Harry Jaffe: Perfect storm building over gay marriage bill
By: Harry Jaffe
Examiner Columnist
September 13, 2009
Ever been in the plains or on a plateau where the skies above are blue, but you can see black clouds piling up on the horizon?
Our landscape is too hilly, our buildings too tall, and our air too thick to see storms coming from 50 miles away. But we are trained to sense a political tsunami on the horizon. My dog isn't howling yet, but I sense a political storm the likes of which we have not seen since D.C. tried to legalize abortions, and Sen. Jesse Helms emphatically put it down back in the 1980s.
The D.C. Council is about to consider a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage. Coming from David Catania, perhaps the smartest and most deliberate council member, I expect it will be a well-considered, well-crafted piece of legislation. Catania will have checked with lawmakers around the nation who have written similar laws. He will have tailored it to the District's peculiar political structure.
Early drafts say that just about any person can marry another person "regardless of gender."
Other states and cities have endeavored to pass similar legislation. San Francisco, for example. But none are federal districts, none are the nation's capital, and none exist in the shadow of Congress, which has ultimate control over the laws and governance of the District of Columbia.
Therein lies the combustible combination of gay rights and religious, conservative dogma.
No doubt the D.C. Council will pass Catania's bill. Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry may genuflect to the black clergymen who oppose gay marriage. He might even persuade a colleague or two to vote against the measure. But it already has 10 co-sponsors. Mayor Adrian Fenty will sign it.
Then what?
District politicians have the backing of the majority of their constituents. A business group polled voters on the gay marriage issue in July. I believe it is the only poll that has tested the waters on the matter. It surveyed voters in three bellwether wards: far Northwest, Columbia Heights and Capital Hill. When broken down by gender and race, more than 75 percent favored the District allowing same-sex couples to marry.
When the council passes and the mayor signs the bill, perhaps before the end of the year, vocal opponents in the black ministry and Catholic Church will lobby sympathetic ears on Capital Hill. At what cost?
"They will be selling their souls to the devil," says Lowell Duckett, a retired cop and minister with Bible Way Church. Duckett does not advocate same-sex marriage, but he says: "They will have to go to the very people who oppose Home Rule -- Republicans and conservative Democrats. These folks have had their heel on the District for too long. Whether we agree or not, we have to stand with our neighbors and our political leaders."
Amen.
But I sense the rage in the hearts of black ministers and Catholic priests will join with the rage of religious conservatives in Congress.
The storm approaches.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at hjaffe@washingtonexaminer.com.
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