Colbert had a really interesting guest on last night (video’s after the jump). And I mean the word “interesting” in the sense that he was an interesting case of humanity, someone that makes you sit back and marvel at the complexity of the human creature.

His name is Douglas Kmiec and he’s a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine.  He was on Colbert to advance the idea that in confronting the gay marriage movement, government should not recognize marriage at all, that it should issue civil union contracts to couples for property rights, taxes, and inheritance reasons – the word “marriage” should be left exclusively for religious institutions.  After all, the government isn’t involved with any other sacrament or religious ceremonies, from confirmation to bar mitzfahs to baptisms.  Why marriage?

Interviews on Colbert are routinely fascinating and frustrating because he invites good people on, and it’s fun to see if they can get their argument out in under five minutes despite sitting in front of Stephen Colbert.  He did a decent job arguing that civil unions for all would be fair, and that it would placate churches, politicians, and Prop 8 lawyers on both sides.  In fact, I came away from the interview not actually knowing his “stance” on gays (sarcastic scare quotes intentional), and I congratulate him on his obfuscation skills.

When I Googled this guy, I was actually quite surprised to see this sentence in an article he wrote last June regarding Prop 8:

Gay and lesbian individuals are within the humanity acknowledged to be created equal and worthy of respect in the Declaration of Independence, but that responsible reaffirmation of equality of citizenship does not deprive the community of making a necessary and reasoned distinction for its own survival. (italics mine)

and

The proponents of same-sex marriage … overlook the national and global decline in fertility, which threatens the economies of Europe and contributes to the weakness of our own.

Situations like this are frustrating to me. Kmiec is obviously a smart guy – he’s a constitutional law professor, for gosh’s sake. But he seriously believes that it’s gay people’s fault for a decline in fertility?  Does he know how babies occur? I used to be a baby, and I’m pretty sure I came from straight people.  The proportion of straight couples to gay couples with pregnancy scares is a divide-by-zero error.  It’s silly that this needs to be said, right?  I suppose not though, because he wrote an article about how gays need to be cordoned off from society to prevent its downfall since they can’t get pregnant. 

I wiped my hand from my forehead to my chin in incredulity 9 times while writing that paragraph.

I’m going to leave aside the part of his proposal where he wants to deny marriage to nonreligious people for now while we talk about his actual proposal.

In order to preserve the “millennia of tradition and common sense” that is heterosexual marriage (including the millennia of the traditions of latex condoms, birth control, and safe, accessible vasectomies of course), Prof. Kmiec, a professor of Constitutional Law, wants to abolish marriage.

To be fair, his new proposal of civil unions for all does assume that the civil unions carry all of the rights and responsibilities currently associated with marriage, all 1,100+ of them. Although this article re: his support of DOMA leads me to believe that Kmiec doesn’t believe that gay couples actually deserve all of the rights of marriage.  So he doesn’t actually believe gay couples should have equal rights.  Wait, hold on…

Could this just be posturing?  Is Kmiec afraid that the California Supreme Court is going to strike down Prop 8, and he’s suggested this as a last-ditch effort to keep queers from being Married? His proposal sounds sexy. After all, it’s the same rights for all yay!

Hold on again.  There’s already an existing institution that we could use; a legally binding contract between two people that provides all the rights and responsibilities of marriage that we can use: marriage.

That should be pretty obvious to anyone who knows that gay people are legally and morally equal to straight people, and  isn’t just trying to make some confusing-to-the-layman argument that really just boils down to “Sorry, this is our club, no ass pirates allowed.” Because who has time to figure out what “compelling state interests” and “strict scrutiny” and the like are anyway?

Oh. Also.  France tried this already. It didn’t work out too well for them.

I feel like I’m in Intro to Social Psych again and this is the topic. Third paragraph.

Here’s my suggestion that would probably satisfy Kmiec’s criteria:  Everyone can get married, but if it’s two dudes, they literally and legally must be referred to as “gay married.”  This way, gays can get married, but people like Kmiec won’t ever forget that it’s gay.  All the legal documents would be the same, but you just have to put the word “gay” in front.  So instead of “Spouse A” and “Spouse B”, the clerk has little stickers to make it “Gay Spouse A” and “Gay Spouse B”, Gay Marriage Certificate, etc.

This law would also apply to colloquial speech.  So while my friends have hookups in a dirty frat basement, I will have gay hookups in a dirty frat basement.  I will go on exclusively gay dates with my gay boyfriend and we’ll go gay food shopping together and then we’ll gay fight and gay breakup and I’ll gay eat Haagen Dazs.  Then I’ll gay get over it and gay meet someone new and then get gay engaged and gay married and gay live happily ever gay after.  Would that work for you, Prof. Kmiec? I hope it’s clear, because I don’t want you to get confused and think you’re married to a dude if you’re married. 

Let’s do some arithmetic.  He believes marriage should only occur in a church and must result in babies, and that this should be a law.  Professor Kmiec:  Constitutional Law Professor or Canonstitutional Law Professor? AM I RIGHT PEOPLE?

Here’s the video:

PS No one tell this guy that sometimes gay people go to church, he’ll get real sad real quick.