Yesterday, the California Supreme Court heard arguments about Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment passed by a narrow majority last November that defined marriage in California as "between a man and a woman."

There are a number of reasons why Prop 8 passed in "liberal" California.  The campaign against Prop 8 never really got it's message out clearly; the campaign for Prop 8 became a cause celebre with three factions of the religious right--fundamentalists, Catholics and (ironically imho) Mormons.  The Pro-Prop 8 campaign saturated the public with false claims about the impact equal marriage rights might have on the rights of religious institutions to adhere to their own set of beliefs about gay marriage.  Unfortunately, the scare tactics worked.

This is, in some ways, a California issue to be resolved by the California Supreme Court (and the passage of time...because I do believe that another amendment defining marriage as an equal right will inevitably pass as younger voters...who've grown up in an era of acceptance of homosexuality as a variation rather than an abomination...begin to outnumber older voters).

In other ways, it's a national conversation about whether or not individuals have equal rights under the law.  Mom #1 sent me an interesting op-ed from the NY Times about a week ago.   Titled "A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage," and co-written by a liberal and a conservative, the op-ed proposed a "third way" for resolving the contention surrounding gay marriage.

Essentially, the authors (David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch) propose that Congress enact a law recognizing Federal Civil Unions in states where civil unions or same sex marriages are legal.  Their proposal comes with a couple of interesting caveats.

The Federal Civil Union would confer "most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage."  Forgive me for quibbling, but I have a problem with defining something as equal (even if it's just a temporary solution designed to make our "national conversation...considerably less contentious") where the words "most or all" are part of the solution.  If such a plan were to succeed, the rights would have to be absolutely equal.

Second, they limit Federal Civil Union recognition to states that have "robust religious conscience exceptions" providing that "religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will."  This is the proposal in the piece that I find most promising.  Not because I believe that a separate but equal category of life-partnership is a stepping stone to genuine equality.  Rather, I see a fourth way to proceed.

What if our next "Proposition 8" says that California recognizes both opposite sex and same-sex marriages while providing those "robust" religious exceptions?  If Mormons, Catholics and Fundamentalists are deprived of their chief scare tactic (We'll have to let them marry in our church!), and their chief source of fear (The government will force us to believe something we don't want to believe--that gay individuals are no different from straight in terms of civil rights), then I believe same-sex marriages would pass with a healthy majority in California.

I don't believe we need a federal band-aid to achieve the goal of equality.  But I do see a place for religious conscience exceptions (similar to abortion rights exceptions) in the crafting of our next constitutional amendment to extend equal marriage rights to same sex couples.  It's an approach worth consideration. 

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