The Politics of Prop 8 and Princeton

If you voted in the USG elections yesterday afternoon, you probably noticed three ballot initiatives at the end. You have probably heard about the content of these referenda and the debate surrounding them, so I won’t digress into a summary here. If you need a primer, there are two Daily Prince articles that give a nice summary, linked to here and here.

I didn’t vote in favor of either the amicus brief proposal, or the CIL proposal. The idea that Princeton should file an amicus brief against Prop 8 is extreme. First, there is the obvious issue that this is a controversial political issue that the University has no special expertise in; this is a school, not a partisan think-tank. Second, if administrators take a public position on such a contentious political issue, what sort of message does that send to students who don’t support gay marriage? Are they to abandon their positions? Just accept that the University knows best? I think such a public University position would have a chilling effect on free speech by those that disagree.

Now, from what I’ve just said, it sounds like I might have supported the initiative that would caution the administration against taking public positions on controversial issues. However, the CIL’s resolution is clearly inappropriate because it is so vague. This vagueness makes the resolution, to use a legal term, overbroad. That is, it can be construed to prohibit commentary that the University has every right to make. I really just don’t get how you can strictly define terms like “people of equal good will,” and “reasonable disagreement.” Essentially, the first referendum prevents important expression by students, and the second prevents important expression by the University.

When I first started looking at these, though, I hadn’t thought through all that. My knee-jerk reaction was that we obviously would want to react to Prop 8 in some way. I mean, one of the biggest supporters of the initiative is based on Nassau St. We’re college students; political involvement is supposed to be important. However, my outrage faded when I did a little more digging about what Prop 8 actually was.

Homosexual couples have not lost any practical rights. Hospital visitation rights, income tax consideration, all the tangible benefits of marriage are available under domestic partnership laws. Despite all the animosity over Prop 8, the change is in name only.

Thinking about this brought me to a key question: what business does the government have granting marriage licenses in the first place? If marriage is a religious institution (as it seems many Prop 8 supporters would argue), then it seems government should get out of the marriage business altogether.

The justification for granting marriage licenses in the past was, I suppose, to encourage people to get married and to provide legal recognition of the trust between them. I would argue that these are not religious goals, but civil ones, and they apply equally to both heterosexual and homosexual couples. The First and Fourteenth Amendments provide strong arguments for the elimination of religious considerations and a focus on equal protection. Therefore, here is my proposal: it is time for legislation that establishes a single national standard for civil unions based not on religion, but on the public good.