Democrats shouldn’t congratulate themselves on gay marriage
A gay marriage rights advocate waves an equality flag outside the Supreme Court before the start of oral arguments on marriage equality on April 28. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty)
If you had asked me 10 or 15 years ago, I would have told you the society wasn’t ready for two little plastic guys atop a wedding cake. I’d have said that government didn’t need to go expanding the cultural confines of marriage and that civil unions seemed like a pretty good compromise measure for my friends who were gay.
I was wrong, and I’m not especially proud of it. But so was the entire political establishment in Washington, including a generation of leaders whose careers were inspired by the fight for civil rights.
The inescapable fact is that the story of gay marriage in America — which will, now or later, be recognized as a fundamental right — is mostly the story of failure in our political leadership. And we should probably pause to ask ourselves why.
Regardless of what the Supreme Court decides after this week’s landmark arguments, the debate over gay marriage is bound to surface in the coming primary campaigns. Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor, will point out to activists that he was among the first governors to sign the right to marry into law, while Hillary Clinton demurred.
Clinton, of course, found herself painfully flummoxed over this issue in an interview with public radio’s Terry Gross last year, mainly because she couldn’t bring herself to utter the simple truth: “I changed my mind.” To which she might have added, “And by the way, Terry, so did everybody else in my party.”
Because, really, before Democrats go hoarse as they toast themselves for being on the right side of history, they ought to remember that history had to overtake them first. And if they want to say that Republicans are wrong on the defining civil rights issue of the moment (which they are), then Democrats will have to acknowledge that their record on gay marriage bears little comparison to their proud legacy on racial and gender equality.
Consider the principled example of Hubert Humphrey, whoprompted a walkout by Southern Democrats at the 1948 convention and opened a permanent rift in the party, all because he wasn’t willing to stand down on desegregation — seven years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, igniting the Civil Rights movement. “To those who say we are rushing this issue of civil rights,” Humphrey told the crowd in Philadelphia, “I say to them that we are 172 years too late.”
Humphrey’s fiery stand was prompted by Harry Truman’s decision that summer to desegregate the armed forces, long before anyone in the South considered doing away with whites-only entrances and luncheonettes.
Then-Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis addresses the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in 1948. Humphrey advocated the strengthening of the civil rights plank of the party platform. A sign on the podium reads, “Don’t be unbrotherly, Brother.” (Photo: AP)
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