By Ramy Eletreby

The same-sex marriage debate is expected to take political center stage during congressional and statewide elections this June and November. Nationally, the possibility of gay marriage as a front burner issue intensified when, on April 19, new White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton relieved President Bush's political guru Karl Rove of his domestic policy portfolio to concentrate on election strategies, including enticing evangelical Christians to the polls to vote on marriage initiatives

Anticipating the battle, the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, in association with J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, held a two-day symposium April 21-22 featuring five law and policy debates on extending marriage and adoption rights to same-sex couples.

During "The Purpose of Marriage," Stephanie Coontz debated Lynn Wardle on the origins and current state of marriage. Wardle noted how marriage is observed in nations around the world: 137 nations (72 percent of the world's sovereign nations) have laws protecting the institution of marriage and 32 percent explicitly define marriage as being between a man and a woman. Coontz explained that historically, marriage has been inconsistent, political, not predetermined by gender, and created as a protection of assets and insuring inheritance rights for legitimate children. "If we continue to define marriage as a purpose for procreation, then we should deny marriage to childless couples and not allow divorce to couples with children," said Coontz. "Same-sex marriage doesn't threaten the family model, but continues the original idea of protection and rights."

"Same-Sex Couple Data" discussed statistics about same-sex couples in the United States, Scandinavia and Western Europe. Lee Badgett of the Williams Institute, handling the Scandinavian data, asked, "Would allowing same-sex marriage affect the overall rate of marriage?" and found that the 1994 same-sex marriage law in Sweden had little effect on the country's marriage rate. Allan C. Carlson of the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society chronicled the 75-year deconstruction of marriage in Sweden with several straight couples today choosing to remain unmarried and only 15 percent of same-sex couples choosing to get married.

"The California Marriage Case" debated the scope of Prop. 22 (that only marriage between a man and a woman is recognized in California) and the "interests of the state." Monte Stewart of the Marriage Law Foundation passionately explained how allowing "genderless marriage" would shatter the idea of "man-woman marriage" because no institution could survive with two conflicting definitions. Andrew Pugno of the Prop. 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund referred to the passing of any same-sex union law as leading to a "train wreck." After explaining the legal reasons supporting marriage equality, Lambda Legal's Jenny Pizer made it real simple: "It may be my Aunt Sadie's role to influence my choice on whether to marry my soul mate, but it is definitely not Uncle Sam's." For information, go to more www.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/home.html.

Meanwhile, Equality California launched its Building a State of Equality campaign to identify and bring out LGBT-supportive voters in November. For more information, go to www.eqca.org.