Biden, Palin Debate Reveals Encouraging Progress on Gay Rights

I'll have a little more to say about the Biden-Palin debate over the weekend, but their exchange on the issue of same-sex marriage and civil unions shows that both parties have moved ahead since 2004. Here's the discussion in full:

IFILL: The next round of -- pardon me, the next round of questions starts with you, Senator Biden. Do you support, as they do in Alaska, granting same-sex benefits to couples?

Alaska grants same-sex benefits to state employees due to a January 2007 state supreme court ruling. Palin disagreed with the ruling, but agreed to honor it.

BIDEN: Absolutely. Do I support granting same-sex benefits? Absolutely positively. Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple.

The fact of the matter is that under the Constitution we should be granted -- same-sex couples should be able to have visitation rights in the hospitals, joint ownership of property, life insurance policies, et cetera. That's only fair.

It's what the Constitution calls for. And so we do support it. We do support making sure that committed couples in a same-sex marriage are guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their property rights, their rights of visitation, their rights to insurance, their rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.

Biden's position is consistent with that of the New Jersey Supreme Court, which held that equal protection clauses used to protect minorities, women, the disabled, the elderly, etc. do not contain an implicit exception for gays and lesbians.

IFILL: Governor, would you support expanding that beyond Alaska to the rest of the nation?

PALIN: Well, not if it goes closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman. And unfortunately that's sometimes where those steps lead.

Palin doesn't name any examples of this phenomenon, possibly because they don't exist. She continues:

PALIN: But I also want to clarify, if there's any kind of suggestion at all from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves, you know, I am tolerant and I have a very diverse family and group of friends and even within that group you would see some who may not agree with me on this issue, some very dear friends who don't agree with me on this issue.

But in that tolerance also, no one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties.

This is the same "contracts" language that John McCain has used with respect to same-sex couples, though the addition of hospital visitation rights is new and encouraging. This is not an entirely meaningless position; some states, such as Ohio and Georgia, have passed bans on same-sex marriage and civil unions that are so strict that they could be used to ban hospital visitation rights and individual contracts agreed upon by same-sex couples (though none of these contracts can grant equal partnership rights, which are largely the business of the state and federal government). She continues:

But I will tell Americans straight up that I don't support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman, and I think through nuances we can go round and round about what that actually means.

But I'm being as straight up with Americans as I can in my non-support for anything but a traditional definition of marriage.

The "we can go round and round" remark is a subtle way of saying that she supports some equal partnership rights for same-sex couples, but not the institution of civil unions. She never actually takes a clear stand against them, but she doesn't have to; she is already on the record as opposing her own state's domestic partnership policy, though she didn't say so in the debate--which is extremely promising, for reasons I'll go into later. The exchange concludes:

IFILL: Let's try to avoid nuance, Senator. Do you support gay marriage?

BIDEN: No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths the determination what you call it.

Here Biden seems to be saying that the government has no business defining marriage in the first place, which is a very sensible position but not one that I've heard Obama or Biden clearly express before. He continues:

BIDEN: The bottom line though is, and I'm glad to hear the governor, I take her at her word, obviously, that she think there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple. If that's the case, we really don't have a difference.

IFILL: Is that what you said?

PALIN: Your question to him was whether he supported gay marriage and my answer is the same as his and it is that I do not.

IFILL: Wonderful. You agree. On that note, let's move to foreign policy.

(LAUGHTER)

Palin dodged the question; she obviously doesn't support civil rights equality for same-sex couples, and has said so clearly many times in the past, but she doesn't want to look too conservative. Think about it: The Republican VP nominee sees the position that same-sex couples don't deserve equal civil rights as so out of the mainstream that she doesn't even want to admit she holds this view in a televised debate.

Why is this important? Well, look at the 2004 Bush-Kerry domestic policy debate--where it was the Republican who seemed to be proud of his views, and the Democrat who appeared to be mealymouthed about them:

BUSH: I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I think it's very important that we protect marriage as an institution, between a man and a woman.

I proposed a constitutional amendment. The reason I did so was because I was worried that activist judges are actually defining the definition of marriage, and the surest way to protect marriage between a man and woman is to amend the Constitution.

It has also the benefit of allowing citizens to participate in the process. After all, when you amend the Constitution, state legislatures must participate in the ratification of the Constitution.

I'm deeply concerned that judges are making those decisions and not the citizenry of the United States. You know, Congress passed a law called DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act.

My opponent was against it. It basically protected states from the action of one state to another. It also defined marriage as between a man and woman.

But I'm concerned that that will get overturned. And if it gets overturned, then we'll end up with marriage being defined by courts, and I don't think that's in our nation's interests.

SCHIEFFER: Sen. Kerry?

KERRY: ... The president and I share the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. I believe that. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman.

But I also believe that because we are the United States of America, we're a country with a great, unbelievable Constitution, with rights that we afford people, that you can't discriminate in the workplace. You can't discriminate in the rights that you afford people.

You can't disallow someone the right to visit their partner in a hospital. You have to allow people to transfer property, which is why I'm for partnership rights and so forth.

Now, with respect to DOMA and the marriage laws, the states have always been able to manage those laws. And they're proving today, every state, that they can manage them adequately.

So the only stand that Kerry was really willing to take in the 2004 debate was the same stand that Sarah Palin took last night: He was in favor of hospital visitation rights and private contracts.

There's another point where the 2004 Kerry and the 2008 Palin agree: Both support state-level constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. In 2004, there was talk of a referendum to ban same-sex marriage in Massachusetts; the state's Republican governor Mitt Romney supported the ban, as did Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. But right now, there's talk of a California referendum to the same effect--and both Governor Schwarzenegger (R) and Democratic nominee Barack Obama oppose it. And that federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage that Bush refers to? Both Obama and McCain oppose it.

That's the difference the past four years have made. What kind of difference will the next four make?

Related: Why You Should Support Same-Sex Marriage