Marriage amendment not Congress’ role

Belgium. The Netherlands. Quebec. Ontario. British Columbia. Massachusetts.

All are places… Belgium. The Netherlands. Quebec. Ontario. British Columbia. Massachusetts.

All are places where a person can marry someone else of the same sex.

The last member of that group joined the club Monday, when Massachusetts began granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Now, politicians on both state and national fronts have begun scrambling to find a way to make gay marriage a permanent impossibility. President George W. Bush has renewed his call for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The court battle that led to the Massachusetts licenses lasted years, but this debate has been going on longer than that, and it’s obviously not going to be over soon. It might be time for politicians to stop their calls for morality and let the fight go on, as it should in any functioning democracy.

Marriage, according to the U.S. government, is a legal contract between two people. It has benefits and restrictions, and breaking it can be costly, but its preservation can make life for two people and their family a much easier endeavor. Health benefits and tax breaks are just two of the ways marriage can help financially. Now everyone can enjoy the same benefits — in one state. That doesn’t mean it’s time to shut down the debate; it means it’s time for the country to keep talking.

Estimates put the gay population as high as 10 percent. For years, they weren’t considered by the courts to be equal to the other 90 percent. One judicial system now thinks they are, and regardless of personal morality or feelings about homosexuality, the ruling was made as a just interpretation of the law. Passing an amendment defining marriage would be an active move to deprive as many as one in every 10 people of rights the rest share. Is that what we want from our government?

People will not stop being gay because they can’t get benefits from their spouse’s employer. They won’t stop living together, having sex together or adopting children together. Other people don’t need to like that, be comfortable with it or even acknowledge it, but it will continue to happen. So is it right that we make the most drastic of changes to our governing document just to shut down a debate?

Massachusetts began granting marriage licenses on the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education, which did away with “separate but equal” facilities. That ruling, which followed decades of debate, was controversial at its time, and is now regarded as a moment when we started correcting centuries of wrong. What would have happened if, right after that ruling, Congress had enacted a constitutional amendment stating that “separate but equal” was, in fact, a fine standard?

We do take rights away from some groups. Convicted felons can’t vote. Immigrants can’t be president. But gay people are the only ones we don’t allow to get married. The morality of the issue is a matter for each individual and his or her church and friends. But constitutional amendments have ended slavery, set term limits, and begun and ended Prohibition. They’re so important there are only 27 of them. So should number 28 really be “10 percent of the people can’t sign a contract that helps them survive” or should we leave morality to religion, and leave the law to the judicial system?