 8 — the state ballot measure that banned gay and lesbian couples from marrying — as unconstitutional, and the case is most likely to be settled by the Supreme Court. Although the decision has been stayed, many understandably saw it as a victory and perhaps an indication that legal arguments — not public persuasion — are going to be the fastest way to bring about equality.

"But lawsuits are not a substitute for public support, and legal arguments do not operate in a vacuum. This decision makes it all the more crucial to build a solid majority of Americans who strongly support the full range of legal relationship recognition, including allowing gay couples to marry.

"In our view, there are three essential steps to moving the persuadable middle.

"First, advocates must reframe the conversation. Over the past decade, we have often phrased our arguments in terms of rights and benefits — appeals that are sometimes persuasive when it comes to legal arrangements like domestic partnerships and civil unions. But rights and benefits aren’t the way most couples see their relationships, especially marriage. Marriage is about lifetime commitment, responsibilities and obligations. If we can persuade people in the middle that gay couples want to get married for those reasons — not simply to gain a list of legal rights and benefits — we’ll connect with them in a far deeper way.

"Second, we must directly address the middle’s concerns. Changing the subject isn’t sufficient — the middle's concerns aren’t a secret, and we do better when we acknowledge them. For example, nearly half of people in the middle attend church at least once a week, and they have religious concerns about marriage. But when people are reassured that no church or pastor would ever be forced to perform marriages of same-sex couples, the concern significantly decreases.

... "Third, we need to continue to make progress along the spectrum of relationship recognition, from domestic partnerships to civil unions to marriage. Many states are not yet ready to have the marriage debate. But in the past decade, the idea of providing legal recognition to gay couples has gone from controversial to commonplace, extending far beyond the coasts to states like Nevada, Colorado  and Wisconsin. We’ve reached a national consensus: Three-quarters of Americans support some form of legal recognition for gay couples. We should capitalize on that consensus to enact domestic partnership and civil union laws, as both a means of shifting policy and politics.

"The Supreme Court will eventually be faced with a choice: whether to uphold or reverse the district court’s decision in the Prop. 8 case. In the meantime, we need to continue laying the groundwork by moving the middle on relationship recognition, including marriage, so that the court and the American people can see the case as the next logical piece of our nation’s journey toward equality."