In Bill Clinton's opportune midnight signing of the "Defense Of Marriage" Bill, Clinton committed what the gay community has already called an "historical misjudgment". Although gay marriage is not yet recognized in any of the 50 states, this new law denies federal recognition and benefits to same-sex couples who might marry. They are not eligible for federal benefits now. Clinton has said all along, that he would support an even stronger bill, defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, allowing states to refuse to recognize gay marriages which might be legally performed in other states.

Supporters and detractors alike have said Clinton has long supported gay rights, though it is difficult to say what he has actually done to advance the cause of affording gays and lesbians exactly the same rights as heterosexuals. The gay community still secretly hopes Clinton would do more to support gay equality, were it not for formidable right-wing religious opposition, and that is what the right wing fears Clinton would do if re-elected.

The immense constitutional protection to the legal partnership is that the law may not arbitrarily impose division of interests upon the union, by splitting it into unequal recognition and treatment of each partner's interests.

It doesn't take a Judge Learned Hand to figure out that permanent partners and married couples need this legal recognition to secure rightful access to community property, spousal visitation rights, insurance, medical and tax rights, and rights to a community estate in inheritance and probate.

It's Not The Money, It's the Principle

It's access to those tangibles that the right wing wishes to deny same-sex partners. Fundamentalists have long maintained that this country was "really" founded as a Christian enclave, and that the Constitution exists to serve Christian religious freedoms as interpreted on the fly by church people kept to pass judgment on such things. No matter what you believe the Bible really says about homosexuality and marriage, a broad spectrum of both churches and political groups have promoted the doctrine that the law should and must define "morality", or crimes without victims, lest America decay into a nation of lawlessness and ungodliness.

Whose "morality" should we use in expanding the role of the State to guardian of all wholesomeness and state beneficence? Why, one and the same as we've always used, of course. This is the central moral justification for the "5,000 years" of allegedly monolithic Judeo-Christian "tradition", which Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition has lately trumpeted so successfully.

And why not? Most Americans fear what might happen without the anchor of "tradition", in this case "this is the way we've always done it". There is a real danger America, suddenly weaned of its counterfeit independence from affairs of the church, would simply drift off into deep space. Precedence has always played an unevenly heavy role in American politics because, without it, most Americans simply wouldn't know how to determine what we should really do, lacking for the greatest part even the most rudimentary principles to ascertain which end is up -- collectively speaking.

Engine Room to Bridge: Dinnae Rock the Boat, Captain!

The problem certainly isn't that we don't know right from wrong. The problem is that we don't know how to reconcile apparently conflicting and different sets of interests belonging to two hundred million individual Americans. That which rocks the boat, has strong potential to create more new damage than it corrects. Why? We still buy into the idea that a gain by one party necessitates a reciprocal loss by the other. "Win-win" is not a tongue spoken in the halls of congress, but in the back rooms; out in the open, we hear only the language of sacrifice. When rights are really equal, a loss only occurs when one relinquishes a "right" one was really never entitled to in the first place.

In this kind of exchange, we are routinely asked (and allowed) to sit in judgment over all manner of legitimate private affairs into which no one, either individual or state, should ever meddle or interfere.. What we get out of it is the intangible hope that we will somehow be made better off by the denigration of others' values.

The "sanctity of marriage" has become a threat to any two human beings desiring to establish a permanent household. It is no longer enough to say, "Your honor, we wish to enter into this permanent agreement between ourselves." Now the courts must look outside the province of the Constitution, or even legal "precedent", to determine whether such a contract could be found to be "moral".

Hands of a Sturgeon

Here is the crux of the Bill Clinton conundrum. Lacking principles or leadership to veto a bill which says what he feels anyway, he holds true to his gut feeling that "marriage" is a reserved word defining exclusively heterosexual unions.

Like most Americans, Clinton feels most comfortable with the idea of "just me and Mom and Pop", and uncomfortable with the idea that future happiness and security really belong to the 10% of our kids who grow up to be gay or lesbian -- lest it might behoove anyone else to actually recognize them. In order to say that this bill is wrong, he would have to be able to say that the tradition is wrong, or at least incomplete. No one expects Bill Clinton to perform surgery to repair the damage he has caused, particularly in an election year.

No Business Like Somebody Else's Business

The premise that we need more government to restore morality to America's homes, schools and playgrounds depends entirely on the premise that an authoritative and universal source of morality exists, that reasonable people will always agree on its definition, and that this wisdom is always supremely on tap in the legislative chambers. Such an untenable leap of faith is precisely why the Constitution enforces the separation of the powers of church and state.

The bill sneaks in the premise that it is OK to ignore the separation of church and state if "everybody knows" the church is right and the individual claimants are wrong. Trouble is, nobody ever knows that in advance -- excepting possibly some petitioners themselves -- not even the church, and particularly not the state.

This bill to rescue marriage for "morality" has actually gone a long way to harm the interests of both gay and straight communities. Never mind that the bill may cripple and perhaps kill the "full faith and credit" clause between the states. The bill seriously undermines both "marriage", and the separation of church and state.

When A Duck Is Always A Duck

There is no way to tell whether an idea is a "good idea" or a "bad idea" by ascertaining that it is church sponsored. There is no way to tell whether it's a "church idea" or "the will of the people", when a majority of people say they are for or against it.

But when it's church sponsored, and it stems from a church teaching peculiar to one religion as distinct from others, and it intrudes on an area of life not constitutionally reserved to the courts and legislatures, and it punishes voluntary human activity and relationships which bring harm to no one, then it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck. Saying the Defense Of Marriage bill is not an intrusion of church upon the state, is like saying that Robertson's people didn't take over the '92 and '96 Republican Conventions.

More than ever before, a marriage is not something that a couple in love declare to a joyful world. It is fast becoming a state certification of a privileged moral pedestal to which many certified and uncertified couples have already unsubscribed. For them, there is a real moral onus in buying into "marriage", because the power to define the relationship is increasingly vested in the state, not in the individuals.

Monogamy Creek Apartments: Blasphemers Need Not Apply

Fundamentalists claim that the government is encouraging out-of-wedlock births, divorce, and "immoral" cohabitation. In truth, the ranks are growing of those who prefer to live together without the legal protections of partnership. While they are legally "up a creek without a paddle" if disaster ever strikes the union, they initially enjoy avoidance of the double-jeopardy social and legal gauntlets of state-sanctioned marriage.

Gays have long been "up a creek" before the majestic gaze of the law. With the "moral marriage criterion" now in place, society has made it tougher for anyone to get and stay married. The bottom line is that the "Clinton bill" has gone a long way toward wrecking monogamous permanent unions, precisely that to which fundamentalist proponents claimed they wanted this nation to return.

Getting married in "the right church" may finally become more important than you ever thought.

The gay community will continue to form permanent partnerships, exactly as it always has. The gay community will continue to battle committees, bureaucrats and the courts for incredibly elementary rights like spousal visitation and community property recognition. Who in the heterosexual communities is fighting to save their own marriages from the fundamentalists?

Ironically, we know of no one in the gay community who particularly cares whether the permanent partnership is called a "marriage" or a partnership, so long as we win equal protection under the law.

Billy The Tinker

Many gays, like many heterosexuals, do recognize that the term "marriage" is loaded with much dangerous "traditional" baggage which, if accepted, harms both the husband and wife in a heterosexual marriage. An example of such is the churlish notion that the housewife's primary obligation is to act subserviently, in order, of course, to satisfy the tender emotional needs of the husband. There has been a subtle change in the whole definition of marriage. Not only must it meet community legal standards, it must meet community moral standards, and the federal government has just gotten a whole lot deeper into the business of regulating our Knights In Shining Armor. This is what Clinton and the fundamentalists are tinkering with.

The "Defense of Marriage" act goes a long way to restoring the foundations of severely retentive, ancient sexual and religious orthodoxies. Dole could not stop this even if he wanted to, and Clinton himself cannot undo it.

Pigs On The Wing

Despite great advances in minority rights in the last three decades, carpetbagger politicians continue to enjoy porkbarrel popularity by telling us that minorities have achieved these gains only "at the expense of" the traditional power bases. We will be restored to glory, but only when the others are once again made to assume the position. We, as a nation, still buy into it.

That is why it would be accurate to say, without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation or political affiliation, that we are less free as a nation than we were thirty years ago. "Defense of Marriage" is another feral pig in a federal poke. The gay community may make an end-run around the bill's immediate impact, with domestic partnership laws and increasingly popular corporate spousal benefit plans, but bigger boar are now on the hoof.

It remains to be seen how America will cope with Pat Robertson's people, the burgeoning ranks of once-and-future cracker Ayatollahs, and the "problem" of granting more equality to others without surrendering any of your own. In the next four years, look for an ugly series of trench warfare court shootouts, and precious little improvement in the quality of life for anyone.

In America, even the little guy can be loath to give up his claim to push around the disadvantaged and disenfranchised. You might not understand. Politicians don't create fear and ignorance. They just exploit it for political gain wherever they can find it. Getting through to this "little guy" may be the last great barrier of all.