I want to
thank you for inviting me to speak to the Alliance for Full Acceptance this
evening. I am very honored to be here. I'd like to recognize
the presence of my very beautiful and formidable wife, Ms. Tammie Hoy Hawkins.
Some of you may know Tammie, as an active member of the League of Women
Voters. She also founded and led the Low Country Housing Trust for
several years and in that capacity, she helped many citizens find
affordable housing. She is a passionate voice for equality, and has been
a very positive influence on my life and mind.
As many
of you know, I served as a Republican Member of the South Carolina General
Assembly for 12 years, from 1996 to 2008. The last 8 years of that time I
spent in the Senate. As a Senator representing one of the most
conservative parts of the state, I led the battle to pass the so-called South
Carolina Marriage Amendment. This legislation would amend the constitution
to specifically state that marriage would be defined as a union
between one man, and one woman. All other unions, especially those
between persons of the same sex, would be illegal and
unconstitutional.
Several
hearings were held in the Senate Judiciary committee
and subcommittee on which I sat as a member. Opposition to the
bill was led by Senator Robert Ford, who courageously fought against
overwhelming odds to defeat, or at least to ameliorate, the bill.
Then President Pro Tem, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Glenn McConnell,
argued strenuously against ramming the bill through the Senate.
To his credit, Senator McConnell, wanted to give opponents
of the bill their chance to be heard and for the bill to be fully
debated. Both Senators McConnell and Ford fought valiantly for due
process and equality.
To my
regret, I was on the other side of that fight. With the zeal
and aggressiveness of someone convinced of the rightness of his
position, I worked hard to get the Marriage Amendment passed. In reality,
the outcome was never much in doubt. But I certainly became the public
face of the push for the Marriage Amendment. In meetings and on
the floor of the Senate, I was very vocal and outspoken in support of
the measure. Being an attorney, I used legal arguments -- never religious
ones -- in support of my position.
Why did I
take such a leading role in pushing the amendment? I
felt that from a legal and constitutional standpoint, making a change in public
policy so fundamental and so important to many citizens should be done by the
democratic process. At the time, several courts in other states had
issued legal opinions, which invalidated or brought into question the idea that
a state could ban same sex marriage. These initial legal
skirmishes set the stage for larger cases of more impact that would come later
on. Many of my constituents worried that South Carolina could
be next. My position was that if South Carolina was going to allow
same sex marriage, it should be done through the Constitution, and the
ballot box, but not through unelected Judges making policy by judicial decision.
This
narrow view of the question was just that -- narrow. It was
also erroneous and shortsighted. But at the time, I genuinely believed
that the appropriate way to change the law regarding marriage was to put the
question to the public by way of Constitutional Amendment. We now know
the result. The Marriage Amendment passed both houses by an overwhelming
majority. When the Amendment was voted on in November of 2006, it
received a whopping 78% approval. And then it became the law
of the land, and has been ever since.
In
preparing my remarks for today, I have reflected on my state of mind and what
drove me to be so active on this issue at the time. That's somewhat
difficult to do 8 years later. And like all people, my motives were not
single-faceted but nuanced and complex. I truly felt, as I stated before,
that this was a question of constitutional democracy. This was a popular issue with the republican
electorate, and it remains so today, for reasons which I will explain in
more detail later on. Obviously, doing the will of my constituents,
as best as I could identify the meaning of that will, was my job as an elected
representative. But I know now that on that occasion, I did my job a
little too well.
So now we
come to the present time. As best I can tell, the reason I was asked to
come here is because of a Facebook Post I wrote on June 26th of this year.
I was commenting on the Supreme Court decision in the case of United
States vs. Windsor, which held that the Defense
of Marriage Act, a federal law that defined marriage as between a man and a
woman for the purpose of federal benefits, is unconstitutional.
A good friend told me a long time ago that there's nothing
deader than an ex-politician, so at the time I wrote the post, I really didn't
think anybody would care. I wrote it because I was sorry I had fought
against marriage equality. I wrote it because I wanted my two girls to
have something in writing from their dad on the public domain that I was wrong
on the issue and was stating so publicly. I wanted them to
see, and anyone else who cared, that I was repudiating my earlier
stand and openly "coming out" -- as it were -- for marriage equality.
Here's what I wrote at the time:
In my past days as a State Senator, I was active in
working for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. With time and much
consideration, not to mention a dose of enlightenment and empathy, I realize my
past positions in this regard were wrong, and I honestly wish I hadn't been so
strident against gay marriage. I have come to see discrimination against gay
people as a great wrong, akin to discrimination against blacks, women and other
minorities. I believe that if a gay couple desires to get married, they should
have the same rights as me. One cannot undo the past, but there is time left in
life to change one's mind and reject discrimination of any kind, in any form,
and against anyone.
That's
what I wrote in June, and from my conservative Facebook friends, I received
some interesting comments, but mostly outright silence.
Right
now, in Russia, gays are persecuted and treated like criminals. Some are even jailed. We know that Adolph Hitler thought of gays as
“subhuman” and murdered thousands of them in concentration camps. Even in America, hate crimes against gays are
perpetrated weekly, if not daily. I
would say to you that America should be better than that. And America should not have laws on its books
that give aid and comfort to those who have prejudice in their heart against
gay citizens.
The
problem with prejudice, is that to discriminate against one minority group is
to give cover to those who would discriminate against other groups as
well. Hatred, negativity, and blind
discrimination are vicious vectors for violence and cruelty.
The
Marriage Amendment, and laws like it, give discrimination against gays the
shroud and veil of legal authority. It says
that gays are not as deserving as straight persons of the protections of the
law. And it deprives gay citizens of one
of the most basic rights imaginable: The
right to marry.
As it was
with Civil Rights in America, so it is with this. In the south, civil rights would never have
happened had it depended on a vote of the people. The popular will was against equal rights for
blacks. It took the Supreme Court of the
United States to summon the courage to end legal discrimination against them.
Likewise
today, the Court is there to protect the rights of the minority against the
whims and power of the majority. If a
true constitutional right is implicated, as it is here, the Court should step
in and do the right thing. That’s what
happened in the recent DOMA decision, which is limited in its impact but will
lay the foundation for other court decisions which will start to chip away at
the discriminatory laws against gays in this nation.
I believe
that during our lifetime, probably sooner than any of us can think, we will
reach a point where we look back on the days of legally sanctioned
discrimination against gays with wonder and astonishment; where people will say
“you know, what the hell was the big deal anyway?”
I just want to say to those of you who have fought, and continue
to fight, for equal rights, that people can change their points of view. I am by nature a very passionate and
relentless fighter for what I believe in.
When it came to the Marriage Amendment, that fighting spirit was
misdirected because it sprang from beliefs which, though honest and
well-intentioned, were simply off the mark.
I look
forward to the day when, throughout this great land of equality and liberty,
our gay brothers and sisters are accorded the same rights as everyone else, and
discrimination against them in any form will have passed into the distant and
unpleasant memory.
Thank
you.