According to a SurveyUSA poll, 58% of black voters support Proposition 8, which would enshrine irrational fear and rank bigotry into the California Constitution in order to deny gays the right to marry. Black support is 10% higher than support of any other ethnic group. This is ironic, considering that in striking down the law banning same sex marriage, the California Supreme Court cited the landmark 1967 civil rights case Loving vs. Virginia that struck down the prohibition of interracial marriage.Yeah I understand that, and I offer no haven for neanderthals. But I think this is a "What's The Matter With Kansas" mixed with a kind of "How dare you act like human beings" argument. Man listen, the discrimination the Irish suffered didn't make them, on the whole, any more sympathetic to the Italians. The discrimination Italians suffered doesn't make them any more sympathetic to Latinos. And the discrimination that all of these groups suffer has never made any of them more sympathetic to blacks. Indeed, there is an argument that ethnic whites are the least sympathetic to blacks and to each other. There may be some case for Jews, but the Holocaust is such a singular event that it really breaks the mold.
A majority of California's voting African-Americans seem blind to that irony, however. They see no kinship to their own past as a reviled minority whose sexual touch toward a single white man or woman would sully the entire "race"- of American white--just as legally sanctioning the sexual touch of same sex partners would so sully heterosexuals' unions that they will, what? Seek immediate divorce? Abandon their children to the streets? Suffer mass orgasmic dysfunction.
The point is that this idea that communities who suffer a particular form of discrimination would therefore find common ground with other people who suffer discrimination is a nice thought, but more often than not, it isn't the case. Indeed black folks will often tell you that the most overtly racist white people they come in contact with, are also the ones they seemingly have the most in common with. I think those of us who are black and are really disturbed by this issue have some serious work to do in our own communities. But we have to approach folks as human beings. The question for me has always been what would I want for my son of daughter if they were gay? How would I want their life to be? What I want for my brothers, my sisters, my cousins? It has to be a human question. We have to personalize this.
All that said, I love the close:
Today, our attempts to defend our pride in the manhood of our men, we only prove that we're still vulnerable to whims of those who've most reviled us. We're ready to open the door to the legalization of bigotry--a door through which we too might one day be shoved. We're not defending our "manly"- bona fides through supporting Prop 8. We're only proving how damaged we remain.UPDATE: Eduardo basically gets it below. Oppression isn't ennobling. It doesn't--in and of itself--make you more enlightened.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
The examples cited by TNC are certainly valid, but the Civil rights movement wouldn't have gotten underway without the help of white women, and the same for women's movement without the preceding Civil Rights movement. May be apples to oranges though
We have to personalize this.
This is why "having people over for tea" is so important.
You are exactly right on this, TNC. I know it perfectly well because we gays can be as unlighted --right down bigots some time-- sas the heteros. I've lived in Ft Lauderdale, the South Florida gay mecca, and in a county with a 30% black population it has always stricken me how few blacks frequent the gay bars and parades etc. It as if they were, well, invisible.
And my point is not to berate the gays, it is to say that being discriminated against doesn't make you less human or more enlighten on other groups suffering. It makes you more enlighten on your own group suffering. And it kind of bother me the assumption that we should know better. Everyone should, people; everyone should do their best.
"our attempts to defend our pride in the manhood of our men"
that's a proposal about what is driving black opposition to gay marriage.
does that strike you as right? i'd love to hear your thoughts, mr. coates, on what you think is the real driver (or drivers) behind higher opposition to gay rights among blacks.
could it be, e.g., higher christian religiosity? or more concerns about marriage? (i'm not saying valid concerns or not, just asking: what's driving the opposition?)
how does it break out male/female among blacks? how does it break out church-goer vs. non?
how about two-parent family vs. single-parent family?
i don't have any theory myself, i just feel like the "defending manliness" theory is not self-evidently true.
any theories you want to float would be read with interest.
I read a blog post on the same topic where the author wrote that "the insidiousness of oppression is that it replicates itself among the oppressed."
I think about that a lot when we have these teh blacks hate teh gays debates.
Point taken, that the mistrust among the black toward gays & lesbians has historical precedents, might in fact just be basic human nature. But I don't see your problem with Gaiter. Surely there was a need for voices within the Irish-American, Italian, etc. communities to speak out in opposition to the discriminatory tendencies there? Is Gaiter's indignation somehow counterproductive?
I briefly worked on a campaign to create a domestic partner registry (which passed). The community is approximately 40% African-American.
During that campaign, one anecdote that floated around was that African-American voters were offended by referring to the question as a civil rights (small c, small r) issue. The upshot being that the suffering of gays in America pales in comparison to the suffering of African-Americans that began to be addressed by the Civil Rights (big C, big R) movement.
Is that credible? Is it merely an attempt to explain the low-level of support for these issues among African-American voters, but it completely misses the point?
Anybody have any thoughts or insights on that? Is equality for gays a civil rights issue?
When I first began teaching in community colleges in the late 80s, feminism was just hitting its stride in colleagiate discourse. What I found was that many of the men in my classes were resistant until it was put in terms of their mothers, their sisters, aunties, grandmothers, girl friends, daughters. Then, they got it.
During the late 90s, I worked in a lot of diversity training workshops, and there were three consistent themes that came up, people were continually surprised that: people from different ethnic or racial backgrounds were so different from one another in their perspectives; so many young people came from mixed race or ethnic backgrounds; and that their gay co-workers or fellow students, whom they got along with just like everybody else, suffered from so much non stop discrimination.
This really is about family members, coworkers, friends. But one thing more, as someone who is divorced, I really think we should all use some common sense here. My marriage didn't end because of that gay couple living up the road. My marriage failed because my ex-wife and I didn't have the stuff for one another to make it work. It was our failure, and for the sake of our children, we've learned how to own that. If marriage is failing in America--the black community or among the lower classes pretty much universally--it's not because of the gays. For the sake of our children, we need to own that.
Being discriminated against or looked down upon, for any group, seems to generate much the same behavior towards some other group. There is some evidence that this is simply a matter of trying to gain status by pushing someone else to the bottom.
Doing so is hardly laudable...but very, very human. And if there is an effective way to convince people that "we're all in this together," it is yet to be discovered.
I'm playing devil's advocate here, and I'm not going to presume to know the will of California's black community, but interracial marriage isn't necessarily something that black folks have to love. It's not as if marriage equality is directly comparable to equal voting rights or equal rights in the workplace, as permitting interracial marriage is about individual equality and the betterment of society as a whole, and it's a bit fallacious to say that it is an issue which benefits the black community specifically.
TNC,
I appreciate the sense of empathy you exhibit towards those in your own community and those outside it. It is doubtless true that we all have lingering biases, and an attitude of humility towards those who disagree with us or whose attitudes we find deplorable is probably pragmatically correct. Nonetheless, Leonce's comment seems exactly correct.
The problem is not that the black community is prejudiced against homosexuals. All ethnic groups exhibit this bias. Rather, it is that African-Americans are more bigoted than the norm. Since African-Americans are primarily Democrats, who ordinarily support gay rights, this becomes even more disheartening. This means that the political leaders of the African-American community (yes, like you) have a greater than average responsibility to address this issue.
I understand that you wish to explain why these attitudes exist, and that's fine, but especially now, only two weeks before the election, that can't help but sound to my ear like an excuse. In the same way, I can explain why many poor white people are vulnerable to racial resentment--but that explanation doesn't lessen the moral fault of their attitudes.
I don't want this to be viewed as a condemnatory comment. Rather, I think Leonce is making a sort of first-order moral argument to vote no against Prop. 8. You agree with him substantively, but then make a sort of second-order criticism--explaining why many in the black community aren't persuaded by his arguments. I'm just saying Leonce's approach seems more appropriate right now.
There's a little anecdote that Philip Roth tells in a couple of his books about 2 old Jewish guys -- the one guy is going on about how horrible the blacks are and how they should be all rounded up and shot. And the other guy responds,"Are you nuts? You sound like Hitler!"
And the first guy answers, "How dare you compare those horrible blacks to the Jews!"
From memory so it's probably a little wrong.
The point is that this idea that communities who suffer a particular form of discrimination would therefore find common ground with other people who suffer discrimination is a nice thought, but more often than not, it isn't the case.
I take the point that it is foolish to believe that one's oppression doesn't make one aware or sympathetic to others' oppressions, but does it make a good place to start organizing? It's not automatic, but can it be learned?
I know this is the kind of comment that's far too reasonable and fact-based to get any love, but the black subsample in this poll is far too small to be taken seriously. The entire poll sample is small (just over 600 voters), and blacks are just 6% of that (which means around 36 voters). The margin of error for a sample of 36 voters is in the neighborhood of 17%. Statisitically, this is basically meaningless.
I thought it was funny when I noticed that Roth told the same story in two different books.
And now I've repeated it twice too!
From wj:
"And if there is an effective way to convince people that "we're all in this together," it is yet to be discovered."
Observationally, I'd suggest that a huge outside event or threat is something that convinces people "we're all in this together". Think 9/11, for example. Americans of all race, creed, class, color joined together and our American-ness was the glue. Differences were rendered meaningless in our need to show solidarity against those who attacked us. How long that worked, I don't know, but I think it's something that works. Not suggesting at all that some horrible event should happen to convince people, but perhaps identifying an outside force that people can rally against together and support the cause would be effective.
I second kid bitzer's call for discussion of theories and any proof to back them up. If this is an issue, why is it an issue?
As far as trying to sway people's opinion, I concur that making it personal is what works. So for the Vote No on Prop 8 people, perhaps the ads should be more personal. Maybe use a black lesbian couple with children talking about how one of them was very sick in the hospital and the other (and maybe the kids?) were not allowed to visit because they weren't family - or something like that. Bring it home in the ad as to why this really matters. Target the communities that should support the cause but show resistance. The ads I've seen (online, since I"m in TX) so far have not impressed me. Admittedly, I've only seen a handful - there may be good ones out there.
Don't sell religion short as a cause of the apparent inconsistency of Black anti-gay feelings. I recall hearing a Black minister angrily condemning the claim by supporters of gay marriage that their fight is like the fight for racial equality. The minister's distinction turned on the religious condemnation of (male) homosexual acts.
I am a Christian who is OK with gay couples and gay families. I dont think there is anything wrong with civil unions.
So here is the reason that I dont support gay marriage:
If you change the law for one group of people, you MUST change it for other groups...Its called the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
So what other groups would want to marry?
Polygamists
As a feminist, I take great offense to polygamy and what it does to women, but more so to the innocent children who have to live in that sham of a family. Where is the concern by feminists on this issue? Are you people out there not able to see the forest for the trees?
Indeed; perhaps Sabina's Hat is correct--maybe the black community is far more socially conservative than is generally assumed, and they've only voted Democrat because the GOP is so rife with racism; perhaps, if the racism were purged, they'd be a solid constituency for them, sort of like the Latino vote was going to be until Tom Tancredo et al. started beating the nativist drum in earnest.
'Course, I might as well ask whether well-off gay folks would rather vote Republican if the party dropped the bitter homophobia and clinging attachment to macho ideals which are such an integral part of it.
So here's my two cents
One of the problems or benefits depending on your point of view with living in a civic pluralistic society is that issues cannot be decided simply by fiat. If it was up to me Gay Marriage would be legal because it's a contract issue, and one of the marks of a progressive society is the ability for anyone to enter into a contract with anyone else regardless of age, sex, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.
This is one of those what's great about America topics. You know what's great about America? The fact that we allow everyone to express their opinion. You know what sucks about America? The fact that we allow everyone to express their opinion.
In a nutshell, I believe the "gay" marriage question will ultimately be solved by my generation. Homosexuality has undergone a process of de-stigmatization in the past 30 years. The public discourse required to educate people about Homosexuality as a valid lifestyle alternative as opposed to a deviant behavior is still ongoing. Many of my parents generation are opposed to the issue of gay marriage not because they are bad people but because of their upbringing and the lack of a public discourse about the rights of those who follow an alternative lifestyle. In short Uncle Dave's or Aunt Mary's "special friend" was only tacitly tollerated and was never to be spoken about. Attitudes are only now begining to change and in a large part it has been because of the efforts of organizations like the Lesbian and Gay Alliance, and other simillar organizations dedicated to civic discourse.
I don't think that any number of statistics will be able to prove that African Americans are inherintly more homophobic or hetrophillic than any other group of people. Rather I think that the educational efforts of the past 30 years have largely not reached the African American community. If anything the higher poll numbers of Af-Americans supporting the gay-marriage ban shows that, as usual, those who wish to educate the public have ignored the African American Community. Go Figure.
Is equality for gays a civil rights issue?
It's absolutely a civil rights issue. In many states, there's no sexual orientation protection when it comes to hiring and firing, for example. Just because a gay person can stay in the closet and pass, and therefore avoid some of the discrimination doesn't change the reality of the discrimination.
As a feminist, I take great offense to polygamy and what it does to women, but more so to the innocent children who have to live in that sham of a family. Where is the concern by feminists on this issue? Are you people out there not able to see the forest for the trees?
The issue at stake is always whether or not the state has a compelling interest in regulating marriage. When it comes to same-sex marriage, there's no compelling interest to my mind--same-sex couples are just as likely to be good parents as opposite-sex couples, for example.
Polygamy offers a different set of challenges, though I dislike the "what about the children" argument. The real issue, as far as I'm concerned, is whether or not each member of the polygamous/polyandrous relationship is a full partner. This is a case where the theory might sound okay, but the practice is a whole other set of ugliness in most cases.
Pam Spaulding blogged about a number of black religious leaders saying 'no' to Prop. 8.
CB, I can see the forest and the trees. I also know what a slippery slope fallacy is.
@CB
I think you've undertaken a misreading of how this would work. Your slippery slope argument really insinuates that laws are inherently unable to set any moral standards. Or, if they are, that allowing gay marriage would by law remove that ability.
Would defining marriage as "one man and one woman" allow for the marriage of a brother and sister? Certainly not as laws currently exist to restrict it. Likewise allowing homosexuals to marry would not allow polygamy where it is already forbidden by law.
Info that I know exists but can't seem to construct a sufficiently constrained search: How old is the black population v Hispanic or Asian? Because a big reason Latinos skew against 8 is that younger people don't care if gay people get married or not, and seniors do, and the Latino population skews young.
On prejudice: groups escaping prejudice and then setting up equally repressive societies with different outcasts is not new historically. Oppression doesn't seem to engender much beyond the idea that it is better to not be the oppressee.
On gay marriage: I'm in favor. And yet I'm a bit disturbed when Andrew insists that Obama come out in favor of gay marriage Right Now, and an editorialist in the Globe complained of the separate but equal aspect of civil unions. I do think, legally, no gay marriage is very similar to no interracial marriage. And yet, separate but equal never applied to marriage before. It's like you have the following 3 groups:
a) Group A has nice drinking fountains and Group B has no running water. Group B should be given some drinking fountains.
b) Group A has nice drinking fountains and Group B has no running water. Group B should be allowed to use the drinking fountains.
c) Group A has nice drinking fountains and Group B has no running water. That's how it should be.
If groups (a) and (b) work together, they presently outnumber (c) in most places. And going from no water to your own drinking fountains is absolutely progress. I think we could easily get to all states having some form of civil union with the legal rights of marriage--which, as soon as gay marriage became legal here in MA, became the default conservative position--and within a generation most would say "you know, it doesn't matter what you call it, just call it marriage like the state next door." In this case, getting the legal protections of marriage by whatever name. So as we veer off into dividing groups (a) and (b) over whether the step from no rights to fully equal rights should be one step or two, which winds up sending some people off with group (c). Fighting for a step forward wherever you can get it strikes me as smarter than fighting for all or nothing.
My prediction WRT gay marriage--a take that has little to do with the African-American community:
Within five years, the Supreme Court will get a case challenging either the DOMA or a state ban on gay marriage--and will do what many Americans consider unthinkable:
They will legalize gay marriage everywhere, in a decision that--like the California SC decision--will cite Loving.
Before you laugh, consider this: The last time the Court addressed the issue of homosexuality was Lawrence v. Texas about five years ago; in which the Court, by a 6-3 majority, atruck down antisodomy laws as unconstitutional. The opinion hinted strongly that bans on gay marriage would be viewed unfavorably by the Court, should the Court have occasion to hear a case on the matter.
Justice O'Connor (who voted for the majority) and Chief Justice Rehnquist (who was with the minority) are now gone, the latter dead; replaced with Justices Alito and Roberts. Even if both of the Dubya appointees are anti-gay, that's still 5 justices--a working majority--who at least are open to the idea.
It could happen, folks. (And I think it will be a good thing).
But if it does--the shit will hit the fan nationwide.
If the SC legalizes gay marriage in all fifty states--I think we'll see at least some of the great public scenes of the Civil Rights era replayed. At least one Southern state, I'm sure, will openly defy the Court--and we'll see a replay of George Wallace on the schoolhouse steps, with national guardsmen escorting a same-sex couple to the altar (or the courthouse).
Gay marriage may easily replace abortion (and race, to lesser extent) as the "wedge issue" that keeps the GOP on life support. If it isn't already.
I'm just pondering aloud here, but I wonder if the question of gay marriage sounds the same to black folks as it does to white folks? I imagine it does to religious communities of both races (but the fact that 65% of people who attend religious services regularly support prop 8 doesn't seem to be newsworthy), but what about secular folks?
I know marriage has a lot of practical and legal implications (it impacts health insurance and hospital visitation, taxes, property ownership, inheritance, custody of children and on and on), and part of the struggle for gay marriage has to do with allowing for access to those things. But another part of it has to do with the cultural validation packed into the word "marriage" - it's why civil unions just won't do - and I think there's more packed into that term for secular white folks.
In my experience (as a white woman who's not at all interested in the institution of marriage), getting married is the only way to really get serious validation of your romantic relationship - no matter how long you've been together, or how much jointly owned property you've got, or how many children you have, you're still just fooling around until you get that ring and throw a big party. Being told you can't get married is like being told you have to sit at the kids table at holidays for the rest of your life; it means your relationship isn't real, isn't adult and isn't recognized as serious in the eyes of most people. Under this model, the question about gay marriage isn't about taxes and property and equal access to legal institutions, but it's really "Are homosexual relationships real relationships?"
None of this is news, but I wonder if this isn't a more culturally white idea than we realize. Again in my experience (and the usual caveats about small sample sizes and anecdotal evidence apply), long-term, committed but unmarried couples are taken more seriously in the (secular) black community. Not that marriage isn't a big deal for black folks, but it isn't the *only* big deal. And I think that makes what's packed into the idea of "marriage" pretty different.
Maybe I'm totally wrong here, like I said, I'm just thinking out loud. I'm curious about support among black folks for legislation outlawing discrimination in employment and housing based on sexual orientation, or the inclusion of sexual orientation in hate crimes laws - things that are more easily analogous to the Civil Rights struggle - I wonder if those kinds of numbers would paint a different picture.
Of course I never said that the only reason so many African-Americans are Democrats is because of racism. I'm pretty sure that the average black person tends to be more economically liberal than the average person. Thus, there is good reason to think that part of the reason for the Democratic Party's strength in this demographic group is because of ideological agreement. However, if the poll cited by TNC is correct, black people are less likely to support equal rights for homosexuals than the population (in CA) at large.
And yes, I do think that there are conservative homosexuals who would switch parties if the Republicans stop encouraging homophobic attitudes and discriminatory measures towards gays.
Wow, I really never thought I would see someone attempt to use feminism to justify homophobia. That's impressively stomach-churning.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves by reading tea leaves. That 58% number is based on the responses of ~50 people (800 total respondents, 6% black). That leaves a confidence interval all over the map, and it would be *extremely* unsound to conclude that the black ethnic group differs from other ethnic group in its support of prop 8 by looking at this poll.
In statistics terms, the hypothesis that's already been assumed, namely that support for prop 8 in the black ethnic group is higher than 47%, only has a P-value of 0.10, where statisticians usually demand 0.05 or less.
That's not to say that there's evidence for the converse proposition, I'm just saying that this poll can not be read to support the initial assertion.
I think that CB, above, failed to understand that the California Supreme Court did NOT change the law to allow gay marriage, but rather interpreted the existing California Constitution as already providing the right for gays to marry.
It is the anti-gay-rights folks who are in fact attempting to change the law, and their state's very constitution, thus enshrining discrimination where it did not exist before.
It is the anti-gay-rights folks who are in fact attempting to change the law, and their state's very constitution, thus enshrining discrimination where it did not exist before.
Yes, yes, and a thousand times yes.
This isn't about "defining marriage". It's about changing the constitution of the state to take rights away from a specific group.
I just got a press release from the "protect marriage" folks highlighting their minority support among certain black and Latino religious leaders.
CB's "slippery slope" argument is not, of course, a good reason for opposing gay marriage, but it does highlight the weakness of the argument that gay marriage is a civil rights issue.
There is not and never has been a "civil right" to marry whomever we choose. At the moment, we can't marry someone of our same sex, which is what all the fuss is about right now, but we also can't legally marry:
Someone to whom we are too closely related by blood or (in some cases) by marriage;
Someone who is already married, unless they first undergo a divorce;
Someone who is under a legal disability or any kind of compulsion;
Anyone at all, if we are already married and have not undergone a divorce;
Someone who is under a statutorily specified age, which rarely matches the age of majority, or, in most states, anyone who is under some different age and does not have parental consent.
The arguments for gay marriage as a matter of civil rights logically apply just as well to many of the above categories.
If I, a woman, have a civil right to marry another woman, why do I not have a civil right to marry my sister? If I have a civil right to marry whomever I choose, why not my brother, if that's who I choose, or for that matter, my brother AND my sister? As those arguing for gay marriage often point out, marriage is not all about having children, so what's wrong with pointing out that it's not even all about sex? Why should I be unable to protect my brother and sister through my Social Security disability insurance and retirement benefits, or cover them under my employer's spousal insurance benefits?
Chris's answer to CB's fear of polygamy is that the law is able to "set moral standards." But "moral standards" in relation to who can marry? Isn't that simply tradition, custom or religious doctrine - in other words, everything that stands in the way of gay marriage today? And if those are not adequate to justify opposition to gay marriage, why would they be adequate against polygamous marriages, bigamous marriages, or the rest?
According to Incertus, the question is whether, "in [Incertus's] mind" there's a compelling interest against it. In Incertus's mind there's no compelling interest agasint gay marriage and there is against polygamy. If we just hand all marriage law revisions over to Incertus, that would resolve the issue, but it's hard to see how that's a rational way to do it in a democracy.
In just about every culture, marriage law was created to support and regularize a cultural institution that long predated most of the laws that now control it. Interracial marriages may have sometimes been frowned upon, but were always part of that tradition and certainly in Western post-Enlightenment culture, racial or religious legal restrictions on marriage are a lot easier to see as a civil rights issue than restrictions on same-sex marriage, polygamous marriages, incestuous marriages, etc.
Of all of them, same-sex marriage is farthest removed from the tradition, as evidenced by the fact that it never even crossed legislators' minds to bar it the way they barred some of the other less-traditional variants like bigamy or incest.
Given the dramatic advances in acceptance of gay people and gay relationships, I expect gay marriage will be legislatively regularlized in my lifetime, which will be fine with me. But I'd rather it were done democratically and legislatively, on the ground that the society accepts it as a valid relationship entitled to legal affirmation, not as a "civil right" that logically should swing the door wide open. The Courts, by treating it as a civil rights issue, have unfortunately triggered the legislative battle a little before its time.
I think you are missing a very importance difference between the relationships of ethnic immigrants in American history and the relationships between African Americans and gay Americans. The Irish were not sympathetic to the plights of later immigrant groups because the new incoming immigrants posed a threat in the labor market and also posed a threat to their path to gain acceptance in American society as respected citizens. The same goes for the Italians and their discrimination towards Latinos. Those situations are complicated by each ethnic group attempting to gain access to the American dream, to be accepted as white or each get themselves a piece of what they expected when they emigrated here in the first place. There was economic and social competition to both climb the social hierarchy and maintain their jobs.
African Americans refusing to support the civil rights of gay people does not make sense in the same way. The only reason present here is bigotry, pure and simple. There is no competition involved. Are you arguing that the situations are parallel because as of right now, gay relationships are at the bottom of the food chain (as far as social norms go) and interracial relationships are perhaps one step up? I don't think this argument holds water, but it is the only way that you can parallel the past and present situations of bigotry shown by ethnic groups to other ethnic groups despite firsthand knowledge and experience of how devastating bigotry can be.
According to Incertus, the question is whether, "in [Incertus's] mind" there's a compelling interest against it. In Incertus's mind there's no compelling interest agasint gay marriage and there is against polygamy. If we just hand all marriage law revisions over to Incertus, that would resolve the issue, but it's hard to see how that's a rational way to do it in a democracy.
Not even close to what I said. I said "the state has to show a compelling interest," and by extension, judges have to agree that the interest is indeed compelling. Now, what judges decide is compelling varies from judge to judge and changes over time--at one point, judges felt that the state had a compelling interest in making sure people of different races didn't marry. That changed. Today, some judges have decided there's no compelling interest in forbidding two people of the same gender to marry--others obviously disagree, but let's be clear about that disagreement. It fails on any level other than a religious one, and since this is supposed to be a secular nation, in my mind that means it ought to fail completely.
When it comes to multiple-person marriage, the state might argue that the question of responsibility for children or the difficulties in ensuring that all members are equally able to join or leave the legal relationship are too difficult to surmount. That could be considered (by some) to be a compelling reason to ban multiple-person marriage. It might also look at the reality of polygamy as it is currently practiced (illegally) and note that most women in those relationships are mistreated; therefore, the state has an interest in protecting their rights.
Notice what I'm not doing. I'm not saying that these arguments are right or wrong. I'm simply saying that they can be made, and that it's a judge's job to rule on their validity, and finally, that those rulings are liable to change over time as society changes, just as the rulings about interracial marriage changed and same-sex marriage is changing right now.
One last thing--you said that "it's hard to see how that's a rational way to do it in a democracy." We're not a democracy, and with good reason. True democracies don't protect the interest of the minority. They're mob rule, and screw anyone who can't cobble together a majority. Our system works because it refuses that solution; it says that minorities have rights that can't be taken away via the vote. In my view, this amendment is a perfect example of what's wrong with California's initiative system, because it's nothing but a tyranny of the majority, even if it goes down to defeat. Citizens should not, and cannot be allowed to decide what rights their fellow citizens have.
There's a story that Isaac Asimov used to tell. He was talking to a woman who went on about how she could never trust the goyim because they had done nothing to stop Hitler. When he asked her what she was doing to support civil rights, she responded (of course) "Hey, they can take care of themselves. I've got my own problems."
Another group that wants to marry but can't: really unattractive people. If gays have the right to marry, then on 14th Amendment grounds, an ugly guy could force a pretty girl either to marry him or to face a discrimination lawsuit. Is that the America you want to live in?
Hey, I'm big, fat, and ugly, and I'm married. And my wife is hot. So there. :)
Nobody is talking about forced marriage, Mike--gay or straight. Ugly people current have every right to marry a (willing) partner of their choice, which can be someone of the same sex in CA, MA, or CT. In none of these states can an ugly person (or someone who is undesirable in some other fashion) force another to marry them against their will--gay or straight.
Legalization of voluntary gay marriage won't lend ANY weight to compulsory marriage, whatever the gender. To suggest otherwise is BS.
Your question is a complete non-sequitur.
Arranged marriages DO occur in the US, though there is no state assistance in compulsion to marry. (There may be family pressure to marry the girl that your parents have picked out for you; and the state won't intervene--but the state won't force anyone to marry). "Shotgun" marriages to avoid the stigma of illegitimacy were once commonplace among heterosexual couples who had the misfortune to find themselves expecting--but in no case does the law require anyone to get marry, or to accept a marriage proposal. Period.
(I might add--the sorts of traditional cultures in which one does find arranged marriages--Hindu culture, for example--are generally opposed to gay marriage).
Your question is a complete non-sequitur.
And deliberately so. Sorry if that wasn't clear. (And I'm another, umm, common-looking guy married to a beautiful woman. Go us!)