hopefully learn something about how complex there social and political organization was. my belief is that with archaeology one of the great things that we have about archaeology is that when we look into the past and see what people get, i think it gives you hope for the future because if they can do this in the desert with digging sticks, what is it

that we can do? >> extra kent book tv and american history tv, two of the history and -- toward the history and literary life. between 111480. april 6th and 7th on c-span2. >> this past week the supreme court heard oral argument of proposition eight and the defense is mayor jack. a decision is scheduled to come in june, but in the meantime we through bring you a few programs related to the cases. over the last few years several others have been on the tv discussing their own experiences in new of these programs can be seen on line at booktv.org. now we bring you a few segments starting with andrew sullivan. on book notes in 1995 to discuss his book virtually normal, an argument about homosexuality.

>> what role does the government play in the gay person's life? my. >> guest: id place first of all, a very fundamental role. i think what it doesn't do -- maybe us to start to -- start with what it doesn't do. if you're a soldier you can get thrown up by the u.s. government you can get your telephones tapped. you can get your mail rifled through. and buchanan beaten arrested, strictly speaking, for sexual relations in many states in this country for doing your for just having a relationship one which can be involving sexuality and now. that would be -- the government can go into someone's bedroom, arrest them, and it was constitutional do so.

so those would be proactive axe of the government. the government of the united states and the government of many other countries, the only people that it picks up and says we can actually actively make your life hearten when a gay people. tear the elements are the and that applies. them what it doesn't do, and this is where the book climaxes, it does not allow you to have your emotional relationships that are publicly acceptable. and when you say that to people they sort of feel that is not such a big deal. you know, you have some freedom. you can do what you want. it's like we live in a police state, and we don't buy large.

as i said to the average heterosexual mel, i can't get -- you can get married if you have kids got zurich, they're not a legitimate and the families and not venture except this and the government is not trying to give you health benefits. if you're an immigrant you cannot stay in the country. that those things apply. when you're growing up on car -- i'm sure when you're growing up or any heterosexual person grows up, you follow the people. you get creches, fumbled through adolescence, go on dates. is so much a part of people's lives and what they think about us. it's absolutely essential. a society is presenting all of these messages.

this is important. to you of your life. he's been here live with is probably the most important thing in your life. and the government says to me and to anybody else's case, none of that is possible for human error after enough. those feelings are having are discussing. you will never be able to marry the person in love and we will never accept. and when you are 12 or 13 and you're told that and you know who you are and i think -- i rate to almost 0413 euros or galas been know that, that is an incredibly powerful message to send someone. he don't know where to go. you don't know who you're going to be. you don't know what the future

is. you can't think of how you're going to grow up. everyone around you. our malls are our parents and brothers and sisters. we want to have relationships and that our lives reciprocated and not saying it's easy. but deep down the tolls, those very deep things will never, ever be allowed. inevitably i think it builds from the very beginning the sense of incredible loneliness and depression to a sometimes self discussed and sometimes desperation. i think that if you analyze some , as some people have done, teenage suicide college you will find a very large number of them

have to do with this sort of incredible despair. i think any gay person that says they have never felt it is not telling the truth. i have been called a self hitting homosexual for red menace, but its true color and it takes a long time for most cable steve beyond this. it's not just strange research showing yes. is the people you of the most. the main that even, in my case no one can alliance said to me than if your homosexual be your disgusting. but the chair this data never said anything. analysts -- i knew this. occasionally -- so that no one

would even talk about. so i think the government ban on marriage and and and filters down culturally, socially, as ecologically. it permeates everything about the integrity of your life. and until that is changed, nothing about the real dignity and integrity and quality of capable change, which is why i insist on the same rights. it's the thing i keep coming back to in the book and in what i have heard before and however argued. c-span: why, what is different about the way the state of kuwait treats case? >> it is in limbo right number. abortion essentially what is

happening is quite complicated. eric reuter process of a trial and appeals based on a case in which gay people have argued it is unconstitutional under the hawaii constitution. this has been temporarily upheld pending the process. strangely and interestingly, the legislature has not acted that aggressively and ethanol at this point to stop this possible legality. the argument is interesting. the argument is not about kate people. the argument is in fact about sex discrimination which is a brilliantly ingenious argument which.

it is that if meg and elisabeth's want to get married and they are denied it, they're being denied it because the woman is not a man. she is being discriminated against. and the other argument that is brought to bear is that the wonderfully named by case in virginia which a lot of course, was a marriage case in which someone was discriminated against in a marriage because there were black and white or rather white and black. if those can be understood, especially interesting than i think we could have quite a remarkable discussion i hope

that this will lead to a ruling that we do have it, but even if it does happen in hallway there will be a phenomenal debate across the country about what this means. other states might be forced to address and recognizes are not. i have to say that i believe because i believe in that think it follows inevitably that if you believe that homosexual people are emotionally as dignified as a heterosexual persons, then the ban on their marrying is as gross a violation of this country's upholding of the quality of civil-rights as the ban on interracial marriage, no difference at all. if you hold my emotional life is

as good as yours, that our lives are as good as heterosexual persons lives, i think this is there, this notion, the kernel of this idea of equality is implicit in the promise of america just as it was implicit that interracial marriage was implicit. and so i believe it will happen. i have to believe it will happen is i believe, like an immigrant does believe, perhaps naively, in america. it may not happen in the next five years. i think it will probably happen in the next 50. >> next in 2008 her book beyond straight and gay marriage at busboys and poets in washington d.c.

>> this proposal is not a way to oh boy declaim that gay and lesbian couples deserve equality . they do. from a civil-rights prospective marriage is a good fight, but from a family policy perspective marriage is the wrong fight. gay rights activists should not link elimination of specific arms to achieving marriage equality because those arms affect a wide range of the families and relationships of both gay and straight people, all of film share an interest in reforming outdated laws. so this book is a road map for how to get the laws that we need and want now whether we achieve meritor not.

it is a road map for protecting their relationships with children, a sharing of family and medical leave to care for our loved ones, a sharing economic security after the death of an economic provider, making sure that the person we choose makes medical decisions for us if we're unable to make them for ourselves. marriage should not be the dividing line between the relationships that count and the relationships that don't. in fact over the course of the last several decades the legal significance of marriage has changed dramatically so that what i am advocating in this book is not so much a rigid breaking from how things have always been done, but rather an extension of changes that have already been made nearly a system -- have already been made

in our legal system. i will give a condensed analysis of what has been changed. to do that i will have to ask you to channel your cells back 40 years and imagine that it is february 1968 instead of that your 2008. and this is what the law of marriage looked like four years ago. there were legally mandated separate spheres for husbands and wives. the husband and wife had a very distinct legal rules that the law condoned, in fact mandated. it was very difficult to end a marriage. someone had to be guilty of a marital faults and somebody else had to be in the sense. the innocent person had to want the marriage or want the divorce where there would be no divorce.

and the grounds were very limited. in addition, children born outside of marriage were not only social outcasts the legal outcasts suffering a very severe legal disabilities. so none of those characteristics applied for today in. they had applied for centuries looking back. within a decade from that time they completely revised the laws on the books. making gender equality the norm for men and women, including in marriage no-fault divorce in every state so now either party

can obtain a divorce for no reason other than once in a marriage to end. eliminating that legal distinction between children born inside marriage and outside of marriage. so these new laws discard their agenda script, made entry into marriage more optional, and made exit from marriage more ordinary . we take this state of affairs for granted, but they did not come without some false. >> in 2004 the book they marriage, president of the american enterprise institute and a e ice color. >> the official topic today is should conservatives support same-sex marriage. the unofficial subtitle is

everything i know about the marriage and learn that the american enterprise institute. [laughter] too many people on the right are panicking instead of thinking when it comes to same-sex marriage. the president of the united states, unfortunately, is someone i put in that category. but it seems to me that if you apply the kinds of principles that i think i learn here at a ei and which folks lycoris have done so much to -- your reached two conclusions. the first is that same-sex marriage is an idea that conservatives ought to like. the second is that even if you don't agree with me about the first that a total national ban on same-sex marriage, which is what the president, among others, are advocating, is an approach conservatives should dislike. the book is largely about the

reasons same-sex marriage is what i call the trifecta of modern american social policy, a win in the wind in the wind. good for gay, communities around them, mr. world demand above all, good for marriage. that is most of what we will be discussing in the panel. i will just give you two minutes or that. gay people, of course, gay couples get the legal protections of marriages can marriages enacted, but that is hardly the most of it. they also get a richer love, a destination for love, which kicks in whether you ultimately get married or not, the knowledge that the first is draw the first day, the first going steady can and then left. and they get the enormous personal benefits. a healthier, happier, more prosperous, more secure.

the straight world gives the additional stability that when you get people into family which is what marriage uniquely does. but i have a cousin who is 60 years old and married and suffering from cancer and her husband is keeping her alive, not just caring for physically, but caring for emotionally. and if he were not there, there is no substitute for the love and care of a spouse. that is a non procreative marriage, but no one, i think, can reasonably say that society has a stake in a marriage. above all, i think marriage is a likely beneficiary of same-sex marriage in. this is an opportunity to bolster the ethic of marriage and the culture of marriage at a time when society has been abandoning those things. the fundamental principle year

ought to be for all of society that sex, love, and marriage go together automatically. this is the preferred form of commitment. what you want to see next door you if you're a straight families with kids and the gay couple lives next door to you want to see the modeling the behavior of marriage which is good for your kids and also good for their kids, by the way, if they have any. this is a rare opportunity not to go down the slippery slope away from marriage, but back up the slope toward marriage at a time when heterosexuals are increasingly treating marriage as purely optional. the problem today is not gay couples wanting to get marriage. that threat is straight couples not wanting to get married or straight couples of staying married. same-sex marriage is potentially a dramatic statement that marriage and to, not cohabitation, not partnership, not anything else is the gold

standard and the model to which all americans should aspire. it is special, preferred, everyone can expect to do it, and everybody should be expected to do it. that does not mean they have to, with that this is a privileged and noble thing to do. you're is appoint conservatives should be able to understand and do and many other contexts. there are a lot of trade the society and our win-win, and as in international trade and in indeed most forms a voluntary exchange, this is, in my opinion, win-win. the premise that there must be a loser if came marriage is not in my view is wrong. of course, may be wrong about that. of course, there are often externalities'. bad side effects from people who make voluntary arrangements which are not in society's interest. for the rest of the stock and would like to talk more specifically about what i think i learned at a ei about how conservatives should think in the play to this issue. we live in a very uncertain

world lacking a lot of affirmation. we live in a whirl of unintended consequences. the wisest person or committee in the world cannot get everything right and will often make an intended mistakes. had we make policy in the situation, klum well, modern conservatism, which i distinguish. some of the world, want to get off, but modern conservatism has developed some important principles for how you think about how you make policy, how you make decisions and uncertain and surprising world. principal number-one killer every individual accounts. favre policy that never loses sight of the individuals at the bottom. and you must consider it, and you must reject a crude utilitarianism which simply seize individuals as a means to an end rather than as an end in

itself. conservatives are, of course, the first to object to a kind of collectivism that relegates the individual. if you would not confiscate someone's income, why confiscate their marriage? , any of you would give up if you're married? , if he would give up your marriage to make someone else's family start? i'll bet not very much. if you're not married to a remedy he would give up the opportunity to get married to make someone else's family stronger? one of the prominent conservatives on this issue if the answer is that it would weaken marriage and albany we should not do it. if it would weaken marriage at all we should not do it. what is missing in that sense of the enormous benefits that marriage can bring to ten are

15 million homosexual americans who are now locked out of the culture of marriage. marriage makes you happier, wealthier, all of those other good spirits living without merit satellite today, but growing up without the open prospect of it in your future is a severe hardship. no, it is true that we have to balance social cost against individual benefit. at the not deny that for a moment which is why we have securities. people that will do things that are good for themselves and bad for society. all i'm asking for is to recognize that gallagher is way of looking at which is all too common on the right, cannot be the correct answer. it cannot be right to say that all the good in the world that is done to ten, 15 million gay people does not count at all against any harm that might happen to non gay people. that, it seems to me, is not recognizing that stake in the value of gain lives.

second principle that i think i learned to my respect market forces. how many tons of i heard conservatives criticized liberals for mistaking the intention? campaign finance regulation command-and-control, energy price controls, many others. conservatives read the remind us again and again that banning does not stop change from a just distorts the channel through exchange runs and often has unintended consequences. just saying that you want to make something scarcer or less of a does not make regulating or banning it the right answer. exactly the same thing applies to same-sex marriage, but here the forces it is your social market forces, arrange his the people making in their personal lives, social lives. and these forces can be managed and should be managed, but they cannot be simply stopped. friends, the river of history is

turned. same-sex couples are here for good, they're not going to go wind died. we are here, we're queer, get used to it. recognition will come it is the follow these relationships and to avert the -- vehicle or vessel and a ban won't stop recognition from flowing to these couples. what it will do is shut marriage out of a new market. this new market, this new demand can have anything except marriage and, of course, if the demand cannot be met by marriage it will be met by something else well, what would that something else the? assuming a right, that you cannot stop change and have to live with it and channel at, that leads to the third principle that think learned

that the american enterprise institute's. that is managed risk rationally. manage risk rationally. suppose somebody says something like welfare reform or biotechnology or education vouchers or medicare vouchers are a terrible idea, a dangerous idea and, in fact, so dangerous that they should never, ever be tried. that is what is known as the extreme version of a precautionary. these days it is served primarily on the left, not the right. for example, in the context of biotech were people say it should not be allowed all until it can be proven 100 percent safe. of course modern conservatives and centrists understand the percussion irrepressible not to be conservative at all is coming in fact to radical because it looks only at the rest on one side of the equation and not the rest of what happens if you prevent something like

biotechnology from coming to the market or if you never experiment with educational reform. it is very important to recognize that there are risks on both sides of the equation with same-sex marriage. there is a significant downside potential of the nine same-sex marriage, something i believe the american conservative movement has not come to grips with. of the third kind of risk is the risk, i would call it almost a certainty, not really a risk in that sense of all. the risk of creating in subsidizing alternatives to marriage. civil unions are various forms of domestic partnerships. but various non marriages that will be legally and socially sanctioned and will come in many cases to offer a halfway house between nine marriage and marriage that will, in many cases, depending upon how they are designed to offer the benefits of marriage without the responsibility of the rights and

the obligations to some extent. many of these, politics and the majoritarian society being what they are, will be open to heterosexual if not immediately and over time and in fact in the domestic partner programs in this country, corporate and state and local, the majority of those are open to opposite sex couples and opposite sex couples are often the majority of users of them. even if these alternatives to marriage are not open to heterosexuals, their existence will validate the impression that marriage is just one of a lot of relationship lifestyles, one of a lot of things you can do if you're in a committed partnership. they will read this special status that mayors and joyce. refusing even so union programs are other routes way out to -- halfway houses is often mentioned. cohabitation. every successful public gay couple will be an advertisement for the joys of life out of

wedlock, out of matrimony, our legal structures. there is nothing that can possibly prevent street people from cohabiting. finally a second downside risk which is that banning gay marriage our right saying that here, not any way, not ever risks marginalizing marriage by defining in overtime and the public mind as the discriminatory lifestyle. >> you can watch the entire program with jonathan rauch and all the programs featured here online at booktv.org. next, a debate about same-sex marriage. >> let me ask your question. often said by those who oppose

same-sex marriage that it would, and this is a fairly common phrase, threat marriage as an institution. that is what you're suggesting in your introductory statement. now, what does that mean? in other words, how does it threaten marriage? an angry with you that, by the way, marriage is an institution that is not in great shape. we have a growing number of unmarried couples who choose not to get married. many of whom have children. granted all that, why does the authorization of same-sex marriage threaten that institution? >> number one, it requires us, as we heard, to redefine what marriages. it would require us to say that marriage is no longer will we have noted to be but, is instead

, a specific commitment of love in other words, the redefinition is that no to people who have a commitment to one another is what marriages. in all of the public authority and the institutional meaning that has surrounded marriage as an institution gets to find a wait and instead we just have private relationships between people. so that is one of the ways that -- and also, i would not just be for gay and lesbian couples because the requirement, the demand is to change the meaning for everyone. end secondly, it would explicitly several link between marriage and children. you heard what was said. no, we don't have appropriation licenses.

all very clever, but the point behind it is not funny at all. the copycat defy that -- the point behind it is to say that no, yes, right wingers and homophobes', they all used to say that somehow marriage and children went together, but not anymore. now it is, 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 it make the next generation to make sure there will be there to raise that generation, that is what is being kind of laughed at and put down and snared and and saying, no, that is no longer read. so that is also, that definition would not just be for some people but for everyone. in canada when they passed a marriage they struck the term natural parents from canadian

law and replaced it with the term legal parent. so legal parent is just, i guess -- well, it is unclear what they're really means. but the historic gift of the marriage institution, the demand is that we specifically disavowed. 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, one little example. if we said we passed a law that said that from nylon balletomanes dancing and that it could mean jazz dancing. it could mean that twist. it could mean disco. but from now on valet means dancing. and anyone who says anything different wants to talk a lot pirouettes are something coming it is inappropriate to my

defensive, biggest thing to do. you cannot say any more. instead to mobile emmy's dancing. what happened. oh, well, we have gay marriage invest in -- massachusetts. they forget overnight that they used to be something called ballet. no. over time they would have a significant change in public understanding of what the word ballet means. 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. anyone can specify. it is specifically not connected to children. if we do that it is that just

camino, x number of children who are at risk but all children because the definition, this redefinition will apply to everyone. when you change the meaning and definition of an institution you change the rules that affect people's behavior, and you change the way that people in the institution behave. this seems to me fairly obvious. it is just letting your people into the institution of marriage incorrect. it is changing the institution of marriage for every one. >> yeah. >> i actually do have a response to both parts of the definition thing and that change thing, particularly with regard to kids. first of all, there was a time in the united states win to give one example among many, when

women were not allowed to be lawyers which was considered to be the most natural right in the world. lawyers said to be men. that was the way god intended, the way nature intended it, and it was the way the law and body it, and it was defended by academic and scholars and religious leaders and politicians up and down and even when all the way to the supreme court, and the supreme court said women cannot be lawyers. when we change that and allowed women to be lawyers, the law did not collapse, the bark did not collapse, the profession of law did not collapse, and you know what, we did not even come up with a different word for a lawyer. we came to understand that people who had been formally excluded from the institutional and opportunities and responsibility were, in fact, qualified and able to perform and enter into it to the betterment of everybody. so i am not advocating that we

change the definition or take something away, anything. what i am saying is that there are committee people who are living their lives performing the work your marriage in their private lives, but they're being denied that public commitment that is called a marriage. contrary to what they're saying to my understand that marriage as a public image as well as a private. it is precisely because it as a public to mention that it is draw from our government to discriminate and perpetuate exclusion from the legal institution which is what is at issue here today. on the other point, the point related to children in talks as if there is this campaign under way now and i cannot tell whether he is complimenting me or insulted me by saying and part of this campaign that if successful is going to a decouple marriage from children which conjures up his image and pier as another will take away

your children or bring you from having children or undermine the well-being of your children when there is absolutely no such campaign under way whatsoever. to the extent that we have decoupled marriage and children, that happens decades ago. there is no procreation requirement. that is not what marriages. if you don't believe me ask region need to every guliani in his current wife. as the new gingrich and his care wife. asked about that elizabeth dole. pat and chilly be ken. go back and as george and martha washington. all of these people were married , under the law, entitled to respect for their marriages, no laughing matter, precisely because we know that in the law

many people want to raise their children within marriage and also many people marry without regard to whether or not they have children or any attempt our ability to do so, procreation requirement is somehow only invoked when it comes to excluding gay couples from marriage. as if that were not under enough, what makes it even worse is that many of those gay couples, those same six couples are raising children. they want into this legal institution of marriage for precisely the reason that many other non gay people want to get married to, which is not only with regard to their arsenal while being in reinforcing their prior commitment with a public commitment and having a commitment honored with legal

and tangible and intangible rights and responsibilities, but also because they believe that it will strengthen there 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 thousands and thousands are hearing the state. they want marriage for the same makes of reasons as our non gay brothers and sisters do. among those reasons i that marriage does offer something valuable in the eyes of many, including david, fraise are raising children and for their kids. it makes no sense to exclude those couples and their kids from this legal institution. >> our next more ram related to the reason oral argument her by the supreme court on the defensive marriage act is with william s. bridge providing a

history of laws in america. his book is dishonorable passions. book tv. >> i want to talk about three connections of lessons that the book paris for the same-sex marriage debate. in fact, i told the publisher. i don't know if you will get this message out, but i tell them : a you should tell -- sell the book is a you cannot deeply understand the same-sex marriage debate and underlying cultural troupes with the reading this book about the decline and fall of sodomy laws of america. the first point is the relationship of law and culture. most of the audience are lawyers some not the autonomy of law the case was not driven by either

briefs and certainly not by the work of just lawyers. the argument of the book is that the rise of the sodomy laws and the huge number of arrests in the middle part of the 20th-century and the decline of the sodomy laws that ultimately there does not -- demise are less driven by development in the law and more driven by developments in culture identity politics and ordinary politics. here is the basic tapestry that i laid out in the book. the basic tapestry in the book is that americans are both sex obsessed and sex negative. and america is very six judgmental. it has been that way all throughout its history. the judgments made about sexual engender variation of the 20th century were that any kind of sexual -- sexual and gender variation outside of appropriated marriage was evil,

to be demonized demand was clearly illegal for the entire 19th century in most of the 20th century. so the malignancy of sexual variation, which did change and that 20th-century, but in a way that we can today appreciate, it changed away from demonizing intercourse outside of marriage to demonizing, sexual intercourse outside of marriage away from heterosexual extramarital activity, homosexual activity by definition, of course, also outside of marriage by definition, of course, also not recruit -- so from sexual minorities generally being a loss it became only homosexual minorities who were all laws in the last third of the 20th-century which is much of the story that the book tells. tells the story of foul these outlaws and their mainstream

allies or will to persuade much of america and that a lot of sexual engender variation is tolerable and not malignant. people who are sexual gender minorities should not be a loss for the state. and this process began after world war ii, mainstream lawyer's, a political movement that culminated and started in 1961 with the illinois repeal but achieved its greatest retreat. some parses -- pioneers in sunny reform. the legal features of sodomy between private individuals within their own homes. unfortunately or perhaps for my book fortunately the story does not end in 1975 the degree

california repealed whose story i tell in great detail in chaired by willie brown and a number of other important and very admirable straight allies very soon the traditional family values movement that we have come to appreciate really was born in full force and is caricatured as a reaction to roe v wade. that is only a small part of the story of the survivalists. much of the traditionalist revival was fuelled by the homosexuality idea, that homosexuality was a malignant but some new reform should not take place and that in any event any kind of movement to render gay people anything less than a loss would be an intolerable promotion of homosexuality. this rhetoric in a lot of steam erotically in the 1980's. the very point was being litigated with the aids epidemic

which was associated with thomas sexually the generally engage in a particular. you would think that will be the end of the matter. most interesting parts of the book, after 86 when gay-rights rebounded more strongly than ever, not just in spite of, but i argue because of. lawyers of all sorts, including myself, came out of the closet only after bowers versus hardwick declared everyone potentially in a lot. then the story ends at least partly with slauson. mom the supreme court declared w floor for state regulation with sexual engine and minorities and these people cannot be all laws. the state cannot declare all gender and sexual variation to

be a malignant enemy of the state and must provide for some degree of tolerance. the new norm is what i call it tolerable sexual variation. the supreme court has left the states a great deal of leeway to push for heterosexuality, is not an entirely equal playing field as demanded by the u.s. supreme court. the part of my argument of the book is this prepares the way for the marriage, which if successful in states like california and massachusetts would be a movement away from even a tolerable variation to the notion that sexual engender variation, at least much of it is benign. and that people who were sexual engender minorities should be treated with exactly the same dignity and respect as a heterosexual minority as. that is the first kind of story.

indeed, part of my argument is that then sex marriage movement which was accurately ascribes to the legislation produced terrible backlash and actually paved the way for sodomy law victory. my argument there is that as far as gay and lesbian families became more prominent rescind six mayors litigation and publicity about lesbians and gays raising children, forming committed unions, seeking the right to marry or civil unions as it later was called, that in the public mind, even if it was now willing to recognize these unions as marriages, the public mind was beginning to think, well, no longer should reconsider gays and lesbians to be sexual lalas and instead will now start thinking about them as potential partners competence appearance, potential relatives or in-laws which the supreme court in 1986 was literally

unable to conceive of intellectually or emotionally. i think i was the big change between 1986 and 19552003. the u.s. supreme court literally in 2003, even the dissenters, were capable of understanding gays and lesbians as ordinary citizens, citizens with relationships and citizens who were parents, in-laws, relatives, neighbors, teachers, solemn. here is the second lesson that i draw from the book that is for better or for worse very much relevance to the same-sex marriage litigation and ethic and the change in america is incremental. change comes not through radical bounds. stonewall, which was a great moment for gay and lesbian rights in 1969, did not produce legal change. indeed, it produced a lot of legal change and a lot of social and legal backlash as we now

know the. here are some of the lessons that i derived from the sodomy campaign that i think you're very much relevant to the marriage campaign. the first lesson that is that it will take decades and nine years for a social movement to persuade mainstream america of the justice of its rights. the civil rights movement took decades to move to a very uncertain place which is where we are today. a place of incomplete progress. the women's rights movement which goes back 150 years and has been very active from the 1960's. they did incomplete progress in terms of equity in pay for women , equity and respect and so on. so gay-rights and gay litigation which has been particularly the time about a generation from

1969 to 2003, this generation has produced sodomy law reform which is now victorious. the country is that going to retreat on that. it is a reform that was delivered only after a generational shift which is what is significant which is why we are seeing again and will see in the mayor's litigation and there's movement. degeneration that was in command, the george h. w. bush generation in command after world war ii was not a generation on the whole that was going to deliver decriminalization. instead it was the generation of his son and a number of other esteemed leaders, that generation that delivered sodomy

reform in america, and we will see the same thing in same-sex marriage. in that case that generation of ruth bayer ginsberg are not going to let very true form, at least for the country. refer california, certainly massachusetts, but not the country. instead, it will be a generation that follows us. when they take power there will deliver either same-sex marriage are universal civil unions or some other alternative that we can ill conceived at this point. >> we in this collection of programming related to the same-sex marriage to be with jean robinson. in 2012 he presented his book, believes in love, straight talk about gay marriage, an audience in cambridge, massachusetts. >> i what sub be honest about the fact that god believes in love.

straightforward but also, i really did have heroes sexual people in mind when i read it. marriage is one of those things that is under siege. the l. -- lbgt community has become the whipping boy for marriages troubles which, by the way, or here long before we ever started talking about gingrich. marriage is under siege, at least in mice parents. the financial state of things in this country right now is the greatest fed to marriages. it does not leave a lot of time. marriage is under attack. i want to be honest about one thing. i think we need to be and some

people really are, critiquing marriage. the argument i am making in this book is it is really quite a conservative argument. and my attitude is, give us marriage and then we will critique it. give us the access to it, the right to it. this is not the book to critique the institution of marriage, although there is quite a bit of that in it. it is the conservative argument about marriage at its best and at its ideal which speaks the kind of relationship believes to people make a place and there are for another in such a profound way and that it actually reveals to us the kind of selfless love that god has for us.

the sacramento is a place where god promises to show up. and if in their relationship with another person there are times no matter how fleeting that you actually do love this person more than you love yourself made gives you some tiny window into the heart of god who loves us beyond anything we can imagine. adding that is why we value it. it is a laboratory for understanding the transformative power of that kind of love. so at the end of the date it is the conservative argument and one that conservatives ought to be all for. how long have they criticized us for having come you know, promiscuous sex and superficial relationships interior trying to add some former in-depth and continuity and so on and

arrogance that to. it's like the people who are opposed to abortion and sex education and contraception. it does not make any sense. last i will open up for questions. i also think the fear and existent -- recesses that we experience in this movement signals something even bigger which is i really do believe that the lbgt movement is the beginning, just the beginning of the end of patriarchy. patriarchy has been around, as you well know, for a very long time and benefiting certain ones of us, especially if we are like western educated men.

and i think the lbgt movement, i would be interested to hear from some of you in women's studies and so on. i think that the lbgt movement raises the issue of patriarchy in a way that is different than the way the women's movements has raised the issue. and it because we have benefited from it for so long, because it has been in place for so long, i think there is -- there should be no surprise that the resistance to us in this movement has been and will continue to be so fierce. and let's remember that when we settled of the marriage equality case, when we did equal rights for lbgt people, when there are protections in place, with liberty and justice for all actually means all