|
The
Death of
"Live
and Let Live"
The
Affirmation of Marriage Act shattered a
workable philosophy in Virginia that left gays in peace
but deferred to mainstream values. The legislation will
hurt our economy and do nothing to strengthen marriage.
It
is with trepidation that I venture into the realm of
social policy. My driving passion is economic
development and wealth creation; I try to steer clear of
the inherently divisive culture wars. But every so
often, a social issue has economic consequences, and the
“Affirmation of Marriage Act” is one of those.
I
would certainly agree with the author of that
legislation, Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Manassas, that
marriage is a bedrock institution of our society and
deserves the government’s protection. What I don’t
understand is how gays in Virginia
are
undermining it.
In
his preamble to the “Affirmation of Marriage Act,” Marshall
drew
from examples as far afield as Vermont
and
Saskachewan to conjure visions of gay activism run
amuck. Should “homosexual marriage” or even “same
sex unions” ever come to the Commonwealth, he
hyper-ventilated, schools would wind up teaching moral
equivalence between same-sex and traditional marriages.
Churches would get their tax exemptions yanked for
holding politically incorrect theological beliefs.
Employers would lose government contracts unless they
provided equal benefits to married homosexuals. Teens
would bring their same-sex dates to the school prom!
I’m not making this up. See
for yourself.
To forestall such abominations from spreading to
Virginia, Marshall
submitted a bill that was passed by veto-proof
majorities in both houses of the General Assembly. The
“Affirmation of Marriage Act” states that Virginia
need not recognize any out-of-state marriage, civil
union, partnership contract or other arrangement that
would “bestow any of the privileges or obligations of
marriage” unless it conformed with the laws of the
Commonwealth.
Gov.
Mark R. Warner warned that the legislation might be unconstitutional because it
potentially impaired the obligations of
existing contracts and the ability of
people of the same sex to enter into certain types of
agreements. Advocates of the Act argued the contrary. The
fact is, no one will know for sure until legal
challenges are filed and work their way up to Virginia's
Supreme Court. What we can demonstrate is the
negative impact the law will have on Virginia's economy,
as I will do momentarily.
I do not
believe that the "Affirmation of Marriage Act" reflects the
sentiments of most
Virginians. When it comes to gay rights, most people, like me,
belong to the muddled middle. We dislike the extreme
manifestations of the gay movement – Queer Nation
parades, outings of people who don’t want to be outed,
lawsuits against the Boy Scouts and all the rest of the
I-spit-on-your-
bourgeois-values
stuff that emanates from the West Coast and the
Northeast – but we’re not hostile to gays. There is a
strong libertarian streak in
Virginia: As
long as gays pay a certain deference to majority sensibilities,
the majority will leave them alone. Live and let live.
We had a good thing going in
Virginia.
Gays in the Old Dominion are more conservative than gays
elsewhere. They didn't push radical social agendas. They
lived quietly, almost indistinguishably from
everyone else. They fit in. And because they were so
mainstream, nobody bothered them. Now
Marshall
has imported the polarized, politicized and antagonistic
tone of the gay rights debate in other states to
Virginia.
In
all likelihood, Virginia can never to go back. Gays
will feel forced to defend themselves. They will file
lawsuits. Gay rights activists around the country will
focus on Virginia in a way they never did before. Gay
rhetoric will become more strident, in turn stoking the outrage
of Virginia's Religious Right.
The backlash
is already occurring. You can see some of the combative rhetoric on the Virginia
is for Haters
website, which is trying to organize a boycott of Virginia
tourism
and Virginia companies. As the website says, “We’re here to prove
that when a U.S.
state attacks the fundamental legal rights of gays and
lesbians, gays and lesbians know how to fight back.
Please join us in boycotting Virginia
companies and their products and services.”
Make no mistake: There’s a lot more at stake than the
loss of a few gay tourists. There’s more at stake than
the agitation to persuade gay rights-sympathizing
Canadians to boycott
Virginia
Beach.
There’s more at stake than even a number of gays
moving in disgust out of the state.
As Carnegie
Mellon
University
professor Richard Florida has observed in his book, The
Rise of the Creative Class, metropolitan regions
with the highest percentage of gays in their populations
tend to perform better economically. It’s not a matter
of gays themselves being especially entrepreneurial,
although you could make a case that they are. More to
the point: A tolerance of gays is indicative of more
inclusive attitudes toward cultural and ethnic diversity
generally. The artistically, scientifically and
entrepreneurially creative people who drive economic
growth tend to gravitate to regions with pluralistic
cultures where new ideas and innovation flourishes.
The “Affirmation of Marriage
Act” transmits a signal that confirms
the worst stereotypes of Virginia.
What else can you expect, people will say, from a state
that’s home to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson? A
significant number of talented people will make up their
minds that Virginia is a place they would never want to
move to -- and that makes our businesses and communities
less competitive in the global marketplace. This
legislation can only hinder efforts of Virginia communities to
reinvent themselves as centers of creativity and
innovation.
Now, I
don’t expect Bob Marshall to care if he incites a gay
backlash. Indeed, he may well relish the challenge of
confrontation. But those of us in the muddled middle,
those of who who prefer civil peace over civil strife,
those of us who place a priority on creating jobs,
wealth and the tax base should
take notice. We will pay an economic price for the
polarization of gay issues. And, ironically, "The
Affirmation of Marriage Act" doesn't even address the real
reasons why the institution of marriage is in trouble.
If
you were ranking reasons why the American institution of
marriage is in disarray, would you really put gays near
the top of the list? In my observation, the number one
cause for marriages breaking up is adultery – heterosexual
adultery. If Mr. Marshall wants to buttress the
institution of marriage, he’d accomplish a lot more if
he could figure out a way to crack down on hanky panky!
That’s
no easy chore. The pill and penicillin have mitigated
the most fearful effects – pregnancy and disease –
of sexual adventurism. We can deplore the moral
consequences, but we can’t un-invent these
technologies. Furthermore, our popular culture -- from
movies to TV shows, Cosmo
to Howard Stern – glorifies the idea of
recreational, responsibility-free sex. I have no problem
with chasing Stern off the airwaves. But it's ludicrous to blame gays,
especially Virginia gays, for the increasing vulgarity
of our popular culture and the inability of heteros to control their
sexual impulses!
The
next biggest threat on my list would be the empowerment
of women. Opening up job and career opportunities to
women was a tremendous advance for American society. I
am thankful for the options that have been created for
my wife, my sisters and my daughters. But
it’s naïve to think that the migration of millions of
women into the workforce had no impact on family life.
Among the most visible consequences has been a plunge in
fertility rates as women have chosen to delay marriage and
defer child bearing until later in life.
Societies
can move in unpredictable directions. Japan,
which has one of the lowest fertility rates in the
world, may foreshadow a post-sexual revolution to come in the United
States. A
recent article in USA
Today, “No Sex Please,” describes how young
Japanese women are rebelling against traditional social
roles, which they find oppressive, and how young men are
withdrawing from relationships with all their emotional
complications. As a consequence, states
the article, “marriages, births and hanky-panky are
all spiraling downward." Please note: Nobody
is blaming gays in homophobic Japan for the
disintegration of the traditional family.
There
are many more culprits responsible for the decline
of the American family. Let’s start with taxes.
Federal, state and local taxes soak up about 40 percent
of personal income. Two people must work today to match
the after-tax earning power of a single bread earner two
generations ago.
Combine
that with the impact of our auto-centric pattern of development. (See “We
Are What We Build,” May
24, 2004.)
In contemporary suburbia every adult must buy a car, at
an average cost of $6,500 annually, in order to enjoy
some measure of mobility. Suburbanites drive an
increasing number of miles every year through
increasingly congested traffic. Commuting, running
errands and chauffeuring kids consume an ever larger
slice of peoples’ discretionary time. The combination
of two-income families and an auto-centric society
creates financial stress and a “time famine” that
leaves many moms and dads exhausted, stressed and in
conflict over child-rearing
obligations.
I’m
all in favor of supporting the family by addressing real
problems like reducing taxes, reforming human settlement
patterns and combating a popular culture that glorifies
sexual promiscuity. But let's
get real: Gay activism of the stripe that Marshall
describes barely exists in Virginia, and has nothing to
do with the frailty of the traditional family unit here
in the Old Dominion.
Virginia
has
little to gain and much to lose by polarizing the
population over marriage and gay rights. Let us reassert
the philosophy, which had worked perfectly well in
Virginia, of live and let live. And let us insist that
our legislators repeal this
untimely and poorly conceived legislation.
--
June 7, 2004
|
