10
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE APRIL 18, 1997
'The most powerful institution in society with regard to love'
Continued from page 1
most powerful educational tools imaginable for children."
"It doesn't have to be taught in the schools, their parents never have to mention it, but they will see it just by example," Sullivan said, “and it will be a much more constructive example than some of the examples they now have."
Doreen Cudnik: Before the rest of the country was caught up in this issue of same-sex marriage, you were already talking and writing about it. When you published your argument in favor of samesex marriage in 1989, did you see that it would become this huge national issue in a matter of years?
Andrew Sullivan: No, none of us did. I was drawn to it, I guess, by a sheer process of logic. In trying to figure out what gay rights and gay politics were about, I asked myself very basi-' cally, "What is homosexuality?" I defined it simply as the attraction, emotional and sexual, of one human being to another.
You ask yourself what's the most significant and powerful institution in our society with regard to the love of one person to another, and marriage is obviously by far the most important. It struck me looking at the gay rights movement, where was this? It was the most obvious issue to my mind and the deepest issue and the deepest symbol of our inequality, that this was not only not available to us, but almost unmentionable.
I also saw that it was one of those issues where you could really call the conservatives' bluff. In many other areas, the conservatives were always winning the argument by saying, "Oh you guys want to disrupt society, and we're for supporting stability."
But this issue turned things on its head. I realized it would be a very difficult issue for conservatives to grapple with and it would flush out their inconsistencies more effectively than almost any other issue. Because
they can't have it both ways, and people in the middle get that.
What do you think it is about the word marriage that ignites such passion in people on both sides of the argument?
Most heterosexual people regard the day they get married as the biggest day of their life. This is not an insignificant institution or issue for most people. To include us in it is the most radical statement that any society could make. That's why it's so explosive. If we're acceptable there, we're acceptable anywhere.
As I try and explain in the book, I don't think we are seeking the right to marry, I think we have it. I think it's guaranteed by the Constitution. We are being denied it.
As gay people, I think we had so internalized our exclusion from [marriage] that we've almost persuaded ourselves that we didn't deserve it or need it, or that the right to it was not important. But I think that once people
tap into it and think about it, you begin this kind of rage at the obvious exclusion.
I think once people have glimpsed the possibility that they could have this right, I think they re-conceive of themselves as citi-
zens and as human beings. Once you've glimpsed it, it's very hard not to glimpse it again.
Being British, you have insight into attitudes outside of the United States. Is the fierce polarization about marriage a distinctly American phenomenon, or are other countries hearing the same rhetoric?
I think it's very common. Take a culture like India, where marriage is a very powerful institution, often for the controlling and purchasing and exchanging of women. The notion that gay people would have access to that institution is completely unthinkable.
No other country has envisaged simple equality in marriage. Other countries, like Holland and Denmark, have created this segregated, "separate but equal" institution-sort of a super domestic partnership.
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But no one's gone like the Americans have with classic American simplicity and said, "We want the same thing." This issue is spreading across the world. It's clearly the next wave of [the gay rights] movement internationally.
Tell me a little about how you put together your new book, Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con.
I had been following this issue for years, so I had my own mental catalog of things that I read that I thought were interesting. Through the scholarship of other people, I had certain leads and references and footnotes.
My thought was, "Let's try to get to the original sources of all of this." I had a very
"My worst-case scenario is that gay people will be permanently entrenched with a second class status some sort of domestic partnership—and worse, that gay people will say, 'That's all we need." That's Jim Crow."
diligent research assistant who ferreted stuff out of the Library of Congress for several months and I would read the stuff and say, "What about Africa, what about China." And we would eventually find the passage in a book or the article. They're all out there, but no one really brought them to light before. They're there, but they're scattered.
I think I've been very diverse in what I've included. I tried to include everything from the religious right to the anti-marriage left.
It was amazing to read the transcripts from testimonies given on the Defense of Marriage Act before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the actual arguments that were made on the House floor, particularly exchanges like the one that took place between Reps. Barney Frank and Sonny Bono.
I think Sonny Bono's stuff in this book is among the most riveting. Because here is a man, everybody makes fun of him, but you know what? I found his testimony very moving and direct, and raw and real, and it's where a lot of people are. We have to reach out to those people, that's our job now.
There are certain people that we'll never reach, people who for dogmatic reasons will not listen. But then there's a lot of people in the middle who are just uncomfortable, and we need to find a way to make them comfortable. That means outreach on a very one-onone level.
I've heard people say that it's like pissing into the wind, that it really doesn't matter what we do if the state legislatures are just going to pass anti-same-sex marriage laws anyway.
That's a cop out, that's a total cop out, and it's a cop out that gay people have used for
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too long. There is no excuse for you not to engage. You will never know whether the answer is yes or no until you ask.
Part of what I'm trying to do in going around the country with this book is to legitimize the debate-to say, "Look, there are different positions here, it's not a crazy thing, calm down and listen." This should be treated like affirmative action, or other contentious public issues.
We have to have this argued from the roots up, and that means anybody reading this article should initiate a conversation with their family, with their co-workers, with people they know. That is more significant than any demonstration, than even a letter to your congressman.
My experience has been that when you actually talk to heterosexuals and say, "Look, how would you feel if you couldn't marry, or if you went across a state line and suddenly your children were no longer legitimate,” they get it. Call me naive, and I think it won't happen overnight, but it's a process we have to initiate.
With the recent actions of the Hawaii legislature to amend their constitution, it appears as if Judge Chang's pro-marriage ruling may be a short-lived victory. What's next in this struggle?
Even if something does pass, it may not pass in time to stop the [Hawaii] Supreme Court from upholding the lower court's decision in December. It would then have to go to the people in November of 1998, so there may be a window. The only hope of the other side would be to get the court to stay its decision until the referendum.
My view is that you fight every way. If we have to fight a referendum in Hawaii, we should throw all our weight behind it and fight it.
Do you believe that same-sex marriage, defined in the same way that it is defined for heterosexual couples, is inevitable in this country?
No, nothing's inevitable. My worst-case scenario is that gay people will be permanently entrenched with a second class status-some sort of domestic partnership which society will believe is our lot and all we deserve. And worse, that gay people will swallow it and say, “That's all we need." That is the worst outcome as far as I'm concerned. That's Jim Crow in 1997.
But if it does go through, I don't think people have any idea of the bomb that's going to go off in December or January when suddenly [same-sex]-married couples are legal in Hawaii. That will be a moment. It's one thing to talk about the possibility of this, it's another thing to be married.
When people across the country see those video scenes of two men or two women getting married in Hawaii and coming back and getting on the airplane, that is going to provoke an enormous discussion in this country. I think it's going to provoke extreme strife, too. We are kidding ourselves if we think this is not going to become an extremely explosive issue, and we better be ready.
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