Dan Fishback: Gay marriage not fodder for laughter

Did I say something funny?"

Ryan Fagan is explaining to a crowd of people that the 60 members of his extended family all come from happy nuclear households. "Ideal" households. This is his argument against gay marriage. The audience laughs.

Jeff Maust is equally ridiculed. Hailing from the Drexel Christian Fellowship, he begins his argument by admitting that his religious faith has no concrete bearing on the law. Yet, after insisting that he loves gay people, he maintains that we should stick to the supposedly Christian beliefs of our forefathers. After all -- "people were happier back then... people weren't scared of getting bombed by terrorists."

The audience laughs.

The PennForum debate on gay marriage is not going well for American conservatism. Fellow DP columnist Lauren Bialystok and I clearly wield the support of the crowd. Our arguments are grounded concretely in constitutional law. We have so much evidence that I don't even get a chance to get through it all. There are moments when I could slip in a few extra facts, but I don't bother. If anyone in the room could be swayed to my side, they'd be there by now. That isn't even the issue anymore.

The issue is laughter. Heads fall into neighboring laps, whinnying gleefully when Maust claims that Christianity invented marriage. (Some evidence actually suggests the first Christians forbade marriage for centuries, seeing it as too related to property and wealth. Whoever said that the logical conclusion to Christianity wasn't Socialism, anyway?) Two British exchange students set off a wave of hysterics when an audience member reasons that, out of 60 members of Fagan's family, odds are that six of them are gay. The ensuing laughter casts a bitter soundtrack to Fagan's stoic reserve.

This is not what I wanted. I had put off schoolwork for three days, absorbing the history of American marriage law. I found pages and pages of convincing evidence, but it all seemed extraneous when compared to 1978's Zablocky v. Redhail. In this case, the Supreme Court decided that deadbeat dads -- divorced fathers who did not pay child support -- were allowed to remarry.

In the decision, the Court declared that the state cannot place a "direct legal obstacle in the path of persons desiring to get married" unless it is "supported by sufficiently important state interests."

I threw down my pen when I read that. "Sufficiently important state interests?" Seeing that the Court had already decided that all people have the "right to marry," what possible interest could the government have in denying gay people that right? Certainly less interest than denying it of deadbeat dads, convicted rapists or even murders sentenced to life in prison -- all people eligible for marriage.

I thought I'd waltz into that debate and tear down every opposing argument with the power of law. But few opposing arguments are actually being made. Fagan's case is based on irrelevant and inaccurate assumptions about child-rearing. Maust admits he doesn't even have a case. So here I am, surrounded by my copious notes, confronted with the laughter of the audience -- laughter supposedly on my side.

And yet I am mildly sickened to hear it. Not because it's rude (although I do wish to spare the kind, unassuming Maust of any harshness). I am sickened because the laughter betrays the bitter irony of the evening.

Sure, in the cozy confines of Logan 17, gay marriage is a self-evident right. Sure, no counterarguments hold water. But outside of that room, outside of this campus, the audience is not so weighted.

In the past week, people have asked me, "Do you think you'll see gay marriage in your lifetime?" No one really expects a specific answer -- the fate of this cause is indeed speculative. I may not see it. America really is that backward. And that backwardness is now nowhere more apparent than in Logan 17, where the biting contrast between logic and reality beats a crowd of people into laughter.

It's not amusing laughter. It's terrified laughter. The counterarguments are weak, but most of America buys them. So the laughter doesn't so much say, "That guy's so stupid!" as it says, "This country is so stupid!" When confronted with such a horrible injustice supported by such a disgusting irrationality, laughter is one of few reasonable options.

Another is weeping. Another is shouting. But many people are watching me, so I take a calmer route. I reach for a napkin-scribbling that I've wanted to vocalize all day.

"What this debate comes down to is that we cannot use religious dogma as the basis for law. If we do, then we're no better than the Taliban. So if we're going to fight a government that we see as socially backward, then we better damn well be socially forward, or else we're just a bunch of hypocritical thugs."

The laughing has stopped.

Dan Fishback is a junior English major from Olney, Md.

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