Gay marriage advocate explores legal status of same-sex unions

Is the world ready to accept gay marriage? According to Georgetown Law Professor William Eskridge, there are three schools of thought on the matter. "The advocates say, 'The time has come!' The conservatives say, 'The time has come too early!' And the feminists say, 'The time has passed!'," said Eskridge, author of The Case for Same-Sex Marriage. Speaking to a sparse crowd of about 40 at the Law School last night, Eskridge provided the background and current legal status of same-sex marriages. Speaking lucidly and sometimes passionately, he gave a methodical, hour-long presentation of marriage law punctuated by barbs aimed at his political opponents. "We need to look at arguments [against gay marriage] not as arguments, but as expressions of cultural anxiety," he said. At another point, he said "people with an IQ above 50 should not be making" some of the arguments that have been used against gay marriage. Throughout his speech, Eskridge distinguished between arguments made by conservatives motivated by emotion and "very serious arguments [made] by very serious people." Eskridge divided the history of the gay marriage issue into two stages. The first, from 1969 to 1975, saw little discussion of the issue because: feminists viewed marriage as inherently patriarchal; Marxists viewed marriage as a capitalist tool; and gay advocates saw marriage as "anti-sex." Meanwhile, the rest of society refused to discuss the issue. By the late '80s, however, society had become more tolerant of gays, Eskridge said. Moreover, the '70s radicals had become "boring middle-class lawyers." "The 'gayocracy' was no longer radical," he said, and AIDS forced gays to consolidate politically. This political evolution has allowed gays to lobby successfully for steps toward gay marriage, Eskridge said. He pointed to Hawaii's tentative steps to legalize gay marriages, and the backlash that provoked this summer's passage of the federal "The Defense of Marriage Act," allowing states to set their own policies rather than accept Hawaii's. Eskridge said two flawed arguments form the basis for the reaction against gay marriage. The first -- that gay marriage will lead to legalized polygamy -- is invalid, because there is no legal precedent for allowing people to marry more than one spouse, regardless of gender, he said. The second argument is that legalizing gay marriage sanctions homosexual relationships. This is also invalid, he argued, because current law gives felons and "deadbeat dads" the right to marry, yet no one thinks the state intends to sanction felony and irresponsible parenthood with this policy. Most of the attendees liked the way Eskridge was able to distill legal arguments into lay language. "He did a good job making the subject accessible," said second-year Law student Julie Johnson, who is writing a 50-page paper on the subject. "It was very frustrating it wasn't better advertised," she added, referring to the low turnout. Third-year Temple law student Elissa Dorfsmann echoed Johnson, saying she "appreciated how [Eskridge] covered the evolution" of gay legal history, but that the low turnout surprised her. "This should be a more general-interest topic," she said. Gay Lesbian and Bisexual Center Director Bob Schoenberg, who organized the event, called the turnout "respectable."