"I think this would be a good time for a beer," Franklin D. Roosevelt said upon signing a bill that made 3.2 percent lager legal, ahead of the full repeal of Prohibition. I hope Barack Obama will come up with some comparably witty remarks as he presides over the dismantling of our contemporary forms of prohibition—laws that prevent gay marriage, restrict cannabis as a Schedule I controlled substance, and ban travel to Cuba. "You may now kiss the groom," perhaps, or a version of the comment he once made about smoking pot: "I inhaled—that was the point." (Click here to follow Jacob Weisberg)Prohibition now is different from Prohibition then. When the 18th Amendment went into effect in 1920, it was a radical social experiment challenging a custom as old as civilization. A predictable failure—the insult to individual rights, the impossibility of enforcement, the spawning of organized crime—it came to an end in 1933. Today it is a byword for futile attempts to legislate morality and remake human nature.Our forms of prohibition are more sins of omission than commission. Rather than trying to take away longstanding rights, they're instances of conservative laws failing to keep pace with a liberalizing society. But like Prohibition in the '20s, these restrictions have become indefensible as well as impractical, and as a result are fading fast. Within 10 years, it seems a reasonable guess that Americans will travel freely to Cuba, that all states will recognize gay unions, and that few will retain criminal penalties for marijuana use by individuals. These reforms are inevitable—not because politics has changed, but because society has.A few reference points: in April, Obama lifted restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban-Americans. Last month the Justice Department announced that it would no longer prosecute cases involving medical marijuana. Same-sex marriages are recognized in six states and counting. In a larger frame, loosening restrictions and lax enforcement reflect evolving social norms. Gay unions have been celebrated on the New York Times weddings page since 2002. Since George W. Bush left office, American tourists no longer worry about being prosecuted for visiting Havana without a Treasury license. In L.A., you need only tell an on-site doctor at a walk-in pot emporium that you feel anxious to walk out with a legal bag of Captain Kush.The chief reason these prohibitions are falling away is the evolving definition of the pursuit of happiness. What's driving the legalization of gay marriage is not so much the moral argument, but the pressures from couples who want to sanctify their relationships, obtain legal benefits, and raise children in a stable environment. What's advancing the decriminalization of marijuana is not just the demand for pot as medicine but the number of adults—more than 23 million in the past year, according to the most recent government survey—who use it and don't believe they should face legal jeopardy. What's bringing the change on Cuba is not the epic failure of the 49-year-old U.S. embargo, but the demand on the part of Americans who want to go there—whether to visit relatives, prospect for post-Castro business opportunities, or sip rum drinks on the beach.For similar reasons, there isn't likely to be any retreat on the right to have an abortion or own a gun. Popular demand for an individual right is simply too powerful to overcome. The Internet has been a crucial amplifier of all such claims. With pornography and gambling, the Web itself became an irrepressible distribution tool. When it comes to gay marriage, it has accelerated the recognition of a new civil right by serving as an organizing tool and information clearinghouse. More broadly, the freest communications medium the world has ever known has raised expectations of personal liberty. In a world where everyone has his own printing press, restrictions on personal behavior become increasingly untenable.Politicians will continue to lag, rather than lead, these changes. Republicans face a risk in resisting the new realities. If the GOP remains the party of prohibition, it will increasingly alienate libertarian leaners and the young. Democrats face a different danger in embracing cultural transformations too eagerly. Nearly four decades after George McGovern became known as the candidate of amnesty, abortion, and acid, cultural issues are still treacherous territory for them. Why get in front of change when you can follow from a safe distance and end up with the same result?Jacob Weisberg is also the author of The Bush Tragedy and In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington.

Jacob hits the spot. I am not gay. I don't smoke pot. I went to Cuba during the Bush embargo. Phooey on that. But the prohibitions on all those things have no good effect on society. The principal objection to gay life by straights has been the unbridled promiscuity. It doesn't make sense to now obstruct monogamy. Duh.
Marijuana, now...in Florida the Florida State Medical Examiner's Commission lists the deaths due to various drugs every year in Florida. I imagine other states have similar statistics. In 2008, about 3500 people died from pills- opioids and sedatives. 489 died from alcohol. Over 900 from cocaine. How many died from pot? Once again, (year after year) ZERO. Why is it illegal? It is just plain stupid; the laws hurt people, and it wastes billions of public dollars and clogs our court systems. So quit hassling the gays and the pot stoners. Find a more productive hobby. http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/getdoc/a37959db-85e0-42f9-b6d6-cdef532f22f8/2008DrugReport.aspx

Good article!
And congrats to all the couples who came to CT to wed this summer from all across the country!
Cheers, Joe Mustich, Justice of the Peace,
Washington, Connecticut, USA
(Jacob, didn you grow up in Rye, NY)

I wish that it were so. The incredible waste of lives and resources from such inappropriate legal endeavors as the war on drugs or campaigns against gays or 'fornication' is staggering. I fear, though, that the author forgets that there are many among us for whom their only purpose in life is to enforce their will upon others, usually in the form of the 'will of god' by whatever name they call it. Prohibition had a very christian birth, as did the war on drugs. Until people understand that Liberty means allowing others to both believe and do what is reprehensible to them, and understand that as a price for Liberty, this is a battle which will go on and on. Opposition to gay marriage is very much based on the teachings of certain religions, held by tens of millions in this country, who consider it an 'abomination' and who insist our nation will suffer 'god's wrath' if such things are not controlled. THey feel they are endowed with this 'holy mission' to prevent others from doing .... whatever it is they do not want them to do. Never mind that this often goes completely against the written words by which they claim to live. I hope you are right. I hope the trend is in this direction, but in my 52 years I have seen it go both ways with a vengeance. (Lack of capitalization completely intentional.)

Imagine a country that makes coffee, cigarettes or masturbation illegal and punishment by incarceration. To gays, pot smokers and people who simply want to travel to Cuba this is the same reality. Live and let live for pete's sake and stop dictating morality, it's not your job.

Marriage is a religious sacrament. No government, federal or local, should be able to sanction a marriage or any other religious rite. This is a separation of church and state issue. Civil Unions, a legal contract, is what the government can legally offer. This is undeniably clear. We should move for a constitutional amendment clearly disallowing the government sponsorship of the religious sacrament of "marriage." Couples wanting to be "married" should only be able to get this designation from a religious institution, not the government. Marriage should not have any legal application. In the secular ( governmental ) world, only legal contracts between two people should dictate. These contracts, as all legal contracts need to be, should be gender and race blind.

Marriage is both a religious AND a governmentally recognized institution, and the two are not the same, but are two distinct entities. You can have a wedding in a church, but if you don't get your marriage license from the local government, then you aren't legally married even though you may be religiously married. I don't believe that any of the laws allowing gay marriage force a religious group to perform gay weddings. What they do is allow gay and lesbian couples to obtain a government marriage license which gives them full LEGAL rights as a married couple. So ultimately, the legalization of gay marriage has NOTHING to do religious institutions and is most definitely not a violation of "separation of church and state," or of your right to practice your religion as you wish.

What a silly argument. Just because you "can't stop" something has no reflection on whether it is "good" or not. You can't stop murder or incest, so that's good too?

That was the best article I've read in my 25 years on being connected to the Net

A study conducted in 1996 by researchers Henry Adams, Lester Wright Jr., and Bethany Lohr of the Psychology Department at the University of Georgia revealed one possible reason for this hatred. These researchers sought volunteers, who they then divided into two groups based on the responses given by these volunteers to the ???Index of Homophobia??? (a psychological assessment tool intended to measure the extent to which subjects are homophobic). The men from both groups were attached to a device called a penile plethysmograph, which measures sexual arousal by detecting tumescence (erections), and were then shown gay pornographic movies depicting hardcore gay sex, as well as heterosexual pornographic movies depicting hardcore straight sex. Almost to a man, those men who were identified as homophobes by the ???Index of Homophobia??? became sexually aroused whilst viewing the gay male pornography! This finding was so marked and so startling that it made headlines across the nation. In short ??? homophobic ???heterosexual??? men may, in many cases, be struggling with their own gay impulses ??? as Shakespeare observed in ???Hamlet???, ???The lady doth protest too much, methinks!??? (For more on this study, refer to http://gayequalityandthelaw.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-feel-therefore-i-hate.html).

Westcott ??? I have not murdered anybody, nor will I ever do so. I have not committed incest. I am not a pedophile. I am an openly gay man, and I seek the same rights as those which you take for granted ??? specifically, the right to enter into a long-term relationship that will be recognized by the state on the same terms as heterosexual marriages. Six states now permit gay marriage, and New York appears poised to become the seventh. Even should we lose in Mane or Washington, the movement towards marriage equality for the nation???s gay citizens is forging ahead. You can either display some class and dignity by behaving like and American (and displaying American virtues such as acceptance of individual differences, concern for the welfare of your fellow citizens, and respect for their private lives) ??? or you can be dragged, kicking and screaming, into a world in which gay Americans are treated as equals. The choice is entirely up to you. For your sake, I hope that you choose the honourable path, so that we may live in harmony and so that we may display good will towards each other in the months, years, and decades to come.


PHILIP CHANDLER

In their zeal to abuse gay men and lesbians, many right-wing commentators and voters overlook the fact that we live under a system of government in which the highest law of the land is the Constitution of the United States, not the Bible (or any other religious text). The First Amendment to the US Constitution specifically and unambiguously prohibits the church from meddling in affairs of state, and similarly prohibits the state from meddling in ecclesiastical matters (see Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947); a long line of US Supreme Court precedent affirms this principle, which dates back to the efforts of the framers of the Constitution to erect a wall of separation between church and state (refer to Madison???s ???Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments???, addressed to the general assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia back in 1785)). The provisions of the First Amendment (like almost all of the provisions of the Bill of Rights) have been made binding on the states through incorporation under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that ???No State shall???deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.??? This guarantee is intended to ensure the law???s neutrality when the rights of individuals are at stake. The gravamen of almost every equal protection challenge usually lies in the assertion that two groups of people who are ???similarly situated??? with respect to the legitimate purposes of the law are treated differently, with resultant adverse impact to members of one of the groups in question (see Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312 (1993)).

Westscott compares gay marriage to murder and incest. This represents yet another example of the raw, unadulterated hatred displayed by so many heterosexual Americans towards their gay fellow citizens, and reflects the unbelievable cruelty, malice, and ugliness that lies in the hearts of so many ???God-fearing??? men and women, who spew forth mealy-mouthed platitudes filled with pious rectitude when discussing the fact that some men fall in love with other men, and that some women fall in love with other women. As I have noted elsewhere, the majority of homophobic men hate gay men far more than they hate lesbians ??? it is well known to the purveyors of heterosexual pornography that most heterosexual men get off on the sight of two women having sex. It is the thought, or sight, of two men having sex that drives the typical male homophobe into a state of frenzied hatred (for more pertaining to this observation, refer to http://gayequalityandthelaw.blogspot.com/2009/04/gay-marriage-and-religious-freedom-why.html).

CONTINUED...

In their zeal to abuse gay men and lesbians, many right-wing commentators and voters overlook the fact that we live under a system of government in which the highest law of the land is the Constitution of the United States, not the Bible (or any other religious text). The First Amendment to the US Constitution specifically and unambiguously prohibits the church from meddling in affairs of state, and similarly prohibits the state from meddling in ecclesiastical matters (see Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947); a long line of US Supreme Court precedent affirms this principle, which dates back to the efforts of the framers of the Constitution to erect a wall of separation between church and state (refer to Madison???s ???Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments???, addressed to the general assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia back in 1785)). The provisions of the First Amendment (like almost all of the provisions of the Bill of Rights) have been made binding on the states through incorporation under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that ???No State shall???deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.??? This guarantee is intended to ensure the law???s neutrality when the rights of individuals are at stake. The gravamen of almost every equal protection challenge usually lies in the assertion that two groups of people who are ???similarly situated??? with respect to the legitimate purposes of the law are treated differently, with resultant adverse impact to members of one of the groups in question (see Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312 (1993)).

Westscott compares gay marriage to murder and incest. This represents yet another example of the raw, unadulterated hatred displayed by so many heterosexual Americans towards their gay fellow citizens, and reflects the unbelievable cruelty, malice, and ugliness that lies in the hearts of so many ???God-fearing??? men and women, who spew forth mealy-mouthed platitudes filled with pious rectitude when discussing the fact that some men fall in love with other men, and that some women fall in love with other women. As I have noted elsewhere, the majority of homophobic men hate gay men far more than they hate lesbians ??? it is well known to the purveyors of heterosexual pornography that most heterosexual men get off on the sight of two women having sex. It is the thought, or sight, of two men having sex that drives the typical male homophobe into a state of frenzied hatred (for more pertaining to this observation, refer to http://gayequalityandthelaw.blogspot.com/2009/04/gay-marriage-and-religious-freedom-why.html).

CONTINUED...

I believe most states already acknowledge and provide legal blessing and equality to same-sex civil unions. What is missing? The covering term? The term is reserved for a man and a woman. Saying one is married implies recognition by religion. The state has recognized that union as good, and as an asset to the state, because of the children that may come from that union. That recognition and encouragement is what gays lack, and what they want, but what they cannot justifiably have - sanction and blessing of religion. They want all nay-sayers silenced and all barriers to spreading their perversion open, and in the end, it is the innocense of the children that will suffer.

So, morality should not be discussed? Just hope it dies, and goes away, and everyone can do what they think feels good, seems ok, and which may only appear for the moment to have no lasting, damaging, dampening effect or consequence, even if it really does, though the individual has no perspective, wisdom, foresight, frame of reference, or has dulled and banished his own conscience? That is truly the secular humanist's dream - that all-powerful man will create happiness, devoid of lasting truths, with each making his own, or surrending his ultimate liberty in the pursuit thereof. Real wisdom there. A lot of puffed-up pride. See how far that gets you.

You write of 'liberty' as if you understand it. Your understanding of liberty is pretty shallow and I suppose very self-servingly comfortable to you where you exist. Liberty in your lexicon deals only with doing what you want, for your own reasons, to your own ends, dismissing the consequences on your own attitudes, permissiveness, inhibitions, and dulling your senses to right and wrong, condoning any perverse twist of truth for selfish ends, and pleasurable means.
Liberty, in short, is being truly free....that includes free from the burdens of guilt, or sorrow, and from the limitations addictions to vices, physical or mental/emotional. Liberty is not about keeping out of jail. Liberty is not about being free from taxes. Taxes and laws are not designed to make anyone happy. Laws are brought about by people who wish to maintain their liberty, who join together, and by creating hurdles to pursuing what the wisdom of the ages has taught is natural and base and dangerous to mortal man. No one is endowed with the holy mission you portray. We are all responsible for ourselves, and for the teaching and raising of moral children. If 90% of society abdicates that responsibility, as you suggest and support, then yeah, 10% may still be doing the right thing in seeking at protecting and warding off the degraded influences, and offending your artificial and transient sensibilities in the process. Too bad. I would never apologize for that offense. You and yours are the ones feeling the guilt of conscience pricking at you, so you decide to take offense. The rest of us, none too few, I wager, are simply standiing by moral values, doing the best we can against the influences of a lost, unanchored, drifting debased humanity.