By Kai Wright
The Progressive Media Project op-ed syndicate, Feb. 7, 2007

Love seems like the last thing one would want to address in the corrosive realm of point-counterpoint politics. And yet, as we celebrate Valentine’s Day, everywhere I turn there are reminders that love – or, at least my love – is up for debate.

America’s tussle over how public policy should deal with sexual orientation so often obscures the very relationships being discussed. Hiding behind objective analysis, commentators and lawmakers hold up one of life’s most privately cherished treasures for public scrutiny. And in the process, they defile it.

Examples abound. Take my friends Matt and Michael.

Gay activists they are not. Michael is an engineering professor at the University of Michigan; he studies fissures. While on a work trip to Washington, D.C., Michael dropped in our group’s weekly happy hour and met Matt.

We all watched and giggled as Cupid drew his arrow and took aim. It was cute. They still make a well-matched, brainy pair.

There are only so many places you can get a good gig studying fissures. So when Michael found one at Michigan, Matt uprooted his life and moved.

They were comforted by the fact that the university offered domestic partner benefits. The safety net meant there’d be no rush for Matt to figure out what to do with his new life.

They set up their new home and both got involved in the community. They got their parental feet wet through a godson.

Then the state passed a ban on gay marriages, and the culture warriors proceeded to fight in court over all of its implications. Earlier this month an appeals court ruled public institutions like the university can’t keep giving partners like Matt benefits.

Now, Matt and Michael’s relationship has been turned upside down. That’s not because one of them had an affair or is bringing home frustrations from work or snores to loudly. None of the myriad private things that complicate love is at work here, at least not right now.

Yes, Matt and Michael were asking something from the state, namely the right to participate in a publicly administered benefits program. And when we debate gay love, it is that step into public life that nominally justifies it.

But it takes a perverse bit of rhetorical repositioning to square that circle: By framing the discussion as a public defense of heterosexual love, we’ve legitimated a public fight over all other forms.

Thus the “Defense of Marriage” constitutional amendments that have swept the nation – now banning gay marriage in 26 states – seem less mean-spirited. They’re not about hurting Matt and Michael, but about protecting everyone else. That makes as much sense as trying to resolve the problems in your own marriage by judging those of your neighbors.

So, for Valentine’s Day, I propose a new law – the Defense of Love Act. Under this law, the only question the state will be allowed to ask a couple is, Do you love each other?

I’m sure the lawyers can find lots of practical nuances this approach won’t sort out. But it seems a much more appropriate place to start a public conversation about love, if we must have one at all.

This op-ed was syndicated to daily newspapers around the country through the Progressive Media Project.