Right Side of the Rainbow

I often marvel at the wildly irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric uttered by some of my gay and lesbian brethren. Here's yet another example of it, from Mark Bonney, a gay activist in Oklahoma, on his state's lopsided approval of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage:

"We couldn't get married before, so it didn't create any larger legal hurdle," Bonney said. "But it's got to hurt, when you know that three out of four of your neighbors don't want you around. It was a statement of hate."

A statement of hate? Where's the evidence for that? Or does opposition itself to gay marriage prove, ipso facto, that the opponent is hate-filled? If so, why?

I have no doubt that some voters, whether in Oklahoma or elsewhere, supported a ban on same-sex marriage out of visceral disgust with homosexuals. But I also have no doubt that others supported it out of disgust with an imperial judiciary hell-bent on undermining the capacity of a free people to govern themselves, and that still others worry over the unintended consequences of redefining an important social institution. To say blanketly that opposition to same-sex marriage is a "statement of hate" is to say that no decent person can object to it in good faith, or for intellectually defensible reasons.

But that's just not true. Good people who oppose same-sex marriage know themselves not to be bigots. And when gays and lesbians insist nevertheless on calling them ones, they know we're wrong. And if we're wrong about that, what else are we wrong about?

The Mark Bonneys of the world hope to short-circuit the debate by summarily dismissing the opposition. After all, why reason with bigots, who are, by definition, possessed of an unreasonable prejudice? But the opposition here is not dismissable, as Mr. Bonney learned on Election Day, nor is it unreasonable.

"You can't have marriage until you've gained enough self-acceptance to demand respect from your neighbors," he said.

Or until you show them the same respect you demand.