Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect yesterday's ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The original version of the piece can be found in the December issue of the print magazine.
Since last summer's Supreme Court decision in Lawrence vs. Texas, overturningTexas' anti-sodomy law, evangelicals have grown louder. Now that theMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has declared that gay couples have theright to marry, evangelicals are committed to making gay marriage a major issueduring the upcoming presidential campaign. Their recent legislative victoryover "partial-birth" abortions has emboldened them to seek additionalways to erode Roe v. Wade. They're mounting an all-out offensive for Senate confirmation of people like Alabama's attorney general, William Pryor -- who called Roe "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history" -- to the federal courts. And they're determined to put religion back into the public schools.
The outcome of the 2004 presidential election will depend partly on what happensbetween now and Election Day in Iraq and to the U.S. economy. But it will alsoturn on the religious wars -- fueled by evangelical Protestants, the groundtroops of the Republican Party. The conventional wisdom is that these issuesare sure winners for the right. But Democrats can hold their own in thesewars -- if they respond vigorously to the coming assault.
Democrats should call all this for what it is -- a clear and present danger toreligious liberty in America. For more than three hundred years, the liberaltradition has sought to free people from the tyranny of religious doctrinesthat would otherwise be imposed on them. Today's evangelical right detests thattradition and seeks nothing short of a state-sponsored religion. Butmaintaining the separation of church and state is a necessary precondition ofliberty.
Public opinion sides with the Democrats. Even though a slim majority continuesto oppose gay marriage, polls show that most Americans believe that homosexualrelationships between consenting adults should be legal, that the choice ofwhether to have an abortion should be up to a woman and her doctor, thatstem-cell research should be legal, and that religion should stay out of thepublic schools. But unless Democrats focus the public's attention on the largerongoing assault on religious liberty, the evangelical right will whittle awaythese freedoms.
Gay marriage doesn't have to be a wedge issue for the evangelicals -- not ifDemocrats can put it where it belongs, as another front in the religious wars.The question of whether gay couples should be treated the same as marriedpeople need not and should not involve the religious meaning of"marriage." That's up to particular faiths and congregations todecide. The issue here is whether gays should have the same legal rights asheterosexuals -- survivor's benefits under Social Security, alimony, thedistribution of assets when relationships end in divorce and other legalprivileges now conferred only on heterosexual couples.
Democrats should make clear that this is an issue about state power, notreligion -- and call for gay civil rights. Not "marriage," but"domestic partnership" or "civil union" or whatever wordswill convey the same legal rights accorded heterosexuals. Most Americans thinkthe law shouldn't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. It followsthat gays should have the same legal rights.
The evangelicals' victory on "partial-birth" abortion proves only thatgruesome pictures and inflamed comments can persuade a majority that aparticular procedure is inhumane. It has no bearing on the more basic questionof whether the evangelical view about when life begins should be imposed on therest of America. Democrats should be clear that the issues of abortion andstem-cell research are about religious liberty. Tar the Republicans and theevangelicals with William Pryor and other nominees who want to overrule Roe. Show that the Senate Democrats' filibuster of these nominees is another front in the same religious war. Likewise, Democrats should hold evangelicals accountable for what they're trying to do in our nation's schools -- promoting the teaching of creationism, demanding school prayer, pushing "abstinence until marriage" programs, and opposing sex education. This is all about imposing their religious views on our children.
The religious wars aren't pretty. Religious wars never are. But Democrats shouldmount a firm and clear counter-assault. In the months leading up to ElectionDay, when Republicans are screaming about God and accusing the Democrats ofsiding with sexual deviants and baby killers, Democrats should remind Americansthat however important religion is to our spiritual lives, there is no room for liberty in a theocracy.
