Thanks again to Eugene for letting me in the forum this week.
In the end it comes down to this: Given that gay families exist, and are not going to be eliminated or converted by any means acceptable to the American people, what is to be done with them? Is it better for society that they be shunted aside, marginalized, ostracized, made to feel alien to traditional values and institutions? Or is it better that they be included in the fabric of American life, including the most important social institution we have for encouraging, recognizing, and reinforcing loving families? I can see why a sexual liberationist, or a radical of any stripe, might say, “Keep them out.” I have never been able to understand how a conservative could say that.
In the end I doubt this issue will be decided on the basis of debaterish points and arguments. It will be decided on the basis of the lessons we tend to draw from the real-world experiences we have and the people we know. What I have tried to do is outline a different way of thinking about gay marriage that might allow the thoughtful traditionalist conservative to reconcile his innate and healthy suspicion of change with his insight that marriage really is good for people and their families.
Analogies can obfuscate, but in their own way they can distill a matter to its essence. In her last post two weeks ago, Maggie described the issue of gay marriage by use of a vivid analogy that I will never get out of my mind:
Imagine you stand in the middle of vast, hostile desert. A camel is your only means of transversing it, your lifeline to the future. The camel is burdened-- stumbling, loaded down, tired; enfeebled-- the conditions of the modern life are clearly not favorable to it. But still it’s your only hope, because to get across that desert you need a camel.
Now, chop off its legs and order it to carry you to safety.
That’s what SSM looks like, to me.
That’s one way to see it. Here’s another:
Imagine you stand with your loved one and child in the middle of a vast, hostile desert. You are burdened – stumbling, loaded down, tired. These are the conditions of modern life for you and they are not favorable, but you’ve been trying to make it. To get across that desert you need a camel.
Along comes a caravan with a hundred camels, three of them with no riders, more than enough for you and your family. You plead to use them, agreeing to pay your way and live by their rules for the journey.
But they say, "No, you might disturb the camels we’re riding on."
That’s what the denial of marriage to gay families looks like, to me.
In a world where gay families had nothing to do with the problems marriage now faces, it’s pretty odd to “defend” marriage by keeping them out. With these wholly unrelated challenges to marriage out there, William Eskridge recently said that defending marriage by opposing gay marriage is like building a Maginot Line. You get all excited about your fine fortress, you preen and prance around about your impending victory, you pop open some champagne, and then . . . the enemy sneaks through the Ardennes and overruns you.
All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:
http://volokh.com/posts/1131065231.shtml#35025
and
http://volokh.com/posts/1131065231.shtml#35102
I'm not sure you read the same articles. The ones Dale wrote were inconsistent, self-contradicting, tried to be something they weren't (for instance this closing was not tranditionalist, it was the liberal case), and without his inane attempts to pat himself on the back one would never know when he thought he made a point at all.
I'm sorry to see that you never got around to addressing the following questions...
1) Why does it require marriage? It seems everything you anticipate from marriage can come from RB's, am I wrong?
2) Why do you shut out other couples who are dependant on each other, and are raising children, and have something to contribute?
Having reviewed your argument, it seems inconsistent except for one over-riding principle. You and your lover want marriage and any argument that gets you there (however faulty) is a good one. You tried traditionalism at first, and then tried attacking traditionalist values (as in the standard case for procreation). Then when that failed you hastily borrowed an argument from one of the passers-by that also wound up to be faulty.
I hope that you do find the benefits that will help you and your partner be stable, I am sorry to hear that you require marriage to do that.
http://volokh.com/posts/1131065231.shtml#35025
Mr Carpenter just assumes that there are all these ready-made camels out there--taking the current state of marriage for granted--and not asking himself what goes into the existence of healthy marriages in the first place, what feelings and prejudices, what moral and religious views, etc. In a way, he assumes that marriage is a given, like a rock (or camel), not something that is a complex combination of nature, feeling, opinion, education, and prejudice. He has ignored the effect that disconnecting marriage from any connection to something higher than human will, to natural sexual differences and the potential for reproduction, will have on the strength of marriage. He assumes that we can re-define marriage to suit our beliefs about social convenience, and still preserve the same reverence for marriage. I think he is mistaken. In any case, we have a duty to future generations not to lightly risk destroying an institution that has been passed on for thousands of years and that has made so many precious and good things possible.
Sexual activity between men and women used to be closely linked to procreation.
Before science changed everything, people couldn't have children without engaging in heterosexual sex. Before birth control was widely available, the odds were that a man and woman engaging in repeated heterosexual sex would end up having children.
Today one could be forgiven for not remembering that heterosexual sex can lead to children and children can not be had without heterosexual sex.
Same sex marriage removes any link between procreation and marriage as an institution.
To be sure, two men can have children. But any children that a homosexual couple has did not result from the two partners engaging in sexual activity.
For supporters of same sex marriage, this is immaterial. Love is the criterion for marriage, not abstract procreative ability.
But if love is the criterion for marriage, it is difficult to argue against allowing group marriages, three men marrying five women, for example.
Redefining marriage to include same sex relationships would place a man/man relationship on the same legal plane as a man/woman relationship. I doubt that this is good public policy. Society to attempt to make sure a large percentage of its children are raised by a mother (female) and a father (male).
This doesn't mean that gay adoption and gay parenting should be completely banned. But society should indicate its preference for children to be raised in a household headed by a mother and father.
The fundamental differences between men and woman ultimately makes same sex relationships different from heterosexual relationships. Calling them both by the same name isn't going to fool anyone into ignoring their differences.
I would like you to consider, finally, that you have every right to marry and to be married if you *are* married, and that marriage is not a thing that can be permitted or denied. It is a hard thing to explain marriage (as my wife and I experience it) to many people, my single friends really cannot understand (until they are married), and all of the pomp and public ceremony that most people associate with marriage is only ever, at most, a celebration of an already accomplished fact.
In our case, my wife and I realized we were married, and simply asked one another whether we both knew it. And so we were and we are. Perhaps this is true for you and your partner as well (though perhaps if so, you don't realize it yet, or don't want to say that you do, or you might refer to him as your spouse). I don't presume to know, but what I am talking about is not a "desire" to be married, but a recognition that two people are made for one another and meant to be together.
The state really does have nothing to do with it.
That reminds me of this statement from a same sex couple when their illegal marriage was disolved in the courts...
We were right all along about same-sex "marriage".
I'm not sure that I'm part of some "we" that you claim has been "right all along." I'm not for or against anyone's conception of marriage, it is a profoundly personal, spiritual, religious or philosophical status (however you may prefer to describe it) that does not fall within the jurisdiction of the state to confer.
One difficulty with discussing this issue is that, on both sides, there are people who do not want to reason, but would argue anything to support their pre-ordained conclusion. This is difficult because first it makes for sloppy analysis when people will not concede any weakness in any part of their position or any merit to any part of the opponent's; and secondly because such minds work like Scrooge's when he is trying to reason through the reality Marley's ghost, only to have his mind snap back to the initial question every time his reasoning reaches its logical conclusion.
As an aside, I believe strongly in both the equality and conservative arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples. Although I was not convinced by the opponents posting here, there were many thoughtful, sincere, intelligent and respectful posters who raised legitimate challenges to Dale's reasoning. Taimyoboi, was one, for example, and there were many others.
For the record, onlawn, I do not include you in that group, although you may well have been the most prolific poster. I found your arguments obtuse, and your tone seriously lacking in courtesy, as well as cloyingly self-adulatory.
Its hard to maintain poise when people such as yourself make such slights. If my tone has slipped, I do appologize.
Lets move forward then and I await to here just what arguments Dale made that was compelling or even logical. As I pointed out previously in this thread, they had some serious flaws from the beginning that Dale chose to ignore rather than address. If my esteem of him diminished due to that, I have to say that it will simply be my prerogative.
So APL's lofty analysis of OnLawn's point is that it was too hard for APL to keep up and that he didn't like the tone. Does any of that say anything about the soundness of the argument? Perhaps APL is merely exhibiting "sloppy analysis" rather than "concede any weakness in any part of their position or any merit to any part of the opponent's."
Really, APL, was that cheap personal attack worth discrediting your entire analysis?
Must one support state recognition of polygamy if one supports state recognition of same-sex marriage?
Why or why not?
Is the state definiation of marriage simply a personal preference? If so, should the state definition of marriage be infinately elastic and include a man/truck relationship or mother/daughter marriage?
If moral disapproval of homosexuality is bigoted, is moral disapproval of a father having sex with with his six year old son bigoted?
How should we determine whether moral opposition towards certain behaviors are outdated and to be discarded?
For the record, the "equality" argument is the weakest of all arguments for neutered "marriage." Deontologist, whom you quote, carefully words a right "to marry any one other person they like." Despite the fact this wording cannot be found anywhere in any legal writ, (presumably it is found by closely examining the four words "equal protection" and "due process") Deontologist makes sure to include the word one so as to avoid the "polygamy objection," but nowhere does Deontologist nor do you come up with any justification for why the word "one" is found in "equal protection" or "due process." The use of the word one, it seems, is included specifically to make the pretended right UNequal, applying to only the select few that you and he deem are equal enough to deserve the new right.
Further, as carefully as Deontologist phrased the "right" he discovered, he somehow didn't manage to phrase it carefully enough to omit incestuous relationships, or child marriages. For all his careful trying, he didn't even manage to exclude polygamy. There is nothing in his "right" that prohibits one from marrying even though one is currently married to someone else. Even Dale and Volokh have rejected your "fundamental right" argument, yet your esteemed analysis is that it is the strongest available for your prederived finding that marriage should be neutered. Perhaps this "sloppy analysis" is simply your way of saying you concede that Dale's utilitarian claim for neutered marriage has failed.
Isn't that an argument for SSM?
Gays are here. The question is whether the next generation should see that camels are only for some, that you can take a camel or leave it, it doesn't really matter - or that everyone is expected to get a camel.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that great care should be taken when fiddling with an institution as fundamental as marriage. But at some point, you've done the due diligence, and you say, yep, let's go for it.
Dale makes much of this point too. Do you and he not know that gays have existed througout history, co-existing with a marriage preserving and fighting for its equal gender representation?
I suppose someone needs to explain a bit just how gays here today means something different than gays existing 20-30 years ago, or in countries with very tolerant views towards gays (and even having gay leaders). Seems very non-Burkean to dismiss their history. I remember Gabriel Rosenburg arguing that there was a difference. He argued that stability in gay relationships was new. Well that is more of an answer than Dale, but probabl more dissmissive of history.
Perhaps it is meant to bolster some other argument, then.
If you're arguing the slippery-slope, you're doing one of two things. You could be using irresponsible scare tactics - but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're being serious.
The only other option is: you agree that SSM, taken alone, is a good idea... it's just not worth the risk of the slope. If that's not what you think, then you shouldn't be making the slope argument - you should be making your legitimate case against SSM itself.
I'm curious how you respond to this article which lays out benefits unique and distinct to marriage that cannot easily be conferred through contracts. I mean, you can make the case these rights should be available to people regardless of marital status... and then disconnect the rights of marriage from marriage.
Sure. I mentioned it in response to Manuel's worry that kids raised in a society with SSM will come to regard marriage with less respect than kids raised in a society without SSM. Gays are much more visible than they were 20-30 years ago, and will remain so. The progress gays have made will be very difficult/impossible to undo. The society kids see today is already very different than it was when "everyone" got married, because all these visible gays are making it obvious that whole classes of people don't and aren't expected to marry, yet still form relationships and families. So if the concern is about kids' view of marriage, SSM is a way to "fix" it by returning to a society where marriage is THE expectation.
"You've done the due diligence"--based on what? A few tendentious studies, even worse than the absurd Kinsey study, based on a few years experience (or not even that in Massachusetts)? On the basis of less than a decade of debate conducted mainly in legal and social science circles? On this flimsy basis, we're supposed to gut an institution that has stood thousands of years? We're following almost exactly the same pattern that led to no-fault divorce: assurances that children won't be harmed, hatchet social science studies claiming to prove the same, the attack on existing law as backward and oppressive, and abstract egalitarian claims advanced by those gems of political wisdom, law professors and social scientists. And after the damage is done, and so many lives damaged, they don't even so much as say "I'm sorry." Of course, more is at stake now than with no-fault divorce.
The point on the camels, which is not my choice of analogy, is that the camels are supposed to represent "marriage," but that assumes the question that needs to be answered: what will be left of marriage in the generations after making this radical change? There may be no camels left to give. The question is not the effect now, on grown adults, but on how future generations imagine marriage, and what it will look like to them after we've disconnected it from any connection to something higher than human wish--from natural sexual differences and the potential for reproduction--and after years of teaching this new "enlightened" view in our schools and by all the respectable people:
http://volokh.com/posts/1131065231.shtml#35025
and
http://volokh.com/posts/1131065231.shtml#35102
The problem is that, sure a few gays will be getting married, but marriage will no longer mean the same thing. That's the whole point: this is such a radical change that marriage will be a DIFFERENT thing. You can't change the meaning of marriage to include same-sex couples without breaking marriage--not of course for those who grew up with marriage as we have always known it in the past, but for those people growing up in the new world. The damage would be much more limited if you had a separate institution for gays, say civil unions, that didn't tamper with marriage. But you're upending our most fundamental institution, and one that has evolved over thousands of years to answer certain specific needs--and trying to put it on an entirely new and hypothetical foundation, to answer a different set of specific needs, and you're doing it all on the basis of a few flimsy studies and only a decade or two of reflection! And you have the chutzpah to call all this "conservative"!
In this debate you're just a nay-sayer, prophesying doom based on the argument that bad decisions have been made in the past, so lets not make any more decisions lest they be bad. That's not super compelling. We are where we are, and we have a decision to make. I'm fine with erring on the side of caution, but that doesn't mean our hands are tied. The case for SSM is a good one.
Well, it used to be that kids wouldn't say "I'm gay" either. There are a small number of people right now who are public polygamists. And quite a number of people have said that they are deeply attached to more than one person at once--there's quite a bit of literature on this. That's not an unknown phenomenon.
While gay marriage should be opposed on its own terms, it's hard to see how polygamy won't eventually follow if gay marriage is established. I realize this suggestion has a ridiculous sound to it (as did gay marriage not long ago); but there are already groups in America supporting polygamy and group marriage, including the American Civil Liberties Union. Believe it or not, the position of the ACLU, since they altered their stand in April of 1991, is that "criminal and civil laws prohibiting or penalizing the practice of plural marriage violate constitutional protections" (national policy no. 91).
Supporters of polygamy or "plural" marriage view their position as the logical conclusion of supporting gay marriage; and there is evidently something to that. If marriage has no intrinsic connection to procreation, but simply means two people who love each other, then why not three, or four? On what principled basis does the state reject a definition of marriage embraced by consenting adult citizens, and deny them what their hearts desire? (Similar arguments might also be made on behalf of incest, at least once the parties involved are adults.)
To be sure, there are arguments against polygamy beyond those against gay marriage; however, they are the sort of arguments that often lose in our democracy, conservative arguments about why it's not always good to let people do what they want, even if nobody is physically harmed. If gay marriage becomes the law of the land, those sorts of arguments will already have taken a beating. On the other side will be the right of individuals to make their own decisions in life, the importance of consent as the bedrock of our democracy, and above all the illegitimacy of judging or discriminating against people who harm nobody and simply wish to live their lives as they see fit. One can even imagine proponents of polygamy claiming to hold the true "Burkean" position: Polygamy will mean a lower divorce rate and fewer single-parent homes, since some married people (notably mothers with children) will prefer allowing their spouses an additional spouse to seeking divorce, and so on.
If gay marriage comes, polygamy will probably eventually come too; and if it does, American life will take a giant step towards the restless and unhappy hedonism that characterized the Roman Empire. Gay marriage by itself would be a smaller step in the same direction.
A hundred years ago? We're talking about marriage as it exists in 49 states and most of the world, certainly the entire world outside of the West! Time indeed goes forward, but that doesn't always mean progress. If something is bad, then the wise policy is to slow it down, even if it can't be reversed. It's not as though anything human lasts forever, so stretching out the period before something goes bad is nothing to sneeze at. (I mean, your position doesn't make sense to me: if no-fault divorce is a bad idea, then should we have hastened its rise just because it was going to happen anyway?)
I'm not predicting doom simply on the basis of other bad things that have happened in the past (though the similarity between the arguments of the gay marriage advocates and those of the no-fault divorce activists is striking). Rather, I made what I think is a fairly straightforward and obvious argument about the feelings and imagination a lot of people have about marriage, and the consequences of altering the meaning of marriage in a way that greatly weakens that.
Our hands are not tied--we can work to stop, or to slow if it cannot be stopped, this destructive change. Trying to preserve a good thing is not a nay-saying attitude.
Sorry, I meant to be refer to Carpenter's "conservative case" there.
After a week of posts, and all the commentary here, there is still no clearly described purpose for the state to establish a preferential status for the unisexed relationship.
Mr Carpenter continues to climb up on the back of the social institution of marriage. No independant claim for recognizing the private relations between homosexual adults. Just a handful of promises.
I think there will be some argument against polygamy along the line you mention, but those arguments will eventually lose out in the case of consenting adults, for reasons I explained. At any rate, not everyone confined his case to the purported societal benefits of gay marriage, and there's no reason to expect they would do so with regard to polygamy (and there is a case to be made for its societal benefits).
I have no position on no-fault divorce. You say it was a bad idea. Maybe so. To me that's not an argument against SSM. I'm not saying we should accept SSM because it's inevitable, I'm saying it's a good idea and we should do it as soon as possible. Of course if you think it's a bad idea you should work to slow/stop it.
BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY
You talk about preserving the feelings and imagination people have about marriage. Except, not the feelings and imagination existing people have about marriage; we all agree their minds are made up. You're worried about the feelings and imagination future generations will have about marriage.
This is one of my least favorite conservative gambits: that somehow your children's children need to have the same feelings and imagination about everything that you have. Ok they aren't going to, no matter what. Things change a lot from generation to generation, and no generation has the same feelings and imagination as any other. You didn't have the same feelings and imagination about anything that your grandparents had, and would you have wanted to? This is the nostalgia argument and is also unpersuasive.
I don't expect them to have exactly the same feelings. As you say time changes, conditions change. But there is some natural foundation for the feelings people have about marriage, and they've lasted a long time, and there's reason to hope some of that may be preserved, at least for a while longer. Sometimes one generation does a good job of transmitting their best imaginations and feelings to another (such as a decent patriotism, civility, tolerance, love of liberty, sense of honor, pride, taste, etc), and sometimes they fail.
I don't see why some of my ancestors might not have had finer feelings and more delicate understandings of things than I now do. Certainly there are many persons who were vastly superior to me who lived in the past, and I expect in the future also (though somehow I always have a hard time thinking they exist today!). The same is true for periods of time, after taking into account the general progress of the arts over time (--which doesn't always help us as much as people imagine). (Off topic, but an impressive book for depicting the relative virtues and vices of an earlier time is Churchill's Marlborough.)
You admit the possibility at least that the change caused by no-fault divorce was bad, and I assume you've noticed other negative changes in the history of the world. I don't think every change is bad, but for the reasons I gave, I think this is bad change, and certainly risky and needless.
Sure, most people TODAY don't think the arguments that I made in favor of polygamy are compelling, any more than anyone would have taken seriously gay marriage 20 years ago. The question is whether people who grow up in a world formed by this radically new understanding of marriage will feel as opposed to it. I say, no.
Now you're the one who's "reverting to olde" and failing to see that "time goes forward."
Randal, can I ask you to consider this.
You want your grandchild to feel that getting married is important. Your grandchild sees that some people are legally barred from marriage, and yet live in couples and raise children, and support each other. Do you feel that your grandchild seeing that couples who are legally forbidden to marry can still form stable long-term relationships and raise children will make your grandchild value marriage more, or less? If marriage is important, your grandchild may ask you, how come Joe and Bob down the street, who have lived together for sixty years, aren't married?
Well, you tell that pesky brat, because marriage is about procreation and raising children. Joe and Bob can't have children, so they don't need to get married.
If marriage is about procreation and raising children, asks the annoying child, why is it that Lucy and Sally, who have three children, aren't married?
Well, you tell your grandchild, because Lucy's daughter is from when she was married to David, and Sally had an adopted child and a child by AID. It's not important that parents are married, it's just important that you're married when you conceive a child.
But, says your grandchild, my parents weren't married when I was conceived, and they aren't married now: remember, Dad and Mom separated five years ago.
Well, you say.... but they could have got married, and that's what's important.
How are you going to convince your grandchild that marriage is important, if the only reason you have that it is important (yet restricted to mixed-sex couples only) is for conceiving children inside marriage?
ON GENERATIONS
Yes I agree with all your points. Which goes back to my original. I imagine I'm a little younger than you (29), and I imagine there are now people younger than I am. I'm as concerned as you are about the society that future generations see as they mature. But rather than try to make it seem as much like the society I saw growing up, I focus on trying to make it seem like as good a society as possible for them to grow up in. I find the prevalence of unmarried gays raising families to be a distraction and a detriment to the image of marriage in society today. But I'm not so naive or cruel as to demand less visibility for gays or to advocate policies that discourage gay families. The better option is to legitimize them. Yes, with SSM, future generations' feelings toward marriage will be different from yours or mine. They'll be better.
Kudos to you for laying out a cogent, principled case for urging caution on SSM. It is ironic that a gay man makes one of the most compelling cases against SSM (or at least makes a case for urging caution about SSM).
A few friendly notes (with links):
If the experiments in Scandinavia and elsewhere are any indication, the adoption of SSM marriage (or civil unions) could further exacerbate problems with the institution of marriage among heteros, and result in fewer straights with children marrying or remaining married (which generally would not be good for children).
link
Also, adopting SSM would probably further decouple marriage from its procreative function and encourage same-sex heterosexual couples (without children) to marry for benefits. In fact, over time, the primary beneficiaries of SSM marriage might not be gays but same-sex heteros who want the benefits. (This could further affect how people perceive marriage and its link to procreation.)
link
An interrupted time series design could be used to examine whether marriage has adverse effects on children.
link
As a practical matter, “gay marriage” will never be adopted into law because of the costs of verifying sexual orientation.
link
Advocates of SSM have generally dodge this question: What real-world evidence would indicate that SSM is a bad idea and should *not* be adopted? (One exception: Somebody with the handle Jesurgislac).
link
Excellent posts, Manuel. It’s 5:00 a.m. in San Antonio. I am going back to bed.
TRC
Hey, grandchildren is still pretty speculative for me, since I'm still in school and I'm gay anyway.
I've actually answered this or a similar point somewhere else here, but there have been so many comments that I can't find it. The point is not a subtle one (your argument about timings and conception etc.). Lucy and Sally didn't themselves have children with one another. Every child sooner or later gets taught the facts of life, and that is that every person born has a father and mother. Now, something unfortunate may have happened, the mother may have died, the father may have abandoned the family--and someone steps in to fill the place of the father or mother. While not ideal, a man replacing a father and husband, or a woman replacing a mother and wife, is not a direct contradiction of the feelings the child is developing about marriage, that there is some meaning to it that is much bigger than human intentions, reflected in bodily sexual differences, reflected in procreation, reflected in a whole amazing package of feelings, including a quasi-religious feeling of awe or reverence.
As for Joe and Bob, the point is the child is not thinking of them as husband and wife--they're two men living together. I suppose most Americans explain that they're "friends." Whatever the case, the point is that if they're regarded as husband and wife, or spouses, that's a very radical change to the understanding of marriage, and of course that's what we'll see taught in the schools, since that's probably the next thing activists will want to do after they've won on gay marriage (p.c. teachings in school). You've probably seen the recent California case (also posted at volokh.com), about first graders being asked about having sex or touching other people's "private parts" and whether they could "stop thinking about having sex." I can attest that's by no means an isolated example. But hey, "time moves forward" and all that.
(re randal on polygamy): The point is that the SAME bad arguments 20 years from now will seem compelling--people are creatures of prejudice, and the prevailing winds have a great effect. There is also a close connection between polygamy and gay marriage which I sketched out above (as I argued, gay marriage will likely make polygamy inevitable), but I agree the case against gay marriage should stand on its own.
I don't ask for less visibility for gays, I'm a fairly visible guy myself, but only that they consider more fully the gravity of the change they want to make and the effect that change may have. There is no way to make them 'legitimate' without fatally undermining the thing that is supposed to legitimate them--the legitimacy of marriage is not simply the result of law, but the result of its connection to something bigger than human will, to natural sexual difference and procreation. I'm not making this up, as most of the response to gay marriage across the country shows. I predict there will eventually be gay marriage everywhere in the U.S., but that will be at the price of feelings and prejudices that marriage cannot do without.
Thanks for the links. I suspect it's too early to say about the effects in Europe--these effects can take decades to develop--but Europe is doing so much worse than us on so many fronts that it's hard to see why anyone would be eager to leap in after them. (It seems that gay marriage is inevitable here, despite short-term political movements, but even a short-term delay is valuable.)
Is it seriously the word "marriage" that's the problem? Like, if it's called "gaytrimony" or "civil unions" then it's ok? I find that hard to believe - if it's de facto marriage, then people are going to call it "marriage", no matter what the technical legal term is.
But if it's something substantially different, then what is it? Just, nothing, like today? I find that also hard to believe as the best plan.
Yes: is thinking of them as a couple who live together, who love each other, who are publicly committed - maybe they got married religiously at the local church - but who aren't allowed to get married, because marriage is exclusively for the procreation of children.
Likewise, Lucy and Sally, unmarried, show this grandchild (don't put yourself down: there's no reason you might not have grandchildren, if you want children) of yours that marriage isn't for bringing up children - it's only for conceiving children.
The real attack on marriage comes from those who, in order to define marriage as something from which same-sex couples are by nature excluded, redefine marriage to mean nothing but a relationship inside which children are or ostensibly could be conceived. Marriage isn't about a couple who love each other committing to each other for life - because if it is, there's no reason to exclude same-sex couples. Marriage isn't about providing a stable environment for children - because if it is, there's no reason to exclude same-sex couples. Because same-sex couples and mixed-sex couples are pretty much the same - people fall in love, get together, want to live together, regardless of whether it's two women, two men, or a man and a woman - in order to argue that marriage isn't something that same-sex couples should have access to, you have to strip away virtually any reason a couple might have for wanting to get married. Except conceiving children together inside wedlock.
And as all legal discrimination against illegitimate children has been removed, which is good, because it was always unfair to discriminate against children because of their parents' choices, there ends up being no particularly good reason to get married.
As, I think, Maggie demonstrated last week.
There is a good argument against gay marriage. That it would destroy gay culture!
If the gay lifestyle were legitimated, who would the fundamentalists demonize? How could God-fearing straight people feel holier-than-thou in their repressed married life without the presence of sexually liberated homosexuals to feel holier-than?
What would become of the creative energies of a built-in subculture? Would Queer Eye remain compelling? If the gay lifestyle were subsumed into heterosexual society, who would cut our hair?
What of the touching gay coming-of-age-in-an-intolerant-society tales we've grown to love? And the horrifying hate crimes we'd miss on the nightly news?
Thanksgiving would be less fun if the gay uncle were just gay married and everyone was gay comfortable. No more awkward, exhilarating moments covering up reality with the children.
Ok ok that was fun. But seriously, if anyone has something to fear from SSM it's those with a stake in gay culture. It's a point many a gay has made. I'll miss it too, but I think the benefit to society outweighs the loss. What's my point? I guess it's that the hypothetical damage SSM would inflict on straight culture seems a little overstated in comparison.
I think almost every man is deeply attracted in the physical sense to many more than one woman (or if homosexual, to more than one man).
Human nature shows that there is no special "polygamy" orientation, but rather it's men in general -- especially the most dominant, Alpha-oriented men -- who have a general orientation to spread their seed as far and wide as possible and to horde the entire crop of fertile females to the exclusion of lesser males.
Polygamy, wherever it has existed -- and keep in mind that in cross-cultural history, it has been extremely common, arguably as dominant, if not more so than one man/one woman -- is almost always one man/more than one woman, rarely if ever the reverse, and the powerful dominant males hording the entire crop of women to the exclusion of lesser males who get nada.
This is what makes the one man/one woman relationship fundamentally different from a two man relationahip or a two woman relationship. It also distinguishes the one man/one woman relationship from a three man/five woman relationship.
Once we remove the procreate roots of marriage from the definition of marriage, marriage becomes anything any individual within society wants it to be. A man can say that since he loves his dog, he should be allowed to marry his dog. A mother can say that since she loves her son, she should be allowed to marry her son.
If love is the criterion for marriage, the insitutition of marriage ends up being dramatically changed from its current state.
Certainly marriage as it is currently defined in 49 states (one man/one woman) is "discrimanatory" in the sense that a man and woman who don't love each other and don't plan to have children can get married while two men who do love each other and plan to have children can not get married.
But one must be 18 years old to vote in the United States even though many 17 year olds are more informed about political issues than many 19 year olds.
Discrimination isn't always bad. That's why a cardiologist sometimes recommends that his patients discriminate between steak and vegatables. Not all discrimination is bad.
I think you made some very strong arguments and I appreciate the time you took and the effort you made.
Ultimately, arguments must be tested in the real world. Yet legalizing Same Sex Marriage is a one-way ticket, as you implicitly point out. So are we left just with arguments to determine what to do? No, we are also left with history and other countries that are testing this in the present. In all of history, with all the different cultures of the world, there's simply no evidence that defining marriage so generally leads to a healthy fruitful society. There are currently several countries which have recently legalized Same Sex Marriage. It is too early to be definitive, but I see no evidence that marriage is healthy in any of those countries-- that they are going to be able to work out of their demographic death-spirals (and I do not use that term lightly) Of course, it's not fair to blame same sex marriage for their marriage problems. However, it's not fair to discount it, either. Let's see what happens, OK?
Same sex relationships are fundamentally different than one man/one woman relationships for this reason: There is zero chance that two man having sex will naturally produce children. But there is a chance that a man and a woman will produce children by having sex. Thus, in the abstract, the government has a reason to recognize relationships between men and women.
Now, you could argue that some gays are parents and, thus, should have their relationships recognized. But that arguement fails for two reasons:
(1) Society might be better off if gays were discouraged from raising children. Children might be better off if they were raised by one man and one woman instead of two people of the same sex. One could argue that men and women bring different qualities to childrearing.
(2) If the ability to be a parent becomes the basis for having a "right to marry" there is no reason to prohibit three men and five women from adopting children and being married.
I think you might also be confusing what is legal with what is desirable.
Homosexuality is legal, as it should be. But society does not view homosexuality as morally equivilent to heterosexuality.
Same sex marriage would send the wrong message. It would send a message that society thinks homosexuality and heterosexuality are on the same moral plane.
Similarly, it is legal to have more than one sexual partner. A man who has sex with more than one woman in one week is not breaking the law. But that does not mean that society wants to encourage such behavior by implementing plural marriage.
We need to realize that there is a difference between what society will tolerate and what society wants to encourage.
Thank you for a well-reasoned, wonderfully written, and thoroughly persuasive set of arguments.
A mother already can procreate with her son. And indeed a mother/son relationship in no way violates the one man one woman model that you have posited. More evidence that the "slippery slope" theory is nonsense.
BTW: You can't contract with animals. Marry your dog if you want, just don't try to file a joint tax return with it.
A mother already can procreate with her son. And indeed a mother/son relationship in no way violates the one man one woman model that you have posited.
True, as far as it goes. But those of us who oppose same sex marriage believe that love is not the sole criterion on which marriage is based.
Supporters of traditional marriage believe that men and women are fundamentally different and a one man/one woman relationship is fundamentally different from a two man relationship. In addition, traditional marriage supporters believe that marriage should not encourage a mother and a son to be in a sexual relationship even if they love each other and and are sexually attracted to each other.
Thus, supporters of traditional marriage do not view marriage as a libertarian institution where each person can marry anyone they want.
If we decide otherwise it will be difficult, in not impossible, to argue against a mother marrying her son or three men marrying five women.
Do we really want to turn the institution of marriage upside down and get rid of the "roots of marriage?" The roots of marriage are, after all, the abstract ability of a man and a woman to procreate.
The trouble is, that what Dale asks us to do, would require us to change the definition and purpose of marriage. This change, among other things, would make permanent all of the damage that has been done to marriage over the last 40 years through no-fault divorce and other frankensteinizations.
Once you say that the central purpose of marriage is no longer to give potential children a mom and a dad, there is no turning back.
Dale's alterations to Maggie's metaphor similarly distort what this issue is about. In his 100 camels story, Dale pretends that this is about material resources. We have more than enough, says Dale, so why can't we share. In Dale's picture, giving a few camels to another family doesn't affect our own ability to get where we are going. Maggie's metaphor is more apt, because what the ssm proponents ask us to do, materially alters our own marriage covenants, and the entire idea of marriage.
Dale's metaphor also breaks down on the question of necessity. All the legal benefits that accompany marriage can easily be provided through same-sex unions.
The only reasons to demand ssm rather than ssus are invidious reasons. What some cynically call "equality." Same-sex relationships can NEVER equal what marriage is now, for simple biological reasons: a same-sex union cannot spontaneously produce offspring. A man can never put his head against amother man's belly and listen to the movements of his own growing baby. In the ultimate exampe of sour grapes, ssm proponents seem to have decided, that since same-sex couples can't have real marriage, that marriage must be redefined as what same-sex couples can also have. This is the Harrison Bergeron school of "equality." Neutered marriage sets aside reproductive potential as something that bears no inherent relationship to marriage.
This is cultural nihilism. Dale has done a better job than most at replying to the pro-marriage objections to ssm, but he always falls short of addressing core objections, such as why the sterility straw man doesn't work, the fact that changing the meaning of the word "marriage" in the public sphere effects cultural genocide, and redefines the sexual identity of most Americans in crass and demeaning terms, and the fact that ssm requires neutering of essentially sexed laws and constructs, breaking the legal and cultural link between marriage and reproduction.
So thank you Mr. Dale, but no thank you. America is big enough to play host to different ideologies. For example, US regulations define multiple categories of food, including "dolphin-safe," "organic," "halal," "kosher," and another kosher-like category for a different Jewish group whose rabbis defined Kosher differently. The idea is that when you create a different category, you give the category a different name. You don't need to overwrite one set of criteria that has one purpose, with a different set of criteria with a different purpose. If some reform or renewal Jewish rabbis decide they want certain types of bacon cheesburgers to be "Kosher," it would be wrong for them to pressure the courts to change an existing category. They should ask instead for a new category in order to protect food labeling for their own group.
If you want to share a language and community with us, then find another word. Marriage already has a meaning, and we're not going to let you erase that meaning, just because those that don't like it feel left out.
That is correct. That's why a marriage between mother and son is an ILLEGAL marriage, while a "marriage" between two men is no marriage at all.
If a man who is already married, marries a second woman while the first is still alive, that is an ILLEGAL marriage and he can go to jail for bigamy. But if the same man "marries" his dog, a tree, or another man, the state won't send him to jail for bigamy, because here the second "marriage" was not a marriage, therefore no bigamy.
Does that help?
I think of homosexuality as something society should tolorate but not celebrate. Monagamous heterosexuality is something that should be celebrated and encouraged by society.
Should society encourage monogamous homosexuality as an alternative to promisuous homosexuality? Yes. But that can be done without implementing same sex marriage.
America has a choice. It can accept the moral relativism that same sex marriage offers or it can fall back on the belief that marriage is more that two people loving each other. I think most Americans have already made the right choice and are opposing same sex marriage.
Answer your own question, Jes.
Those who would neuter marriage depend on mischaracterizing and abusing logical terms like "slippery slope" to hide the fact that what is really staring them in the face is a logical contradiction in their position that they simply cannot plug. I am not saying they are arguing in bad faith per se. I believe it is more likely that they are simply too hopeful of a way out that when they think they have found one they simply rush to it without thought. To quote Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." [or in this case, any impediment to reason such as desperation]
My experience has been that the argument for neutered "marriage" is a constantly morphing one, suggesting that the conclusion was reached first, then a justification was sought to sell the end product after. When the simpler justifications are easily refuted, like the "fundamental right" claim, those advancing those theories don't re-evaluate their conclusion, instead they simply re-evaluate their sales pitch, coming up with some different claim or belief system like Dale's utility argument, above. This is not the hallmark of a reasoned position or even a remotely good idea. This is the hallmark of fickle mood and rash behavior.
The capstone of these invented sales pitches is the appeal to novelty. The notion that the new idea must be better than the old idea since the new idea is, well, newer. "The times, they are a-changin'. This is a new world and we must adapt! The genie's already out of the bottle, might as well just conform!" These sales pitches abandon any last pretense of reason and simply admit that the idea preceded the rationale as each of these "rationale's" depends on the pre-existance of an idea and a foothold for it of some kind.
This is the same sales pitch that went along with that epitomy of progressivism, Communism. From the example of communism we learn two lessons: 1) Fads can be resisted. 2) Adoption of a fad for fad's sake can have horrible, horrible consequences. Virtually every country swept up in the untested, faddish communist ideal has since rejected it, but not before much suffering, poverty, and destruction at the hands of their idol to progressivism. Whether neutering marriage has the same potential to destroy is the subject of debate, but regardless, the appeal to novelty some use to pitch it is clearly unsound, dangerous, and must be rejected.
There are more single mothers than there are same-sex couples with kids. Shall we therefore say that single mothers can get married to themselves? Would that increase the social acceptance of single mothers and their children, or would that just mock marriage?
Lest anyone jump and reply to my previous post that I'm comparing homosexuality to bestiality, please note that I said NOTHING about sex with an animal or with a tree. If we take the whole idea of reproduction out of the idea of marriage, they why not jettison sex as well? Take the family in Peter Pan -- if Wendy's mother dies, why shouldn't her dad be able to marry Nana the dog, and thereby obtain vetenary insurance for her? Clearly Nana is a critical part of that family.
I'm curious how you respond to this article which lays out benefits unique and distinct to marriage that cannot easily be conferred through contracts.
Well, honestly I wasn't hinting at contracts. I'll agree that contracts are not the complete answer. But I beleive RB's are. Which brings up the second question, having made a case (at least in his own mind) that where there is a dependant relationship possibly raising children there should be some program to stabalize and protect the members of the relationship, I wonder why he excludes non-romantic same-sex relationships (such as a mother-daughter team raising children after an abusive or dead husband). Honestly there might even be a trio in that, as the daughter might have moved back in with her parents or some nice elderly couple she trusts but is not related to. It seems his program should equally cover them also.
Dale rejects polygamy as dangerous because it raises jealousy and strife. I pointed out the same thing happens during the surrogacy and AI of ss-parenting. But lets say his argument is what he says it is, I believe we can associate the problems with the romantic intricasies, so I would be hard pressed to see such non-romantic relationships as drawing the problems he sees.
But then again it just seems wrong to call them a marriage.
I'm all for kudos and congragulatory encouragement, but I'm left to wonder if you read the same arguments I did.
I saw Prof Carpenter start out telling us that gays exist, and made a side-ways cheap shot insisting that no one defending marriage sees this. Was that persuasive to you?
He built a case using more statistics that gays exist with children to present to us that gay marriage helps people around gays. But then he admitted in one of his responses to commentary that he has no evidence, and he deliberately ignores gay-marriage-like institutions to continue the "no-evidence" argument. Did you find that persuasive?
He argued that polygamy caused strife as multiple members of the same gender would get jealous. He noted how the asymetrical loading of one gender in the overall family invited prejudice. Yet ss"m" has exactly the same problems. We see cases where strife between surrogates and sperm donors and members of the relationship wind their way to the courts all the time. We also see how ss"m" encourages gender segregation, which encourages gender chauvanism. In short his dismissal of polygamy winds up dismissing ss"m". But you found his selective dismissal to be persuasive?
His attack on the procreative purpose of marriage wound up being, as Appellate Junkie (noted ss"m" advocate) said, a rhetorical trainwreck.
Then he channeled the spirit of an ancient concervative to try to tell us that he would have supported ss"m". With reasoning supposedly developed from his views such as the simultaneous need to move incrementally but federally all at once in the issue. You found something in that argument to be persuasive?
I'm not saying you didn't or shouldn't have. I'm just wondering what you saw that I didn't.
No. I'm working on a post on my blogs. Your assertion is a self-evident absurdity.
I think I've proven that if we "undefine" marriages by allowing two of the same gender to marriage, the only other "undefined" marriages that this could slope to are with animals and non-animal objects. To say a love that a man has for another man is more analogous to the love a man has for a toaster oven than for a woman is just a self-evident aburdity.
Any rational individual observing a relationship between 1) a man and a woman, 2) a man and a man, and 3) a man and a toaster, and then, through "natural classification" were asked to group together or make an analogy ("which two are closer to one another?") simply would not group the man/toaster relationship with the man/man relationship. It's really that simple.
Polygamy might produce jealousy and strife for some people but not other people. Thus, those who would not want to deal with the jealousy and strife that would result from being in a polygamous marriage would, in a free society, have the option of rejecting polygamy.
Dale's "jealousy and strife" objection might prevent Dale from joining a group marriage. But it does not explain why government should not allow people to make their own choices regarding group marriage.
However, if government has a legitimate role in encouraging good behavior (monogamous heterosexuality) and discouraging bad behavior (homosexuality), than government policy that encourages some behaviors over others (monogamous homosexuality instead of promiscuous homosexuality) might be considered acceptable.
But you can't take a moral relativist position on marriage in one breath, saying that society should not judge homosexuality as less moral than heterosexuality, and in the next breath take a moralist position on marriage by arguing that people who prefer group marriage (despite the jealousy and strife associated with it) should not be allowed to enter into marriage based on their preferred sexual appetites.
To say a love that a man has for another man is analogous to the love a man has for a woman is just a self-evident aburdity.
I personally subscribe to a school of thought that morality is based in pragmatism. You can come to the same contradiction pursuing both avenues in Dale's approach. After all Dale seems to have just been masquerading his moralism in pragmatic clothing. But lets take for a second that they are distinctly different principles because I'm sure not everyone has made the connection between pragmatism and morality yet.
Then the contradiction presented, that ss"m" functions much like a polygamous relationship in the mechanisms that he predicts strife and gender oppression exposes just how intrinsic the flaws in his argument are because it follows his pragmatic reasoning (as best I can tell).
I'm interested in equality arguments for gay marriage, not "traditionalist" arguments, and the equality arguments for gay marriage simply can't be translated onto polygamy. There are, as a matter of fact, no "polygamists" or "polyamorists" in the sense that there are gays and lesbians. Gays and lesbians are people for whom marriage to a member of the opposite sex is categorically unacceptable, because we are simply not attracted to them. At all. A marriage between a lesbian or gay man and a member of the other sex would simply be a sham. You might as well tell Christians that they're free to worship Allah at a mosque.
To be a polyamorist in the way that people are gays or lesbians would mean that they were incapable of being attracted to people as individuals, only in groups. This is not how polyamory (or polygamy) works. Polyamorists are attracted to each of their partners as a specific individual.
If there really were polyamorists in the sense that there are gays and lesbians, I'd be open to talking about extending marriage to them. It wouldn't be an open-and-shut case since I would be concerned that as a practical matter such laws would be used as a tool for the oppression and abuse of women, which is what polygamy has amounted to in American history. But since there are no such people, there's no reason to talk about the hypothetical.
It may be closer, but its not insurmountable by any means.
Neutering marriage not only removes it of a recognizable procreative purpose, but it removes it from a recognizable romantic purpose also. Any relationship of convenience becomes a marriage. Either that or as others suggest, marriage is so purposeless that it risks being abondoned alltogether.
Of course it is, because everything is simple when you start out by saying that anyone who agrees with you is irrational. That's the classic emperor's new clothes fallacy.
If you just had a three different pictures,
1. man &woman
2. man &man
3. man &toaster
and said "which two are most alike," I agree that most people would probably say 1 &2.
But if you asked which two relationships are most most like a MARRIAGE, a perfectly rational person might choose 1 &3 rather than 1 &2. If you think about it, in relationship 3, a man can have a relationship with a toaster where he puts something into the toaster, and after some time, the toaster pops something else out. AFAIK that does not happen with relationship 2.
If there really were polyamorists in the sense that there are gays and lesbians
There was the Dutch threesome in the news recently for having a marriage, well as much of a marriage as they could (they dressed up in bridal gowns and tuxes, had a reception and everything). There is also a site on the internet which encourages polyamourists to proudly display a ribbon on their sites to support polyamoury.
But the contradiction pointed out in the post Rock was replying to is the evidence of the fault in Dale's approach. Now granted, Dale's approach is still better than yours as it specifically nailed down just what made each beneficial or non beneficial to society. Sometimes "morality" is a way to say I don't have to show you benefits, its an ivory tower academic exercise at that point. And sure anything goes then as the subsiquent divorce from reality provides many fruitful planes to traverse effortlessly.
But SSM-advocates are the ones saying that the Mosque should allow Christians to worship there, and to "expand" the definition of Mosque. A more reasonable policy would be to allow Christians to worship at their own churches, rather than trying to change the definition of Mosque.
It extends even to matters of moral fact. A man can rape his wife? How could that be true? Isn't that what she's there for? Even within my lifetime (I'm 24) I remember people talking about marital rape as though it were a conceptual impossibility. But it's possible - as a matter of objective moral reality.
The point is that our judgments about what's self-evident can't uniformly be trusted. Sometimes what seems self-evident is actually wrong. Talk to some gay people. If you listen with an open mind, you will see that you are wrong.
Well said!
Excuse me while I clean the carpet from trying to laugh and dring orange juice at the same time ... :)
Of course I don't see my wife as a toaster, but she does have equipment that makes our marriage potent and useful.
How convenient. Agreement with Antonin is proof of an open mind. Disagreement is proof of a closed mind. How closed-minded.
Well take the quiz then...
1) Why do same-sex couples *have* to be called a marriage? If the government benefits they see coming from marriage were applied through a seperate program would that not satisfy the requirement?
2) If the case Dale, Rauch, Sullivan and other notable marriage neuterers is making is that there needs to be some government program to stabalize and afford mutual care and protection for people in a dependant relationship (that might be raising children) then why exclude the non-romantic relationships such as a woman who moved in with a trusted elderly couple to help raise her children while she worked?
I don't think I've ever met a man who was only attracted to a single partner.
If you provide evidence that there are people who are simply not attracted to people as individuals
First there is no such evidence about homosexuals. And I'm not arguing that homosexuality is not natural. I'm arguing that it is oppressive to label someone as incapable of something so intrisic as the ability to love someone different than they are. It encourages chauvanism, and is tantamount to saying they have to drink from another water fountain.
Second, there are many people who find they can love more than one person at a time. Adultery is common, and is a situation that someone cannot contain their love to just one person. By the reasoning you present, keeping them from marrying both their mistress and wife is making him live a sham.
Take the Dutch couple, would you really remove the third member of their polyamorous relationship? Can you tell them that their mutual love for each member is not for real, and force them to live in a sham? (as they had done for many years prior to obtaining their mutual contract).
they don't if the argument really IS just about the word. Lets call it a civil union and have the federal government extend every right married couples have to those that are... what, unionized? seems a little too socialist for my taste but hey, if this is about a word then sign me up! The argument isn't so much about state benefits I suppose, although those matter. The real meat and potatoes are federal benefits which are of course denied under DOMA to for example residents of massachusetts where SSM is legal both in the court's mind and the mind of the legislature (who rejected an ammendment which would overturn the ruling thereby giving it tacit approval).
So I guess the word isn't that important, except that under current law states already HAVE SSM and as long as DOMA exists Massachusetts gay married couples won't be able to have the same rights under federal law that COULD be provided for under civil union laws. Are you advocating a repeal of DOMA for Mass. residents?
It's not moral relativism, it's just not your morals.
Actually, a different word is only a function of the fact that their view of marriage and the benefits they see coming from it are a subset of what marriage currently is. As such I wouldn't be suprised that whatever it winds up being called only has a subset of the benefits. Everything else is superflous right?
I mean Dale and others spend much time taking the procreative purpose out of marriage, (a.k.a neutering marriage). They also try to remove the equality of requiring equal gender participation. So lets let them have something where those are removed, and call it something else. Why do they have to call it a marriage, and thus remove those virtues (and more) for everyone?
DOMA is fine, its ss"m" in Massachusetts that is your enemy.
It's not moral relativism, it's just not your morals.
Think very carefully about what you just said here...
I await your answer for question #2...
Nope. I would rather see the feds provide the same federal privileges, immunities, and liabilities to same-sex unions as to real marriages. If Massachussetts wants to give same-sex couples the same benefits, then they should pass laws regarding same-sex unions.
You are right that "Unioned" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. How about "partnerered"? It might not sound romantic, but then I'm not sure why you'd want to require same-sex partners to have sex together. As a recent Oregon initiative has noticed, if a same-sex couple lives together, raise kids together, share property, then why should we force them into a sexual entanglement in order for the state to take notice of their socioeconomic relationship?
It's not really relevant anyway. Since when all men the same? I have a lot more in common with a liberal, female graduate student from California than with a conservative male farmer from Kansas. The claim that marrying her would be marrying someone