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10/07/2011
Brian Brown failed to mention a few things about his scholarly reference. So here, allow me…
In a new US News & World Report column where he publicly debates folks like Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's Rea Carey on the subject of same-sex marriage, National Organization For Marriage president Brian Brown casually drops this little passage to up his supposedly strong scholarly backing:
Under the law, one definition of marriage would not exist alongside the other. Only one definition can prevail. As an article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, observed, "…once the judiciary or legislature adopts ‘the union of any two persons' as the legal definition of civil marriage, that conception becomes the sole definitional basis for the only law-sanctioned marriage that any couple can enter. Rather than peacefully coexisting with the contemporary man-woman marriage institution, it actually displaces and replaces it."
Nationally Legal Gay Marriage Puts Churches at Risk [US News "Debate Club"]
"Ooh, Harvard, that's a good school." That's what Brian wants readers to hear and think. And that'd be an accurate assessment -- it is a good school that churns out great thought.
Only thing? Despite having an innocuous name, this Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy is not a mere scholarly journal, but rather a right-bent publication with a stated purpose of advancing conservative thought. In fact, it is the official publication of the very conservative Federalist Society.
This piece that Brian references, titled "Marriage facts," states in the introduction "the conclusion that the package supportive of man-woman marriage is decidedly more defensible." This particular examination was really meant to analyze the legal reasoning that leads judges to either accept or not accept the "facts" that the conservative author has accepted as true, not further debate the facts themselves. It was written as a debate for conservatives who had already rejected same-sex marriage to have among themselves, not really for proponents and opponents to debate marriage equality on its merits.
Oh, and the unnamed writer of Brian's referenced piece? That would be Monte Neil Stewart, a Mormon, former BYU professor, backer of Utah's anti-gay-marriage amendment (Amendment 3), and co-chair of the resulting "Yes on 3" coalition campaign. Stewart is also the president of the Marriage Law Foundation. This Marriage Law Foundation:
[Marriage Law Foundation]
The same Marriage Law Foundation that touts NOM's own Maggie Gallagher as a board member. In fact, Maggie's name actually comes up twelve times in the footnotes of Brian's referenced article. NOM co-founder Robert George also gets a mention.
Of course Brian doesn't tell you any of this. He just wants you to believe he has an objective Harvard voice on his side. He wants you to see scholarly heft where really there is partisan politicking.
Then again, Brian's commentary currently has 161 down votes and only 3 up votes (vs. Evan who has 224 up and 1 down or Rea who has 177 up and 0 down). Or as they say at Harvard: "He's getting his butt kicked."
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