Keller @ Large: Gay Marriage - Beliefs Don't Trump Rights
BOSTON (CBS) - It's a busy week down at the Supreme Court, where they're hearing arguments in cases that could overturn the ban on gay marriage in California and reverse the Defense of Marriage Act preventing federal recognition of same-sex unions.
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I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, so I'll pass on analyzing the legal issues at work here.
But I do know that regardless of the court's rulings, the battle over same-sex marriage is being won, step by step, by its proponents, a trend that is likely to continue.
Some people who oppose gay marriage are honestly worried that it would somehow damage the social fabric. Others are profoundly upset by the very concept of homosexuality.
They are entitled to their opinions.
But a growing number of us – now up to more than 60-percent nationwide, according to one recent poll – feel no such anxiety.
There's been a recent trend of conservatives publicly rallying behind this cause, and no wonder.
Choosing to marry, in an age when unmarried cohabitation is common, represents a level of commitment to social tradition and legal responsibility that you would think most conservatives would applaud.
And for us here in Massachusetts, after ten years of legal gay marriage, it is clear that none of the critics' fears – of damage done to heterosexual marriage, or of some sort of unleashing of aberrant behavior – have come to pass. Some gay marriages survive and prosper, others don't.
It's not the American way to let the religious or social beliefs of some trump the rights of others. We'll soon see if a majority of the Supreme Court agrees.
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
