365 Gay News » David Blankenhorn

Supreme Court prospect draws criticism from gay groups

Jennifer Vanasco — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:32:30 +0000

(Atlanta) Georgia Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, considered a potential nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, has drawn criticism from gay rights groups after announcing plans to join a think tank whose founder is an outspoken opponent of gay marriage.

Sears, the nation’s first black female chief justice of a state supreme court, announced this week she will join the New York-based Institute for American Values when she retires June 30.

She has declined to address speculation about a possible nomination to succeed retiring Justice David Souter, who will leave the Supreme Court when it ends its current session in June. Sears has appeared on several lists of possible candidates to succeed Souter, according to officials familiar with President Barack Obama’s deliberations.

Obama publicly supports civil unions and aides say he believes that committed gay and lesbian couples should receive equal rights under the law. He does not, however, personally support gay marriage; he believes that states can make their own decisions about marriage.

In announcing her future plans, Sears said her role at the institute would build on her work with the Georgia Supreme Court toward “strengthening the institution of marriage” by working to reduce the nation’s divorce rate.

Gay rights advocates, who enthusiastically supported Sears’ re-election bid against a conservative in 2004, said they felt betrayed that she will be working part-time for the New York-based think tank.

Institute president David Blankenhorn, critics point out, wrote in 2008 that changing the definition of marriage to accommodate gay couples “definitively undermines” the institution of marriage. Blankenhorn, however, has said he doesn’t oppose Congress supporting civil unions if states can have exceptions allowing religious groups not to accept them.

Jeff Graham, executive director of the gay rights group Georgia Equality, said Sears’ decision to join the Institute for American Values is “something that’s very troubling, concerning and at the very least disappointing to me.”

State Rep. Karla Drenner, the state’s only openly gay legislator, said she felt “betrayed.”

“I don’t understand her committing her energies to an organization that doesn’t believe in equality for everybody,” Drenner said.

Gay rights groups eagerly backed Sears in 2004 when she faced Grant Brantley, a conservative who earned the endorsements of Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue and other state GOP leaders. She has also drawn criticism from conservatives for siding with an opinion that overturned the state’s law against sodomy.

Sears, who has not taken a public stance on same-sex marriage, said the institute takes no position on same-sex marriage and has a number of scholars on both sides of the issue.

“Blankenhorn happens to be on one side of this issue, and there are those on the other side,” she said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Sears, who was once divorced but has since remarried, said she is joining the group to continue her push for reducing unnecessary divorces, a topic she has embraced since she became chief justice in 2005. In a recent interview, she said the 2007 suicide of her brother, who was in the grips of a painful divorce, further inspired her work. “It made it very personal,” Sears said.

Blankenhorn is a self-described “lifelong Democrat” who wrote “The Future of Marriage,” which discusses his belief that children need a mother and a father.

In an interview Thursday, Blankenhorn said same-sex marriage is one of dozens of issues the institute studies and there is no “litmus test” on where members of its board of directors fall on the contentious topic.

“I have my position that I have, and I have plenty of colleagues with different positions,” he said. “The ethos at this organization is that we have different positions and we’re actively involved in bringing people together.”

He said Sears had made it clear she won’t take a public stance on same-sex marriage – an issue that might come before her for judicial review.

Blankenhorn has drawn praise from some prominent supporters of gay marriage as someone who is looking for middle ground on the contentious topic.

Jonathan Rauch, a guest scholar with the Brookings Institution who wrote “Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good For Gays, Good For Straights, And Good For America,” called Blankenhorn a “uniquely constructive force” in the debate. “He’s trying to carve out a new center,” Rauch said.

In 2006, Sears joined a unanimous decision that upheld Georgia’s same-sex marriage ban. The court didn’t rule on the merits of the ban. It just dismissed a challenge that claimed the law violated a rule governing the number of issues on a ballot measure.

Corvino: Can we find common ground on gay marriage?

Jennifer Vanasco — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:43:32 +0000

There is something very satisfying about ideological purity and the righteous indignation that often accompanies it. It can be fun to paint one’s opponents as crazy and stupid (and sometimes they make it all too easy to do so).

Less fun, yet potentially more productive, are attempts at common ground. As much as I enjoy a good zinger, I’m a conciliator by nature. And so I was intrigued by a recent proposal by Jonathan Rauch and David Blankenhorn seeking compromise on same-sex marriage.

Rauch is one of gay marriage’s sharpest defenders; Blankenhorn, one of its ablest critics. The two have clashed on multiple occasions. If I had to recommend only two books on this subject, one from each side, they would be Rauch’s and Blankenhorn’s.

In last Sunday’s New York Times, the pair co-authored a surprising proposal. The crux is this:

“Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will.”

Currently, various states offer some sort of legal recognition to same-sex couples. The idea would be to provide federal recognition to these arrangements while allaying opponents’ fears that doing so would erode their religious liberty.

So under the proposal, no church would have to rent out its parish hall for a lesbian wedding; no religious college would have to provide married student housing to a gay couple, and so on. Any state that insisted on such requirements would be ineligible for federal civil union recognition.

Let’s be clear on what the proposal would NOT do. It would not create legal statuses for same-sex couples in states that did not already have them.

It would not prevent gay-rights advocates from continuing to press for full marriage rights, or gay-rights opponents from continuing to make the case against them.

Nor would it “downgrade” Massachusetts and Connecticut same-sex marriages to civil unions. States would continue to recognize same-sex relationships in whatever ways they choose—as long as they don’t require religious organizations to do so. But the federal government, which currently recognizes NONE of these statuses, would recognize them all under the common name “civil unions.”

What the proposal would do is allow the federal government to say, “If your state recognizes you as a couple, so do we.” It thus takes federalism seriously, with the federal government deferring to the states on the issue of who’s legally united—as it usually does.

The proposal has already generated a good bit of discussion in the blogosphere. Some of it simply misunderstands the proposal; much of it—not surprisingly—is critical.

Certainly, the proposal deserves a rigorous discussion from all sides. In order for that discussion to be more productive, I’d like humbly to suggest some guidelines:

Rule #1: Do not criticize the proposal by saying, “The other side is not going to like it because…” Let the other side speak for the other side.

Rule #2: Do not respond to an admirable attempt at peaceful negotiation by immediately ratcheting up the rhetoric. For example, at the National Review Online Maggie Gallagher writes,

“From where I stand, it looks like the progressive/democrat position states: If you believe marriage means a husband and wife, you are not just wrong, you are downright wicked and deserve to have your home address put up on the internet so strangers can harass you.”

Oy. That violates Rule #1 and Rule #2—in one sentence!

Nobody doubts that there has been excessive rhetoric on both sides. There are advocates who claim that anyone who opposes marriage equality is a hateful bigot; there are opponents who hold that gays by their very existence offend God.

But thankfully, there are also those like Blankenhorn and Rauch who are interested in moving us past such conversation-stoppers. Let’s take the cue.

Rule #3: If you don’t like the proposal, suggest a better idea.

Note: “Give us full marriage equality!” is not what I mean by a better idea. Sure, that’s what would happen in my ideal world. Rauch’s too. And no one is saying that we should stop making the case for it.

But in the meantime, there’s a proposal on the table that would provide federal rights and benefits to those in state-issued same-sex unions. Moreover, it’s a proposal that one major same-sex marriage opponent has endorsed.

I don’t doubt that the proposal prompts some legitimate concerns on both sides. But if we can discuss those concerns with the same spirit of cooperation that Blankenhorn and Rauch have demonstrated, we might actually make some progress.
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John Corvino, Ph.D. is an author, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. His column “The Gay Moralist” appears Fridays on 365gay.com.

For more about John Corvino, or to see clips from his “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?” DVD, visit www.johncorvino.com.

See John at his upcoming events:

Mar. 02: Texas Women’s University (debate) 7 pm MCL Auditorium

Mar. 03: Everett Community College (WA) 11 am Parks Student Union MPR

Mar. 05: Northeast Wisconsin Tech 11:30 am Student Center Lecture Hall

Mar. 10: Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas 7 pm Student Union Theater