North Carolina recently passed “Amendment 1,” which changes the state constitution to ban gay marriage (as well as civil unions for both gay and straight couples). What many people outside the state don’t realize is that the passage of this amendment is very odd because gay marriage was already illegal in the state. In hearing the explanation from the few people I know who supported it, I think I’ve gotten some insight into why they find it acceptable for the government to step in to limit some personal decisions, but not others.
I don’t particularly like talking about what I think other people think, but I am trying to understand this and how to reconcile differences of opinion, so feel free to leave comments at the end.
First, the people who proposed the amendment acknowledged not only that gay marriage was already illegal in NC, but also that people’s opinions within the state were changing, and less people were as opposed to gay marriage (despite the news reports that North Carolinians “overwhelmingly” voted in favor of Amendment 1, the reality is, there was very low turnout at the polls and most people had no idea what was being voted on; a large number of those who did know didn’t even realize it would ban all civil unions, despite being in favor of those). Their stated reason for this amendment was specifically to make it more difficult for future generations to change the law and one day make gay marriage legal in the state. (I realize I need to find the source for this, but it’s difficult to find records of things said at small-town meetings or on local news). Second, an acquaintance said in defense of the amendment that whenever government tries to decide morality, some people (in this case gay marriage supporters) are going to object or be unhappy with the decision.
That second point is where his reasoning suddenly became clear to me: he seems to view the government as a moral entity, and any decision they make is going to “take a side,” and cannot inherently be anywhere near neutral. Allowing gay marriage along with heterosexual marriage is not a neutral position that allows for people to live their life according to the moral code they believe, but one that tells everyone that being gay is morally acceptable. He doesn’t seem to distinguish between legally acceptable and morally acceptable, and seems to view the legal acceptance of gay marriage as the extreme opposite of only accepting marriage between one man and one woman.
I believe it was Aristotle who wrote that in order to find the median, the extremes must be found, but by that logic, the extreme opposite would be only recognizing gay marriage. While this socially seems irrational and impossible, it is the logical opposite, and identifying that indicates that allowing both is the middle ground that allows people to live according to the moral code they believe. After all, people opposed to gay marriage can continue to oppose it, teach that to their families, go to church where it is not recognized, and nothing will change for them (just replace “gay marriage” with “divorce” and you realize that’s the same situation Catholics face in the US, and it’s not a big deal for them and their lives).
Interestingly, this is not the first time I’ve heard this misinterpretation of “extremes” from someone who I’d previously gone to high school with. In talking about societal changes, one girl at the time asked if there is a cycle or pendulum-like aspect to what we find socially acceptable, and placed a male-dominated society and one end, and a gender-equality one at the other, with the “pendulum” swinging between these two. However, she, and the teacher she was discussing this idea with, never mentioned what I would find as the true “opposite extreme”: a female-dominated society. This would place gender equality (however you define it), as the median or middle ground, and greatly changes the concept of a hypothetical social pendulum.
Having grown up partly in NY and partly in NC, I generally suspect cultural differences in explaining interpretations of American society by Americans from different parts of the country. In NC, I tend to hear a lot of support for the First Amendment of the US Constitution in regards to freedom of religion, but then I also hear a lot of claims that “separation of church and state” is not an “American value” because it’s not explicitly in the Constitution. I find these claims to be contradictory; how can we have the freedom to practice our own religion if the state recognizes and favors one over the others? Or more broadly, how can someone support limited government, but then favor laws that affect people on a purely personal level, such as “in the bedroom”? But if the perspective is that laws cannot avoid reflecting a specific morality and neutrality is not a possibility, then those contradictions are unavoidable and must be reconciled within the individual, who is rationally going to take the position he or she personally agrees with.
Needless to say, I personally disagree with the perspective that government cannot avoid taking sides, but I also suspect I was taught American history differently in NY than it is taught in NC. I often hear that “freedom of religion” came about because of religious persecution in Europe, yet that is not exactly what I learned about the origin of that part of the first Amendment. Why various religious groups left Europe and founded the original colonies was complex and sometimes involved escaping persecution, sometimes involved wanting to establish societies that excluded other religions not their own. When the states were considering uniting as one country, freedom of religion was included not because of the historical memory of past persecution, but because of the then-present-day reality. Today we think of the original founding groups as all Christian, but they didn’t necessarily see each other the same way (to me, comparable to how some modern Christian groups don’t recognize Mormons as also Christian), there were non-Christians around as well, and states did kick out individuals who were seen as not conforming to their specific religious views (this being how we got Rhode Island). People wanted to be absolutely certain that under the proposed government, they would still be free to practice their religions as they had been, and that as a nation, one religious group wouldn’t institute their religion over the others, negating what each state had established over the prior 100 or so years.
I’m not sure where this leaves us as a country, or even just a state, trying to decide what to do about social changes. I don’t say this often, but the idea that government must inherently be supporting a particular moral code to be wrong. There is a sort of morality in government-based decisions…one that values personal freedom, choice, and equality, and how exactly those things are interpreted it real-life situations does depend on the person doing the interpreting. But if freedom and equality are truly the basis and no one is harmed or infringed by the actions of another, then government has no place restricting them and is not “choosing sides” by acknowledging their decisions along with everyone else’s.
