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Dodd And The Right To Happiness

Campaigning for president in New Hampshire, Sen. Chris Dodd told a group of Concord high school students that anyone who would deny a gay child the right to be happy isn’t being honest.

According to an Associated Press report, Dodd said, “We ought to be able to have these loving relationships.” The father of two young daughters in a second marriage, Dodd speculated that his daughters could grow up to be lesbians: “They may grow up as a different sexual orientation than their parents. How would I want my child to be treated if they were of a different sexual orientation?”

According to the AP story, “Dodd, who opposed a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to man-woman unions, said he supports civil unions, but not gay marriage. Asked afterward what he sees as the difference, he said: ‘I don't think probably much in people's minds. If you're allowing that, all the protections you have there, you've covered it.’”

Dodd has here carved out a painful and potentially unhappy future both for himself and his daughters, should they grow up to be lesbians unhappy with the present arrangement their father supports.

If there is little or no difference between civil unions and gay marriage, Dodd’s opposition to gay marriage must fail. Then too, how would Dodd want his children to be treated if happiness eluded them outside of a traditional marriage? Would he not want them to be married rather than civil unionized – especially since there is, in Dodd's view, little difference between traditional marriage and civil unions?

Dodd was not asked these questions by his Concord high school students, but his campaign is yet young, like his charming daughters. That campaign will grow up, and someone is bound to point out his fallacies, both on domestic and foreign policy issues.

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