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Taking
Liberties
The
erosion of Virginia’s conservative values by new moral
dictators is proceeding at an alarming rate.
Abandon
the broad commitments to individual liberty that
have been the bedrock of conservative thought in
Virginia
since it was colonized. Whittle off more modern
moves toward greater equality, opportunity and
privacy for all. Throw to the winds the caution
against government dictating morals code and
religious beliefs to the most diverse population
Virginia
has ever known. Now, wake up in a Commonwealth
where state government increasingly is asked to
validate narrow belief systems and seems anxious
to dictate everything from scientific principles
to medical practice, from judicial decision-making
to the characteristics of marriage.
The
2004 session of the General Assembly,
for example, witnessed votes to have state
government intervene more deeply in reproductive
matters and end-of-life-care decisions, to impeach
judges who rule same-sex marriage laws
unconstitutional, to declare certain scientific
research illegal and to tell state universities
what medication doctors and pharmacists can give
students.
One
could hear a Virginia Senator triumphantly tell
medical doctors testifying before his committee,
“We tell doctors how to practice medicine all
the time.” One could vote, as the Virginia
Senate and House of Delegates did on March 11, for
a new law that declares any civil union,
partnership contract or other arrangement between
persons of the same sex void in Virginia.
Such
measures far exceed the nanny-ism
that conservatives accuse liberals of fostering.
By embracing active and interventionist government
in the most private of matters they kiss their
traditional principles good by. Conservatives once feared
big, powerful, interfering government. Now,
wielding their majority power, they dispense with moderation and caution in favor of
precipitous and radical action. The fact that
these diktats win majority votes in the General
doesn’t hide their chilling, authoritarian
nature.
The
preambles to the original bill against gay
marriage and same-sex unions, for example, claimed
that same-sex unions would bring legal sanctions
against persons and institutions opposed to them,
that churches whose teachings did not accept
homosexual behavior as moral would lose their tax
exemptions, that that gay marriage would weaken
the institution of marriage and harm children,
that recognizing out-of-state same sex unions
would subvert representative government in
Virginia and that the beneficial health effects of
heterosexual marriage would be lost to the
life-shortening and health-compromising
consequences of homosexual behavior. Apparently
neither facts nor constitutions need impinge on
opinions about gay unions.
Just
for the record, gay marriage or same sex civil
unions do not threaten my marriage. My wife and I
talked about it. We agreed, in fact, that no other
marriage threatens our marriage, nor does any
other marriage make our marriage. Your Las
Vegas-chapel-for-a-night, bungee-jumping ceremony,
infidelity, marry-along-with-
two-thousand-other-couples,
quickie divorce, fourth-times-a-charm,
live-in-separate-cities,
child-visitation-schedules, whatever marriage is
your business. Our marriage has meaning because of
what the two of us have brought to it for almost
34 years. But any increased government role in
defining or governing my marriage is a threat. You
issued the license, now get lost.
But,
then, the campaign against gay marriages isn’t
really about marriage. It’s about gays. Read
again the preambles to the law that eventually
were stripped away and that becomes clear. The new
moralists are right back on the hoary path that
liberty and rights belong to Virginians who look
like them, think like them and act like them. We
know that path leads backwards.
That
a majority of any group is ready to discriminate
against or harass gays, of course, isn’t
surprising. It does reflect the worst of our
history in which at one time or another we’ve
used the law to define away the rights of Native
Americans, Africans, women, immigrants,
non-property owners and others. Discrimination
certainly is not new in American history or any
other history for that matter. But where American
history differs, driven in no small measure by the
best in Virginians, is in its determination over
centuries to preserve liberty and to end
discrimination and to recognize that being
different does not require approval from any
majority.
The
Constitution of the United States and that of
Virginia, for example, demand equality under the
law. What makes marriage or a civil union between
any two specific adults different for government?
That is the question being brought before courts
for review and resolution. A slew of federal,
state and local laws prohibit discrimination on
the basis of race, color, disability, religion,
sex, national origin, age, marital status and
sexual orientation. What makes equal rights to
marry or seek civil union different from those in
the work place in the eyes of the law? Seeking
thoughtful answers to these kinds of questions
before acting precipitously is the mark of a
conservative.
That
legislators seem prepared to use government as an
instrument of new discrimination is what
thoughtful conservative Virginians would have
called a tyranny. Virginia’s state flag signals
the appropriate response. That so many
dismiss changes in an increasingly diverse America
as a conspiracy of San Francisco wackos or
activist judges in Massachusetts signals a
purposeful ignorance. America always has been
about openings, not closings. A deeper look at
diverse Virginia reveals the bankruptcy in moral
dictators seeking government cover for their own
fear and loathing.
--
March 15, 2004
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