I’d just like to clarify and expand my last gay marriage post. I was in a hurry when I typed it up on account of being late for a class. Sorry about that. Upon rereading it, I get the uneasy feeling that I came off as a boring centrist, fluctuating from side to another, not wanting to take a concrete stand – almost Wesly Clark-ish! That’s not what Commentary is supposed to be about!

But you see, the reason I take a middle position on the gay marriage issue isn’t out of reflexive, both-sides-have-a-good-point, take-the-extremes-and-divide-by-two centrism. Well, actually I do think both sides have a good point… Look, if you frame the debate as a moral issue, I’m sympathetic to the gay cause. But it’s not just a moral issue – you also have to take into account empirical considerations about how this will affect society. Advocates say that gay marriage will strengthen marriage as an institution, opponents say it will weaken it and lead to further social breakdown. Who is right? I think both sides have marshalled some good arguments in their favour – the only way we’ll know for sure is to legalise gay marriage and see what happens. And frankly, this type of “let’s jump in the hole and see how deep it is after we land” political calculation is exactly the sort of thing that conservatives are supposed to be against.

That doesn’t mean I support the FMA. Writing social policy into the constitution is dumb, it sets a very bad precedent, and it goes against conservative ideals. But then again, dictating social policy through the courts – which the FMA is designed to prevent – is also a very bad idea.

The ideal situation would be for everyone involved to start acting in good faith, and stop trying to use the constitution and the courts to ram their solution through. Gay marriage advocates could carry on fighting the war of public opinion – a war they’ve been slowly winning over the past ten years – and, when they’ve convinced a particular state that they’re right, they can have gay marriage enacted by the legislature, not imposed by the judiciary. As for gay marriage opponents, they would carry on fighting for public opinion, but resist the temptation to use a constitutional ammendment as a pre-emptive strike in case their opponents win the public over.

That’s how it would play out in a perfect world, anyway. Oh well…