For Better Or For Worse?

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Hastert's silence was better than the explicitly cool reception that Bush's announcement got from other leading Republicans on Capitol Hill. Senate majority leader Bill Frist was highly skeptical of its chances for passage. So was House majority leader Tom DeLay. David Dreier, the powerful chairman of the House Rules Committee, flatly opposes amending the Constitution, arguing that the question of gay marriage instead "should go through the courts."

States that do not want gay marriage have pursued their own routes to block it. Thirty-nine have passed laws making clear they would not recognize gay marriages or civil unions from other states. At least 12 are debating laws to ban same-sex marriages, strengthen existing bans or bar same-sex couples from receiving marriage benefits. Hawaii, Alaska, Nebraska and Nevada have gone even further, amending their constitutions to ban same-sex marriages, and 21 other other states are thinking of doing the same.

Marriage is important to gays for the same reason it's important to straights--not only for romantic reasons but also because a marriage license opens the door to a multitude of federal and state benefits granted to wedded couples, including inheritance rights and Social Security survivor's benefits. That's one reason the consolation prize of civil unions is unsatisfying to gay activists, unless it comes with a document that opens the same doors as a marriage license. "Call it, perhaps, a marriage, family and partnership license," says Elizabeth Birch, a former executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay-rights organization.

To uncouple the two components of marriage, civil and religious--the latter being the basis of much of the reaction against gay marriage--some would prefer to see a legal regime in the U.S. like those of many European nations, where couples marry at city hall in a civil ceremony. They are then free to wed in a house of worship as well, which is equally free not to marry them if it violates the traditions of that faith.

Whether a federal amendment emerges from Congress, debate over the issue ensures that gay marriage will remain an explosive talking point straight through November, and in the meantime will produce some political contortions. Kerry, for instance, is one of only 14 Senators who voted against DOMA, which he described as an instance of "gay bashing on the floor of the United States Senate." Yet on Good Morning America last week Kerry said a federal amendment was unnecessary because DOMA shielded states that did not want to accept gay marriage--which put him in the awkward position of pointing out the usefulness of a law he voted against. Bush's position has been adjustable too. In a 2000 presidential debate he said states "can do what they want" on gay marriage. And Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter Mary is openly gay, likewise said in that year's vice presidential debate that the issue of gay marriage should be decided by states, though earlier this year he said he would support the Administration's stand.