Dean Friedman: Good evening and welcome to this next evening in Pace Law School's public policy series. We have covered Iraq we've talked about Enron and tonight we talk about whether legislature should authorize same sex marriage. We put the question in those terms in order to emphasize the fact that we are not, this evening really talking about the legal and constitutional issues. So the issue is not whether a state law that only authorizes a marriage for heterosexuals is constitutional, we are not talking about whether federal tax laws and state inheritance laws and such which only provide benefits to married couples and therefore in most states only heterosexual couples is constitutional. We are really addressing the, we hope the basic issues which is why is it so important to the gay community to have something called marriage as opposed to different kind of formal relationship or informal relationship. And why is it significant number of American's and organizations are opposed to same sex marriage. Our speakers this evening are David Blankenhorn who is Founder and President of the Institute for American Values and Evan Wolfson who is Executive Director of Freedom to Marry, they both have distinguished and impressive careers. Mr. Blankenhorn is a graduate of Harvard College holds an M.A. from the Warwick University in Coventry in England. He served for two years as VISTA volunteer and is one of the Founders of National Fatherhood Initiative. Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School said of him, "No one writes about the crisis in American family life with more candor, intelligence, and sympathetic understanding than David Blankenhorn". He is the author five books on the family and fatherhood. Evan Wolfson went to Yale College and the Harvard Law School and he spend two years with the Peace Corps in West Africa. He served as Associate Counsel in the Iran/Contra investigation and was an Assistant District Attorney in the DA's office in Brooklyn. In 2004 he was named by Time Magazine as one of the most, one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He is the author of "Why Marriage Matters; America, Equality and Gay People's Right to Marry". Now let me say just a few procedural points before we begin. We are going to begin with short statements from each of our panelist. And then I am going to ask each of them some questions and then we will open the floor for the questions from all of you. When you ask you question I ask that you use the microphone, we are recording this, this evening and if you don't use the microphones in the two aisles then your questions won't be part of this proceedings and we want them to be. Finally if you are interested you will be able to purchase the most recent books by both of these panelists for a variety of logistical reasons it's going to be done in our book stall which is in (Aloysia) Hall and for those who, and they will there to sign copies if their book. And for those of you who don't know where that is we will have guides outside the door at the conclusion. So with that let's begin in alphabetical order with Mr. Blankenhorn's opening statement.
David Blankenhorn: Good evening. I am honor to be on the same program with Evan Wolfson. He is a leader, an important leader of an important movement to extend the equal marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples. I read his stuff; I admire him for the leadership that he has shown. I didn't come here to be against something, I came here to be for something. I say in this book that I just wrote that I believe very strongly and dignity and worth of homosexual love. I believe we are all born equal in rights and in dignity. I am from the south and the morally paradigmatic experience of my life was the civil rights movement. And so I hope I am sensitive to the issue of civil rights and for that reason I am a life long Democrat politically, Liberal Democrat. So I am, I don't think I am against something, I am for something. And what I am for is this gift that human societies give their children. It's this astonishing proposition that we make on their behalf and what we say is that for every child who comes into the world we want it to be that they will be loved and raised by the mother and the father whose union made the child. That these two people will not merely be the biological procreators that they will be the social inheritance, the mother and the father are legally and socially nurturing that child, they would be there, the gift to the child was the parents who made the child being there for the child and being there for one another. And in human societies there is a name for this arrangement, this promise, this commitment, this fragile thing that so important that we try to give to our children. The name of that is marriage. That's why we have marriage, that's why the anthropologist tell us the, not the only reason that marriage exist but the central, universal, fundamental reason for the institution is to give the child the gift of the parents who made them. That gift is being revoked today in the United States. Many trends and initiatives and organizations and people are among those who would revoke that promise and one of them is my colleague Evan Wolfson who, just so you heard in his own words, he says on in his book which you should all read, he says "leading experts do not say children fair better with the mother and the father" and the not is italicized, and he goes on to some links to say no, people who say this mother father business are right wingers their have, hidden a gender maybe and there are possibly bigoted people but they, no the expects don't say this and it's offensive and unfair when people do say it. So if you want to know the difference between us, that's it and in nutshell. I've spent my whole life studying and being a public advocate to the best of my ability for this gift of the mother and the father for the child. And Evan says that the leading experts don't say that's important, it's not, they don't feel, children do not feel better this way. And, the United Nations declaration of human rights in the United Nations, convention on the rights of the child, this proposition that Evan is proposing would require specifically to renounce the language of the UN declaration of human rights and the UN convention on the rights of the child, because I am sure many of you know that convention specifically says that is the affirmative responsibility of society to do everything it can to make sure that children are have the right to know and be known by and to be raised by their own natural parents. That's the UN convention on the rights of the child. So the proposition on which Evan is a leader would specifically cause us to have to retract and renounce that commitment. There is a company in New Jersey that sells, T-Shirts and other things for children to promote family diversity and same sex marriage and one of the T-Shirts not surprising says "Let My Parents Marry" another T-Shirt if you go to their website a cute little child with the T-Shirt it says "My Daddy's Name is Donor" so you know if the philosophy of changing marriage so that the cute child in the cute T-Shirt, "My Daddy's Name is Donor", that's what I am saying is not in the interest of our children. And now we have a very high rate of divorce that's also obviously causing a threat to this gift that I am describing. We have a very high rate of out of wedlock childbearing, single parent homes the whole panoply of things and in the book I try to argue that, all of them, all of the things chipping away at the integrity of the institution that gives our child this gift is something that we should question as a society, something that we should do our best to go in a different direction. So that's really the heart of my case, I don't think that strengthening marriage as a pro-child social institution is beyond our power as a society, I think we can do it, I try in the book to list a lot of practical ways that we can, we can improve the likelihood of children growing up being protected by this institution. I don't think that the question that we are debating to me at least is not a question of good versus bad. Sometimes people who are against gay marriage, they say well the good thing is marriage and the bad thing is homosexuals, in sometimes people on the other side say the good thing is equal rights and the bad thing is bigotry. And what I am proposing to you is that it's not, as I see either of those, it's not a question of good versus bad; it's a question of good versus good. Goods in conflict, it's a good thing to treat everyone equally and to have equal rights and in my opinion it's a good thing to respect and recognize gay and lesbian relationships and the importance of homosexual love and commitment in our society, it's a good thing. I also think it's a good thing to promise through our institutions the protection of children by giving them the mother and father who raised them. This institution called marriage is a good thing especially for children. What I am arguing in the book is that to some degree these two good things these two desirable goals are in conflict with one another and so as ethically sensitive people it's our job to evaluate, see if it is just good versus bad its not, the moral evaluation is easy. With good versus good there is anguish involved, this certainly is for me. My conclusion is that because children are have less of an ability to speak for themselves and because they are more vulnerable their needs should trump the adult needs in this question. It's debatable good people on both sides but that's my evaluation. Last point I'll make is that Evan in his book defines marriage as "a specific relationship of love and dedication to another person". And if I had more time I was going to say why this is wrong. It's not even close; it's just not even remotely close to a definition of marriage. I have specific relationships of love and commitment to many people to whom I am not married. And so unless someone can tell me what else marriage is besides a specific relationship of love and commitment, I have nothing to say about marriage. It's, I am not just picking on Evan, lots of people want to say that marriage is just a private relationship between two adults, one of the points I try to make in the book is and it even remotely true, if you look at the body of the evidence form the scholars who studied this for many years and so one of the questions we have to deal with in this debate is that what is so frequently stated by Evan and others who want to change marriage to mean this thing, but that it doesn't mean that now, that's not what it means. And so we need to backup a little bit and think about what is this institution that we are talking about in which I think Evan and others, I have very seriously mystified. Thank you.
Dean Friedman: Thank you. I should mention that we are proceeding in alphabetical order and Mr. Blankenhorn and Mr. Wolfson have made that very easy for me.
Evan Wolfson: Thank you Dean Friedman. Thank David Blankenhorn for being here tonight thank you all for being here tonight. Excuse me I am finding a bit of a cold, so please forgive me. As you've just heard now, David Blankenhorn and I actually do agree on a number of things and then there is something we don't agree on which we will address tonight. But one of the things we do actually agree on is that marriage matters that the Freedom to Marry, the Institution of Marriage, taking marriage seriously is important in fact the book that David has now told you, I think very wisely you should all buy and read my book is called "Why Marriage Matters". So this is in fact something we have in common, we do think that this is important and obviously you think it's important and our country sees this is important, something worth talking about, something worth taking seriously. Another thing I think that we do take seriously and agree on is that in the United States we are committed to respecting people, we are committed to respecting choice, we are committed to respecting liberty, we are committed to respecting the pursuit of happiness, the proper boundaries between the government and people, we are committed to valuing families and strengthening couples and their children. I think we are also able to agree on the fact that children are important. I spent the morning actually with my little nephew in his grade school; I was got to be the relative of the day who went to see him. So we all care about the children in our lives and take their well-being very seriously. The American Academy of Pediatrics also takes the well-being of children seriously, this is the professional organization of our nation's kid's doctors and last year, not even a year ago they issued a report entitled the effects of marriage civil union and domestic partnership laws on the health and well-being of children. And let me read you a tiny bit of what they had to say. Our nation's kid's doctors told us this "There is ample evidence to show that children raised by same gender parents fair as well as those raised by heterosexual parents". More than 25 years of research have documented that there is no relationship between parent's sexual orientation and any measure of a child emotional, psychosocial and behavioral adjustment. These data have demonstrated no risk to children as a result of growing up in a family with one or more gay parents. Consciences and nurturing adults whether they are men or women, heterosexual or homosexual can be excellent parents. The rights, benefits and protections of civil marriage can further strengthen these families." Now I quote from the American Academy of Pediatrics rather than say my book because I am not a scientist, David Blankenhorn is not a scientist, I am not psychologist, I am not a teacher, I am not a child welfare expert, I am not a psychiatrist, I am not a psychoanalyst and neither is David Blankenhorn. So when you consider one of the points on which we do differ, the well-being of children and how it relates to this debate, I don't think you should have to take my word for and I don't think you should take David Blankenhorn word for it. I do think you should take a look at what The American Academy of Pediatrics has to say or the American Psychological Association or the American Psychiatric Association or the American Psychoanalytic Association or the Child Welfare League of America or the National Education Association or the National Association of Social Workers and in fact every single mainstream, reputable, professional agency composed of 100 and 1000's indeed if you add them up millions of professionals across many fields, all of whom addressing and dedicating their lives to the well-being of our children. All of whom have said precisely what I just read to you not from my words but from the words of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Don't take an advocates word for it, take the word of what the people who have looked at this without an axe to grind have had to say. In the most recent issue of the Family Law Quarterly just came out dated Fall, 2006, it just came out. Appears a massive survey article, this is the American Bar Association, Family Law Sections journal. So it's the lawyers who deal with custody disputes and visitation and parenting rights and the well-being of children and advocating for children and families published this piece by Professor Michael Wald of Stanford surveying again the vast literature on this question. Don't take my word for it, here are three things that this published reviewed journal had to say, "the claim that there is such a thing as a single optimal home for rearing children is flawed from a scientific perspective", as a number of leading researchers on families have concluded, "social science research does not and cannot support the contention that the presence of two biological or opposite sex parents comprises a optimal child rearing environment". The journal goes on, "while there is some evidence that living with two biological parents maybe preferable to living with a single parent and that divorce can be harmful to children's development, none of the family structure studies, listen, none of the family structure studies provide any support for the claim that the gender of the two parents a makes the difference." And one more little quote again from the experts not the advocates "There is no evidence that children in general do better with a father and mother then with two mothers or two fathers". Now I provide that data and that information in other peoples words so that it cannot just be reduced to he says, he says this side says, that side says. The body of experts and I mean across the board unanimously have said again and again what I've just read to you and you don't have to take my word for it, go check it out, there are on the websites, Family Law Quarterly, American Academy of Pediatrics. But I want to also make a further point and that is lets suppose that we are not true, lets suppose for a moment that there were indeed countervailing evidence or some suggestion or even anything for David Blankenhorn and others to point to that would suggest that, you know what it may even be true that in general or often there is one kind of optimal family and its not gay couples or single parents or divorce parents or blended families. Let's just suppose for a moment that all these other experts are wrong and David Blankenhorn is right. The further point is, how does keeping gay couples who are building a life together, many of whom are raising children out of the institution of marriage help anyone else? It's not as if and then we know this now for a fact by looking at Canada or Massachusetts where gay couples are able to marry, its not as if the gay couples are going to use up all the marriage licenses. And then there won't be any marriage left for those other optimal families. There is enough marriage to share and it's not as if keeping, letting the gay couples in with their kids or without is somehow going to so tarnish the club that couples like David Blankenhorn and his wife are going to leave the institution. So even if it were true which it is not, but there were one kind of optimal family punishing those who are in the less optimal families does nothing to help the others but instead harms the children being raised by the parents that they have. And harms the couples who may not fit somebody else's definition of what is optimal and that is deeply wrong. Excluding committed same sex couples and their children from the institution of marriage helps no one and harms families. Now I've dwelled on children because I know that Professor Blankenhorn, David Blankenhorn not a professor sorry, no insult intended David Blankenhorn was going to say that this is the single most important point of difference between the two, that's indeed it is something that he is obviously written in the book on and has his view about what he think is the most important question and he think this is the biggest point of distinction between the two of us. But having said all of this and addressed it in the words of the experts, young controverted experts. I must also point out that in the Unites States there is no procreation requirement to get a marriage license. No state issues marriage licenses with a sunset provision whereby you have two years to cough up a child or lose your license. And there are many people who marry without any regard to wanting to have children or even being able to have children or being young enough to have children and in our society we respect and allow those couples to enter the institution of marriage, because we understand that the institution of marriage serves many purposes. And as a choice that is very important for a number of reasons and so on that point let me just end by quoting in all fairness inside we all read you or pointed out the title of my book. I have to quote one little passage from David Blankenhorn's book with which I do agree. David Blankenhorn writes "I believe today that the principle of equal human dignity as he said tonight must apply to gay and lesbian person. In that sense insofar as we are a nation founded on this principle, we would be more American on the day we permitted same sex marriage than we were the day before". And David Blankenhorn is right, he is right and there he is right. Ending the exclusion of committed same sex couples for marriage when they have children and even when they don't brings us closer to the commitment to equality and fairness and the pursuit of happiness and liberty that are what this nation is dedicated to and it is the birth right that belongs to all of us.
Dean Friedman: Thank you both very much. Let me start with David, but I would like to do, if you could is clarify for us what it is you do not think should be authorized, is it just a question of the word marriage, do you think that a civil union or a similar arrangement is inappropriate or raises the same dangers.
David Blankenhorn: I don't say anything about civil unions in the book; I think it would be fine to have some kind of domestic partnership where people who are sharing a household together whether they are in a sexual relationship or whatever the arrangement would be if they are interdependent and want to make arrangement to cooperate, maybe there would be ways to facilitate their ability to do that. But it's not an area that I am involved in or know much about; I am interested in the subject of marriage.
Dean Friedman: Well let me pass it for you and I am going to ask Evan the same question. A non religious legally sanctioned contractual relationship that carries all of the same rights and obligations under State and Federal law as marriage status, but it's called something other than marriage. Is this just a word, in other words what is it, what reason that is in your view so threatening to the institution of marriage from applying this word to the same set of relationships.
David Blankenhorn: I think its terribly insulting idea to say to gay and lesbian couples, you can get married as long as you don't call it marriage. It's like saying you can eat chocolate ice cream as long as you don't call it chocolate ice cream. And Evan and other leaders have been very quick to say that that is an arbitrary and invidious distinction that is we will never standup and I completely agree. So it is completely wrong to say we are going to allow gay and lesbian couples to do every single thing under the law that a married couple, except they can't use the word marriage, I think that's just ridiculous.
Dean Friedman: Mr. Evan let me ask you the flip side of the same question there is substantial; there is a substantial part of the American public that for one reason or another and I think there are many different reasons oppose same sex marriage. If it were possible to have a formal relationship of the kind I've just described where the same tax and state inheritance and other rights flow form a civil union, in view of the political opposition to same sex marriage. Why isn't that an attractive alternative for the gay community?
Evan Wolfson: Well we already have a formal legal relationship in the United States and we have a system that honors that formal legal relationship from state-to-state and between the states and the federal government and amongst government and private entities and in common parlance and that system, that formal legal relationship is called marriage. Marriage in the United States is under the law a civil union, it is a union one enters into by going to the government office getting a civil marriage license meeting the terms and entering into a legal institution, the government does not give permits the licenses, it doesn't give communion licenses but it does give marriage licenses because marriage is under the law a civil union that has legal consequences. But civil union as you are using the term Dean is not marriage, it is in point, it is pointed deliberately intended to say, we are going to have two lines at the clerks office in the United States and some families can come in the front and other can go in the back and one is the system, the system called marriage, the other is just a thing that we are creating to give something and to withhold something and that is not a good way for the United States to go and it is not providing equal and due protections and respect and responsibilities and fairness to the couples and their kids and therefore there is no need to do it, there are few of any American's who would trade in their marriage for something lesser in other called civil union or whatever else and gay couples should not have to, it benefits no one to go down that path.
Dean Friedman: David Let me ask you a question it's often said by those who oppose same sex marriage that it would and this is a fairly common phrase threaten marriage as an institution and I think that's what you were suggesting in your introductive statement, what does that mean, in other word how does it threaten marriage, I think and I agree with you that by the way that I think marriage is an institution that is, is not in great shape in America, we have an growing number of unmarried couples who choose not to get married. Many of who make children granted all that, why does the authorization of same sex marriage threaten that institution.
David Blankenhorn: Number one because it requires us as we heard from Evan to redefine what marriage is. It takes; it would require us to say that marriage is no longer what we know it to be but is instead what Evan calls a specific commitment of love and, a specific commitment of love to another person in other words, the redefinition is that now two people who have the commitment to one other that's what marriage is and all of the public authority and the institutional meaning that has surrounded marriage is an institution gets to find a way and instead we just have private relationships between people. And so that is one of the ways that, and also it wouldn't just be for gay and lesbian couples, because the requirement, the demand is to change the meaning for everyone. And secondly it would explicitly sever the link between marriage and children. You heard with the thing Evan said about, oh we don't have a procreation license, all very clever but the point behind is not funny at all. The point behind it in the court arguments they are making is to say that, oh yeah right wingers and homophobes they all use to say that somehow marriage and children went together but not anymore, now its, well we don't have procreation licenses, what this tells me as someone who studied marriage for 20 years is that the basic concept of marriage which is to bring together the male and female who make the next generation to make sure that they are going to be there to raise that generation. That's what is being kind of left that in put down and shear that and say no that's no longer it, "My Daddy's Name is Donor" ha, ha, ha. So, that is and also that definition would not just be for some people that's for everyone in Canada when they passed gay marriage, they struck the term natural parent from Canadian law and replaced it with the term legal parent. So a legal parent is just, I guess, well it's unclear what they really means but the, these historic gift of the marriage institution Evan's demand is that we specifically dis-avow, we back away from it, not just for some couples but for all couples. And so what happens when you change the name of an institution, look if, just one little example, if we said, we've passed a law that said that from now on Ballet meant dancing and that, it could mean Jazz dancing it could mean the Twist, it could mean Disco, but from now on Ballet means dancing and anybody who say anything different must have, but perorates or something. It's inappropriate, it's offensive, it's a (indiscernible) thing to do you can't say it anymore. Instead Ballet means dancing, what would happen, Evan says oh well we have gay marriage in Massachusetts and hasn't falling in the ocean, yeah that's true and if we change the name of Ballet, if we redefined Ballet to mean dancing would the New York says Ballet company disband, the next day no, would people forget overnight, there was used to be something called Ballet, now it has been defined out of existence, no. But overtime there would be a significant change in the public understanding of what the word Ballet means. And the same thing is going to happen to marriage if this campaign is successful and we redefine it as a private relationship, it has no public dimension that anybody can specify and it is specifically not connected to children. If we do that it's not just, X number of children who are at risk, its all children because the definition, this redefinition will apply to everyone and when you change the name, when you change the meaning and definition of an institution, you change the rules that affect peoples behavior and you change the way that people in the institution behave. This seems to be fairly obvious. Evan says, oh its just letting more people into the institution of marriage, incorrect, it's changing the institution of marriage for everyone and sorry, too long.
Dean Friedman: That was a long statement; I think I should let it in comment on it.
Evan Wolfson: Yeah. Well I actually do have a response to actually both parts of it the, "definition" thing and change thing, particularly with regard to the kids, first of all there was a time in the United States when to give one example among many when women were not allowed to be lawyers and that was considered to be the most natural right thing in the world, lawyers had to be men, that was the way god intended it, it was the way nature intended it and it was the way the law embodied it. And it was defended by academics and scholars and religious leaders and politicians up and down, it even went all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said women cannot be lawyers. But when we change that and allowed women to be lawyers the law did not collapse, the bar did not collapse, the profession of law did not collapse and you know what we didn't even come up with a different word for lawyer. We came to understand that people who had been formally excluded from the institution and opportunity and responsibility where in fact qualified and able to perform and enter into it to the betterment of everybody. So I am not advocating that we, as David Blankenhorn would say change the definition or take something away, anything. What I am saying is that there are committed people who are living their lives, performing the work of marriage in their private life's, but they are being denied that public commitment that is called marriage and contrary to what David Blankenhorn is saying, I understand that marriage has a public dimension as well as a private. It's precisely because it has a public dimension that it is wrong for our government to discriminate and perpetuate exclusion from the legal institution which is what it as a issue here today. And on the other point, the point related to children David Blankenhorn talks as if there is this campaign underway now and I cant tell it is complementing me or actually, insulting me by saying somehow I am part of this campaign that if successful is going to de couple marriage from children which conjures up this image and fear of somehow they are going to take away your children or prevent you from having children or undermine the well- being of your children. And in fact there is absolutely no such campaign underway whatsoever. And to the extent that we in the law have decoupled marriage from children that change happen decades ago, there is no procreation requirement for people who are, thank you. There is no procreation requirement for marriage, that's not what marriage is as a matter of law. And if you don't believe me ask Rudy Giuliani and his current wife, ask Newt Gingrich and his current wife, ask Bob and Elizabeth Dole, ask Pat and Shelly Buchanan if you can and go back and ask George and Martha Washington, all these people are married, married under the law, entitled to respect for their marriages, no laughing matter, precisely because we know that in the law many people do want to raise their children within marriage and also many people marry without regard to whether or not they have children or any attempt or ability to do so. But the procreation requirement is somehow only invoked when it comes to excluding gay couples from marriage. And as if that were not unfair enough, what makes it even worse is that many of those gay couples, those same sex couples throughout the United States here in New York are raising children and they want into this legal institution of marriage for precisely the reason that many other non gay people want to get married too, which is not only with regard to their emotional well-being and reenforcing their private commitment or their public commitment and having that commitment honored with legal and tangible and intangible rights and responsibilities but also because they believe that will strengthen families and help their children. There are millions of children being raised by same sex couples by gay and lesbian parents throughout the country there are 1000's and 1000's right here in this state. They want marriage for the same mix of reasons as our non gay brothers and sisters do and among those reasons are that marriage does offer something valuable in the eyes of many, including David Blankenhorn for those who are raising children and for their kids. And it makes no sense to exclude those couples and their kids form this legal institution.
Dean Friedman: Evan let me ask you a shift ground here and I would like to ask you a two part question, how do you account for the fact and what do you think is the significance of the fact that apparently a very large percentage of Americans oppose same sex marriage and even many people who are supportive of, otherwise supportive of gay rights?
Evan Wolfson: Well I think there had been always, always been periods throughout American history where majorities had been opposed to treating people in our midst with respect, with equality, understanding their lives, back pushing past sterio types to come to have a most humane and shared understanding of who these people really are and a greatness of America is that this is a country where that can change. When we ended the exclusion for example in the first court struck down the rules that prohibited people of the "wrong race" from marrying one other, that was one another, that was in 1948, in other words it took from 1776 until 1948 before even one court have the courage to strike down race restriction and who could marry whom, restrictions that were defended as necessary to the well-being of children and society and the church and god and the country. I am getting it, okay. The first court to strike it down as you know from your study of marriage was in 1948. It took another 19, and by the way when that court made its ruling going to your question Dean, 90% of the American people opposed inter-racial marriage, it took another 19 years going to your point, before the question of the ending race restrictions on who could marry whom came again to the Unites State, Supreme Court which had gotten it wrong previously and when that court in 1967 got the best name case ever, Loving Vs Virginia, it struck down these restrictions, restrictions that were defended that is necessary for the well-being of children and for society and so on and when the United States, Supreme Court made that ruling 40 years ago this year 70% of the American people opposed inter-racial marriage. But happily we live in a country where we don't expect our courts; we don't subject our constitution to the passions of the moment and the prejudices of even a temporary majority. But we look to a standard of equality and we look to the courts and we look to our legislators to take oaths and take them seriously to do right by everyone. And the great thing about America is that America changes and people have come to understand today that what seems so natural and obvious and necessary was wrong. The same was true with the exclusion and subordination of women in marriage, which was considered necessary and natural and important for the well-being of children that women not be lawyers, not be in professions, not coming to law schools like this, but stay at home, well we changed that, over popular objection and I don't think there are many and I doubt even you David would wanted to turn that clock back. So the fact of the matter is, yes there are times where American people have work to do and part of the reason I wrote my book "Why Marriage Matters" and part of the reason we have the.
