A Prisoner Swap in the Culture Wars: Gay Marriage for School Choice

By Andrew J. Coulson

The left and right have each won some hotly contested battles since the 2004 election. Gay marriage has been banned in 11 states. Chalk one up for the Red team. Public schools in Georgia were ordered to peel evolution warning labels off their biology textbooks, and efforts to get Biblical creationism into the classroom are still foundering. Advantage: Blue team.

But as each side jealously guards the ground it has seized or held, you have to wonder: If Palestinians and Israelis can talk about prisoner releases and a cessation of hostilities, shouldn’t Red and Blue America be able to do the same?

Conservatives and the devoutly religious are the groups most strongly opposed to gay marriage (by margins of five or more to one, according to recent surveys). They are also the most avid supporters of school choice; programs that would provide funding for parents to choose a public or private school for their children, at their own discretion.

On the flip side, the majority of secular and liberal voters believe gays should have the right to marry, but staunchly oppose parental choice programs like education tax credits and school vouchers.

The opportunity for a little polite bargaining should be obvious.

If you’re conservative, would you relent on the gay marriage issue in return for a school choice program that lets parents get exactly the kind and quality of schooling they seek? If you’re liberal, would you go along with a universal public and private school choice program in return for the right of gays to marry?

Granted, religious conservatives believe homosexuality is wrong on moral and biblical grounds. But many are uncomfortable denying any group of Americans the full rights of citizenship. Even among the most devout evangelical Protestants, 45 percent say they believe homosexuals should have the same rights as other citizens according to a Pew Research Center poll. And yet, when push comes to shove, most of those 45 percent buckle and say they want to deny gays the right to marry.

But what if push doesn’t come to shove?

What if, instead of corralling conservatives into a monolithic school system that many find too secular and left-wing, we adopt a system that genuinely reflects the public’s diversity? Thus freed to guide their own children’s education, conservatives might be more amenable to granting others a similarly expanded degree of personal freedom.

Liberals often bristle at the idea. They believe that a state-run system of public schools is absolutely necessary to promote social harmony, advance progressive ideals, achieve integration, and eliminate the racial achievement gap.

Given the left’s respect for empiricism, the tenacity of that belief in the face of so much contrary evidence is puzzling.

After well over a century of centrally planned public schooling, we have just witnessed the most socially divisive, vitriolic political campaign in recent memory. The election sweep of anti-gay-marriage amendments belies the notion that public schools have secured, or can secure, tolerance of non-traditional lifestyles. Public schools are no better integrated by race today than they were in 1970. And regrettably, they have little effect on the overall black/white achievement gap; it is just as wide at the 12th grade as it is at the 4th. (By contrast, private schools narrow the gap substantially between the 4th and 12th grades.)

Even in the teaching of evolution itself, public schooling fails to live up to its billing. Though evolution has stood as the system’s sole explanation of human origins for generations, a recent Gallup poll found that only 35 percent of Americans consider it a valid scientific theory supported by the evidence. By contrast, between 45 and 55 percent of Americans say God created humans in their present form.

With results like that, liberals committed to the ultimate ends of liberalism (instead of to a particular institution) must ask themselves: What harm can there be in trying a different approach – particularly if it comes with a commitment from conservatives to “hold their peace” on gay marriage?

This “school choice for gay marriage” swap is not meant merely as a thought experiment. Or even as a one-shot deal. It is intended to draw attention to the common ground that Red and Blue America share, and on which a broad policy reconciliation could be built: human liberty.

Liberals are champions of individual freedom in many areas of life. Christian conservatives, some of whose forebears settled on this continent precisely to escape religious persecution, do not aspire to become religious persecutors themselves. They, too, have an abiding belief in the importance of self-determination.

With that as our common bond, let’s make a deal.