This is part four of a series. Read part one here, part two here, part three here, and part four here.
In my previous post, I argued that believers in marriage equality, as a matter of principle, should oppose the movement for government-endorsed same sex marriage. Instead, they should lobby the government to cease referring to any relationships as “marriages.” In this post, I argue that marriage traditionalists, as a matter of strategy, should join them. Many marriage traditionalists — Maggie Gallagher most prominent among them — assume that government recognition helps preserve traditional marriage norms. They are mistaken. Traditional marriage can only flourish after it is freed from government interference.
First, even if government-issued marriage certificates do send an important signal, they don’t necessarily send the right one. Governments do not have high standards when deciding who should and should not marry. On the contrary, governments prudently leave it to families, churches and communities — the bedrocks of what I call “social marriage” – to give marriage advice. Alas, when social marriage breaks down, we end up with appalling spectacles such as Britney Spears getting a government-recognized marriage during a Vegas spree. The government’s laissez-faire approach ends up encouraging a cavalier attitude towards marriage, which gay marriage advocates rightly pillory. Too many people feel that if the government allows it, it must be okay. Even conservative institutions such as the Catholic Church have trouble countering the harmful messages sent by the government. By ceasing to certify marriages altogether, the government would make a healthier marriage ethos possible.
Second, government non-recognition may still be better than what we are otherwise heading towards, namely, government-recognized same sex marriage. Traditional marriage norms will be almost impossible to defend if gay marriage becomes widely accepted. Take the norm of abstinence before marriage. As they do not have to fear that sex will lead to pregnancy, gays are unlikely to see the merits of saving themselves for marriage. On the contrary, they will probably resist any efforts to reintroduce an abstinence norm. Similarly, in a world with gay marriage, it will be difficult to preach that young adults should settle down and get married. Only a minority of gays actually have an interest in getting married at all, and then (in many cases) only after they have passed their sexual primes. Unmarried gays will resist efforts to impose marriage as the best lifestyle. Finally, of course, gay marriage would obliterate what remains of the belief that the purpose of marriage is to produce children. Gay marriage, in sum, introduces into the pool of those eligible to marry a faction intrinsically hostile to traditional marriage norms.
Third, if the state stopped signaling its approval of marriage, that does not mean that social signals would cease altogether. Churches would still hold marriage sacred, couples would still wish to exchange public vows, and parents would still want their daughters to marry well and their sons to marry women who will make them happy. (In addition, as John O’Sullivan once argued, women would still want to compel their mates to marry them — preferably in a way which signals a strong, lifetime commitment.) If the government stopped setting marriage norms, churches and families could more easily set them themselves. Civil society would fill whatever void is left by the state.
Fourth, a policy of marriage freedom would drain all the enthusiasm for gay marriage. Unlike traditional marriage, which predates the modern state by thousands of years, gay marriage is an artificial creation of government. Believers in gay marriage, despite being entirely free to do so, have not sought to create same-sex marriage norms and institutions independent of the government. Nor are they likely to start if the government stopped certifying any relationships as marriages. Most believers in government-recognized gay marriage feel that restricting marriage recognition to opposite sex couples unfairly discriminates against gays. That discrimination would cease the moment the government stopped certifying marriages altogether. The impetus for gay marriage having disappeared, the gay rights movement could then turn to other, less radical projects.
Fifth, marriage freedom would make it a fair fight for marriage traditionalists. The courts and even the legislatures around the country are dominated by people sympathetic to the gay marriage cause. So long as the government certifies some relationships as marriages, government-recognized gay marriage is inevitable. On the other hand, if the government stopped certifying any relationships as marriages, gay marriage would never arise spontaneously. Marriage exists to solve fundamentally dynastic problems. Parents need to ensure that their children choose suitable mates, women need to know that their lovers will not abandon them during pregnancy or child-rearing, and men need assurances that the children produced by their lovers are really theirs. Marriage norms have arisen to mediate the interests of these various reproductive stakeholders. Even today, they retain some causal connection to the biological reality that heterosexual sex tends to produce babies. So long as the government does not interfere, social conservatives to defeat gay marriage need only step back and let human nature prevail. Marriage norms will continue to be made by and for heterosexuals.
Sixth, marriage privatization would reduce the “slippery slope” threat that state-recognized gay marriage poses to religious liberty. After achieving government recognition of same-sex marriage, the gay rights movement will find it easier to outlaw private discrimination against gays or restrict anti-gay speech in the workplace. Traditional moral objections to homosexual acts may then become as verboten as racist attitudes are today. Take away official government endorsement of marriage, however, and the slippery slope from state-recognized gay marriage to prohibition of traditional moral teachings disappears. If social conservatives wish to preserve their liberties, they should favor marriage freedom.
Finally, marriage freedom is a political winner. It assuages the fears of social conservatives that they will be bullied into accepting opinions — such as that a same sex couple can get “married” — that they reject. At the same time, it plays into the status anxieties of upscale white voters afraid of being perceived as bigoted or intolerant. Outright opposition to state-recognized gay marriage once stimulated GOP voter turnout more than enough to compensate for its tendency to repel many young, wealthy and educated voters. Now that legislatures in Vermont and Maine have enacted gay marriage legislation independently of the courts, however, continued Republican opposition to gay marriage risks alienating upscale white voters even more. Marriage freedom gives Republicans and their allies a way out of the dilemma. They can keep the faith of marriage traditionalists while outflanking the Democrats as the party of modernity and tolerance.
Who knows — perhaps marriage freedom could help forge a winning GOP coalition.
26 responses so far
1 danbmil99 // May 13, 2009 at 10:37 pm
“after achieving government recognition of same-sex marriage, the gay rights movement will find it easier to outlaw private discrimination against gays or restrict anti-gay speech in the workplace.”
Indeed, and the gay rights movement knows this. They will never accept this compromise. It might be a useful position to take however, as it removes most of the reasonable objections to the existing state of affairs.
As I said before however, the social/religious conservatives will have nothing of it. They want to roll the clock back to when the “moral majority” could hold sway with politicians. Now that the demographics are changing, the wisdom of jumping into the fray of politics with both feet is looking a bit worse for the wear.
Public opinion is a fickle ally.
2 Ploni Almoni // May 14, 2009 at 3:46 am
This was about the best argument one can make for privatizing marriage. It’s still unconvincing. Taking it point by point:
1. This point is as much an argument for restricting civil marriage as for privatizing marriage. In any case, very few marriages take place in the courthouse, so the Britney Spears effect is minimal. Unlike homosexual marriage, there’s no social-political movement to legitimize teenage skank marriage.
2. A restatement of the argument against gay marriage. Agreed that privatization may be better than homosexual marriage, but the status quo is best.
3. “Civil society would fill whatever void is left by the state.” Yes. And when civil society is corrupt, as cultural conservatives believe it is, reducing the scope of the state’s influence can make things worse. I know that point of view is unpopular at New Majority, though.
4. “Believers in gay marriage, despite being entirely free to do so, have not sought to create same-sex marriage norms and institutions independent of the government. ” They have sought to do so and they have largely succeeded in the more progressive churches.
“The impetus for gay marriage having disappeared, the gay rights movement could then turn to other, less radical projects.” Exactly wrong. The next project will be to fight heteronormativity in marriage: in textbooks, on television, everywhere. No one type of marriage may be “privileged” over another, and it will be the state’s job, as part of its mandate to protect “gay rights,” to ensure that homosexual marriage is not “marginalized.”
5. “[M]arriage freedom would make it a fair fight for marriage traditionalists.” Only a lawyer could say something like that. Once the word “marriage” is liberated by the state, the culture war for its definition will only just begin. On one side, the traditionalists: uneducated, unorganized, relatively apolitical. On the other side, the progressives: educated, articulate, powerful in the media, consciously political. Who will win?
If “social conservatives to defeat gay marriage need only step back and let human nature prevail” then one might ask why human nature has done such a lousy job of prevailing in such matters in recent history, even when the state was relatively neutral.
6. This was an argument against government-recognized gay marriage in general, not in favor of privatization in particular. It’s like point 2 in that respect.
7. Privatization will be a “political winner” only in the sense that it *may* be a least bad alternative to state-recognized homosexual marriage. But (contrary to your previous section) gay-marriage advocates have no reason to prefer privatization, so if traditionalists can’t muster a majority to stop gay marriage, they won’t be able to privatize gay marriage anyway. Privatization is only a winner in in those states where the majority (still) opposes gay marriage, because privatization may at least get past the liberal courts.
3 dragonlady // May 14, 2009 at 8:23 am
As I stated in the earlier post, privatizing marriage is not practical. Marriage laws are really a combination of particular rules limiting and enforcing the marriage bargain and social welfare rules about children. If gov’t doesn’t recognize marriage, how do you have a foundation for family law? Because the govt is going to be certainly involved if the marriage is dissolved. Contracts will not suffice for this–marriage is inherently more complex than buying a home or car. Actually, relying on contracts would complicate the task of government if the marriage dissolves. If there are polygamous or sharia marriages, will we set up special family courts to deal with that? I believe the best way to deal with gay rights is to allow for civil unions or domestic partnerships. That way, they are equal under the law without the institution of marriage being redefined.
4 sinz54 // May 14, 2009 at 8:27 am
Marriage freedom is a political non-starter.
You are failing to learn the lesson that the liberals have learned the hard way: Middle-class Americans aren’t going to sacrifice what they already have, to help those who don’t have.
For liberals, this meant losing the fights over forced busing and affirmative action quotas and single-payer health care systems.
And what you’re proposing–to take away the government imprimatur of civil marriage, just so gays can get married too–is going to fall like a lead balloon with the vast majority of already married middle-class Americans, who hope their children will get the same privileges and rights of marriage that they now have.
Remember the segregated public water fountains in the South prior to the 1960s? Do you think whites would have accepted the “solution” of just closing all the public water fountains–both for blacks and for whites?
5 sinz54 // May 14, 2009 at 9:02 am
Ploni Almoni writes: “And when civil society is corrupt, as cultural conservatives believe it is, reducing the scope of the state’s influence can make things worse.”
This is yet another example of how “cultural conservatives” don’t believe in the principle of limited government that most other conservatives subscribe to. Cultural conservatives are social engineers trying to mold society, just as liberals do. They just have different goals.
6 danbmil99 // May 14, 2009 at 10:06 am
Just a point of reference from the liberal side I grew up with. The goal of this movement is indeed to ‘normalize’ being gay as a completely acceptable and healthy life choice. They want it taught in schools, and they want anyone who believes otherwise to be marginalized as a bigot and a dinosaur. The ideological reason is, they want this philosophy to trump whatever you teach your kids at home or in church. They want everyone who is ‘born gay’ to be aware that they can live their life in that way and surround themselves with people who will accept and nurture them.
I pretty much support this agenda (as I’ve said I’m quite radically liberal when it comes to social issues). However I think there is some hypocrisy on the left as to the real agenda and likely outcome if they are to win this fight.
7 Tenek // May 14, 2009 at 10:37 am
dan, you’re absolutely right, except for the ‘choice’ part. The evil liberals want you to be nice to people who are different. The evil liberals think that unpopular minorities should be protected from the powerful bigots. The evil liberals want your children to grow up less backwards than you, and are not going to put up with the “it’s my religion” excuse.
Thanks for exposing the demons in our midst.
8 mpolito // May 14, 2009 at 10:44 am
Liberals are not for protecting unpopular minorities: they certainly do not care about religious minorities, as you say, Tenek. The liberals do not want to be nice to people who are different: they certainly are not nice to people who disagree with them. The liberals are able to raise my children? Because they possess perfect knowledge of what constitues not being “backwards”? Of course not. They posssess no such knowledge. But we see the goal of the liberal: to control other people’s children. What a loathsome position, especially considering the so-called indoctrinaton of the religious on children.
9 Tenek // May 14, 2009 at 11:42 am
I’d love to hear which religious minority is being persecuted by the evil liberals. (hint: if you’re three quarters of the population, you’re not a minority.) And if you’re going to rail against equal rights for gays, you can expect to be called out for it. We’re not nice to the neo-Nazis either. While you are free to keep your children sheltered and ignorant we are not going to assist in doing so. You’ll just have to double up on the indoctrination during the 130+ hours a week they’re not in school.
10 liv&win // May 14, 2009 at 2:05 pm
stay the #%$ away from my children. It is not to you to form them and give them direction on how to succeed in life. That is my job. I hire teachers to teach subjects such as math, literature, history, government and economics. Evil liberals, like all other social constructionists, persecute any group, large or small that doesn’t agree with their group think. That is the point of this blog, to foster new ideas and challenge old paradigms. Your post is lothesome. It is a glimpse into everything I think that is off target with this country.
That being said, did we not all know that Bramwell was going to go full libertarian on this? I certainly don’t think he needed 5 posts to make his point. And he didn’t convince me. As someone else posted, the marriage issue entangles tax law, property law, family law and others I am sure. The only hollistic approach is to apply laws equally to all.
11 Tenek // May 14, 2009 at 2:09 pm
So home school them, and hope they don’t get too upset when they find out that gays are not all child molesters or the like. They shouldn’t have to suffer for your beliefs.
12 Dr. Tesla // May 14, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Wasn’t Frum a one point very much against gay marriage? Somebody on National Review or elsewhere posted a column Frum wrote a few years ago refuting some liberal on gay marriage.
It seems to me that Frum just wants to be liked. He’s no doubt taken a lot of heat from the DC socialites for being a part of the Bush admin and for supporting the Iraq war.
Frum is kind of like Colin Powell…both were instrumental in making the case for the Iraq war, a war that may have cost the Republicans the last election, but they both seem to want to blame social conservativism or Rush Limbaugh, etc, for the lost.
Gay marriage was not even supported in California…that’s not exactly the Bible Belt. Yet Frum suggests Republicans run away from social issues like gay marriage and abortion.
I know people in the south that only vote Republican because of their pro-life, anti-gay marriage stance. Many of these people buy into the class warfare arguements of the Left. If we listen to Frum, and become pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, many Southern states will be more prone to flipping Democrat in elections.
Frum doesn’t understand this becausae he’s spent little time in the South. I personally don’t think this guy understands America in general, as it seems he is from Canada.
13 VerityJones // May 14, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Tenek “So home school them, and hope they don’t get too upset when they find out that gays are not all child molesters or the like.”
Or like me, they could grow up very open-minded about some gay guys, become close friends with them, then find out they go out and have stranger-sex in the neighborhood park, nightclubs, bars, bathrooms and wherever, have to step around the piles of porno mags featuring teenage boys on their bathroom floors, listen to them brag about seducing drunk straight guys in hot tubs, listen to them criticize old queens and everyone else for their looks, and worry about when they will get HIV as you hear about them catching STD after STD because they refuse to wear protection in their non-monogamous relationships. I have one gay guy friend left and he’s awesome and he’s nothing like that, but he knows what a piece of meat he was when he first stepped out into the gay scene. Since you’re into not pretending, let’s not pretend the majority of gay lifestyle is peachy keen and something we should all get used to.
14 danbmil99 // May 14, 2009 at 7:23 pm
I think Tenek’s posts make my point very well. I’m simply calling out the liberals to admit that they do in fact have a pretty aggressive agenda, which is to push their value system through schools and public institutions as the ‘normative’ one that we all should accept.
I happen to agree with *most* of what the left believes on this score, but I’m cynical about letting *anyone* take the reins of culture and put it in the hands of government. I don’t want liberal political correctness to rule my life anymore than I want southern Christian evangelicals to tell me what to do in my bedroom.
The basic point is that we cannot allow government to be anyone’s tool in the service of a specific ideology.
The place where this is very, very tricky is in education. I once made the mistake of suggesting on a rather liberal science blog that it might be OK to let a teacher discuss Intelligent Design in relation to evolution, specifically to show that it doesn’t stand up. My reasoning was that many people come to school confused because they’ve learned something from home or church, and it’s contradicted in school.
Boy, was I torn a new one on that. The attitude was “never let the camel’s nose in the tent”. Shout them down, humiliate them, make them irrelevant. Use everything in our power to politically nullify them, including the advantage we (liberal/secular) have in the education profession.
My problem with this approach is, if your ideas are so strong, let them be questioned. Why are you so insecure about it? But that’s just human nature. They KNOW they’re right, but they don’t trust you to come to the right conclusion. Therefore, they have to maintain an iron grip on their power base, which is academia, the mainstream press, etc.
Power corrupts etc.
15 bamazook // May 14, 2009 at 11:37 pm
My argument for marriage equality, which many of you dont care about. I thought I’d throw it out anyway.
My partner and I may soon be looking to adopt. Help a kid that would otherwise spend his or her young years in a tumultuously unstable environment. Keeping us and other same sex monogamous couples from marrying does not keep us from having kids. It does keep that kid from having as stable and a legally and socially recognized relationship just like most of his friends will have. How is that a good thing for the children? This is why using the children is also a false premise.
Im all for questioning and debating public policy. However, the time for debate on marriage equality is over. Once New Hampshire passes it (by the end of the month), there will be 12% of states that have inclusive marriage. And NY and NJ are close to follow. The issue with crossing state lines will be too great to ignore. Within 3-6 years, marriage equality will be law in all of the US, there is just no stopping it at this point. The time to pass Civil Unions is past, the time to get the government out the marriage business is past, and quite frankly that means the time to argue these things has past. Im not calling anyone bigoted, please note. Ill be happy to let history (and God) be your judge. I just want to let you know that it no longer does any good to discuss “if.” The discussion is now how and when.
16 bamazook // May 14, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Take the norm of abstinence before marriage. As they do not have to fear that sex will lead to pregnancy, gays are unlikely to see the merits of saving themselves for marriage
I take great exception to this. Do not heterosexuals participate in premarital sex as well? In fact a study I found from 2006 (USA TODAY) found that 95 percent of American have had premarital sex. The median age for first sexual intercourse was 17 in this study.
Further, look at data from the US Government on teen pregnancy. The average teen pregnancy rate since the 1970s is close to 2 MILLION!! Thats per year, by the way. Are you suggesting that homosexuals (whose sex does not lead to pregnancy, as you so keenly note) are the cause of 2 million premarital teen pregnancies? This is a totally false premise and I reject that homosexuals are more sexually promiscuous than heterosexuals. Let me explain further
Verity says of heterosexual teens’ interaction with their homosexual friends that they have to step around the piles of porno … listen to them brag and criticize old queens and everyone else for their looks.
As a social and economical moderate, Protestant, white, homosexual male, in a monogamous 3 year relationship (my first homosexual relationship): I have roommated with many heterosexual males throughout college. Plentiful porn, bragging about sexual partners (both number of partners and drugs they used to seduce), and talking about a chicks T&A and how they bounce when she runs, how ugly or pretty EVERYONE.
Your arguments are not a homosexual thing. It may be a male thing, it may be a young male thing. The period between puberty and however long it takes a male to mature is ridden with sexuality and the experimenting of that sexuality. This is for both homo and hetero alike. Again, this is an overarching judgment and not all young males on either side are like this.
To simply say that all gays are sexually promiscuous would be the same as saying that all blacks are thugs, or that all Republicans are old, rich, white guys for that matter. Maybe many that you see are, but not near all are. This is part of the reason why some would call you bigoted for arguing against marriage equality, because “facts” get thrown out that are utter false just to demean the other side. I’m sure this happens on both side, granted. I think the problem with America today is that so many people refuse to listen and try to truly understand arguments against what they believe. How can we ever understand and live with each other when we can’t even listen to each other?
17 VerityJones // May 15, 2009 at 8:56 am
bamazook:
“The time to pass Civil Unions is past, the time to get the government out the marriage business is past, and quite frankly that means the time to argue these things has past…. I just want to let you know that it no longer does any good to discuss ‘if.’ The discussion is now how and when.”
I disagree. For one thing, many progressive European countries have had civil unions and domestic partnerships since the 1990s. Look at Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Germany, U.K.
Despite it being called a civil union or civil partnership, I know British gay guys who call their partners “husband” and I see nothing wrong with that. Since these are being decided on a state-by-state basis at the present time, it still bears discussion and it part of the “how”.
Another reason the debate isn’t and shouldn’t be over regardless of its apparent inevitability as a force of history, is because of impact on society in some way, especially given gay media presence. Also, some 10,000 gay couples got married when it was made legal in Massachusetts (due to pent up demand), and more and more states are making it legal. NOW is the time to discuss marriage as an institution and its original heterosexual-related purpose, because challenges both straights and gays to reconsider the commonly held notion that marriage is just for lovebirds. It is not something one should do merely for personal satisfaction, because marriage can be tough and too many quit it to avoid the work of compromise, skill-building, self-change and maturation it requires to keep it together.
If people go into marriage ’cause they expect some sort of ultimate and final personal validation and enduring automatic happiness based purely on romantic sexual attraction (like Hollywood continually advertises), they are probably end up miserable and in divorce court. If they have kids, the kids will suffer the most.
It is not a false premise to bring the children into it at all, because gays do have kids, will have kids. That itself could be an argument for gay marriage, but notice that anybody arguing in the comments section of Bramwell’s series has quickly dismissed any data that isn’t favorable to gays instead of really demonstrating a willingness to look at it, even though I’ve been saying all along that I don’t oppose legal unions for gays. It is important to take social science data seriously. It is important for everyone to know that marriage may even decrease your sense of personal satisfaction once you have kids. Studies also show that couples are less happy after their first child, even less happy than they were after their second child and then after that it evens out and gets better once the kids get older. But it’s worth it.
Letting marriage change, or allowing a new type of couple to enter into marriage without discussing its critical importance to children and its history as an institution would be completely irresponsible.
18 VerityJones // May 15, 2009 at 10:05 am
“Verity says of heterosexual teens’ interaction with their homosexual friends that they have to step around the piles of porno … listen to them brag and criticize old queens and everyone else for their looks.
As a social and economical moderate, Protestant, white, homosexual male, in a monogamous 3 year relationship (my first homosexual relationship): I have roommated with many heterosexual males throughout college. Plentiful porn, bragging about sexual partners (both number of partners and drugs they used to seduce), and talking about a chicks T&A and how they bounce when she runs, how ugly or pretty EVERYONE.
You make some good points about the universality of crude, immature behavior, but I was discussing my personal experience with gay male friends who ranged from ages 23 to 44. The porno mags featuring teenage boys were piled on the floor of a gay couple in their 30s. I would find it equally weird to find magazines of girls that young piled on the floor of anybody else’s bathroom.
Promiscuity is a problem in both straight and gay culture, as you point out. But gays are very willing to point out that young straights are promiscuous, then turn around and deny that most gay men are promiscuous. I beg to differ. Gay stranger sex and non-monogamous relationships, I think, remain hugely popular in gay culture.
I base my critique of gay male culture, not only on my personal experiences, but on what I’ve read of gay writers and what I’ve seen at the major gay cultural events called Gay Pride. This is a party which celebrates gay profligacy and presents it as a norm to be proud of. Similarly, when I posted my comments here, I thought, “Well, what about straight swingers?” But the fact is swingers are a small subset of straight culture and do not represent it. In American gay male culture, like it or not, the non-swingers are the small subset.
In pointing this out, I’m not suggesting that gays should be deprived of rights because some of them or many of them are badly behaved. But my post was in response to the issue of gay rights proponents want to forcing “tolerance education” in school. There is a problem with this, because you can’t just teach “gay is okay” while deflecting any criticism of gay (male) culture. If you teach kids “gay is okay,” this makes it seem that gay culture in general is okay when clearly it isn’t. Being gay is about same-sex attraction and love, but it is also about joining a peer group, a social cohort, and the behaviors of that cohort.
As an example of tolerance educatin and gay outreach to gay teenagers in Massachusetts has included lists of gay bars to go to and some instructions about various sex acts, but failed to underscore rising rates of HIV in the 18-25 age group (as reported by the CDC) or warnings about the negative emotional/psychological effects of being a very young man in a gay meat market. If gay rights proponents really cared about gay youth, they would try to protect them from meat markets in the first place.
I hesitate to criticize gay male cultural norms that I have witnessed over the years on a conservative website and possibly fuel unreasonable prejudices, but at the same time, neither black culture or feminist ideas are immune from criticism even on the Left, yet it seems to me that gays demand to be immune from this legitimate criticism.
What I’d like to see happen is for people to stop criticizing gays based on what the Bible says and focus on criticizing unhealthy aspects of gay culture to get them to change. It goes hand in hand with mitigating the straight “hook up culture,” which is doubtless equally unhealthy for similar reasons. For gays, part of being accepted by society means being criticized by it. You can’t get your rights and sort out your problems privately. They will be discussed by everybody and denying them hurts your credibility.
19 esurience // May 15, 2009 at 12:42 pm
VerityJones: Do you not see the irony in denying gay people the right to marry, and speaking of the institution of marriage as of crucial importance to society and culture, and then simultaneously criticizing the culture of many gay people? If you believe that certain changes to marriage would harm society as a whole, and if you believe that marriage is the foundation of civilization, what do you think DENYING marriage to a whole community of people does to that community? Almost all gay people have been denied the very prospect of marriage ever since we became aware of our sexual attraction, and been acutely cognizant of this fact. Society tells us that our love is less worthy than our heterosexual peers, that we shouldn’t aspire to commitment or monogamy or lifelong partnership.
It’s fine to criticize certain aspects of gay culture. I am critical of them as well. But it takes a certain level of sadism to criticize those aspects and advance them as a reason for continuing to deny gays the right to marry. (I realize you’ve said you are for marriage equality, but you’re still advancing your criticisms of “gay culture” as plausible arguments against marriage equality).
20 danbmil99 // May 15, 2009 at 5:13 pm
bamazook: your point about adoption is right-on. As someone who is pretty liberal on social issues, I didn’t truly accept the idea of gay marriage until I met a household with kids, and saw that it was pretty damn normal. I think much prejudice comes from lack of interaction.
On the other hand, what verity says is in my experience objectively true: gay culture has been exceedingly focused on a lifestyle of rampant promiscuity. To deny that is sort of like denying that there is a fatherhood problem among poor urban blacks. Most black leaders are now willing to admit this, whereas before it might have been grounds for calling you a racist.
I think it works another way: the option of marriage may have an impact on gay culture. One can easily imagine that the bathhouse/bar culture arose partly due to the fact that gays were derided and oppressed for so long. One can only hope.
In any case, the percentages of behavior we approve or disapprove of is irrelevant. Society is clearly better off if a same-sex couple settles down and raises a family, rather than spending their lives cruising for the next hookup. That goes equally for straights of course.
I don’t like to see government involved in this sphere of life at all, but I agree that it’s too late to turn things back, so the best thing is to accept it and move on. Good luck with the evangelicals on that score though.
21 bamazook // May 17, 2009 at 12:10 am
Verify:
“What I’d like to see happen is for people to stop criticizing gays based on what the Bible says and focus on criticizing unhealthy aspects of gay culture to get them to change.”
I couldn’t agree with you more! As danbmil99 restates, the gay culture is not exactly something to be proud of. I doubt anyone who participates in that stereotypical world would write home to mom about it. But we now have the ability to try and head that off. Right now heteros have a societal pressure to settle down, get married. As more homos have that option, there will be more pressure to abandon that old lifestyle. I’ll further say that I think that lifestyle is a bit of an older thing. I know several younger (my age – 20s, 30s) gays and gay couples who are happily monogamous or long to find and settle down with the perfect mate. I think that was more of a 70s and 80s thing. Not to say that it isn’t around still. But I think that this is a world that HAD to spring up, because there was no where for our community to go to be with others like themselves (or to find sexual partners, without being thrown in jail). It kind of devolved into sexual partner roulette because there was no point to settle down with someone. You didn’t want to be known as one of “those gays.” (I’ll also note that I don’t know if lesbians have this same world that they created and lived in, or at least not as prevalently)
Further, I never meant to portray that I think any aspect of this shouldn’t be discussed. In a civil, educated, and respectful manner, it is our right and duty as a democratic republic to do just that. What I mean by “the time for Civil Unions is over,” is that we now have more states with what I call inclusive marriage than civil unions (for the record I’d be plenty happy with civil unions with full rights and responsibilities, state and fed). But I also think that Civil Unions ultimately dead-end into marriage. Just wait for a court to overturn it based on separate but equal..this is why CT has marriage and CA did, for a couple months. (and if the legislature doesn’t take care of it first, as they may, the NJ courts will too, would be my guess anyway). On this I agree with the religious conservatives civil unions lead to gays marrying. It’s hard to justify giving someone rights that are equal but separate. If they are worth having the rights why do they have to be separate? Right now, it;s because civil unions are just easier to pass. New York could have civil unions if it wanted. They are holding our for marriage. This is why I say the time for civil unions are over.
Again because we have 5 (soon to be 6 ?NH?) states with marriage, they will not easily give that up to go “back” to cu’s, and if you think the fight in CA is over, you are only kidding yourself. There will be some tricky politicking in DC to make this all work on the federal level, in any case. I don’t blame Obama for trying to stay out of this mess, and conserve political capital. Although I can’t say that it makes me happy that he’s sitting back on this, I’ll gladly take neutral over sworn enemy any day.
22 bamazook // May 17, 2009 at 12:12 am
Also one last point – kids. Again Verify, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t look at definitive unbiased data. If it’s true, its true. But the fact is there is no way to totally stop gay couples from adopting, nor do I think you want to stop them. I think we can all agree that SOME sort of family is better than being shuffled from home to home and/or shelters and adoption centers where they have little to no personal interaction with adults that they can look up to.
Again I agree (I don’t think we are too far apart on our thinking) that handing out lists of bars to students is a bit too much, if that is true. AIDS education obviously has progress to be made as well. Condoms are a HUGE part of that, in my view. As I’ve mentioned kids (and adults) will be sexual creatures, homo and hetero.
There was one last point, that I feel I should respond to. That is how has marriage changed in MA in the last 5 years, and how has it changed things? Or overseas in Netherlands or closer to home in Canada? Are there more or less or the same amount of divorces or marriages? Has birth rates or adoption rates changed? Are the rate of AIDS higher, lower, the same? What percentage of couples marrying are gay? Is bullying higher or lower, what about teen suicide or homelessness? Which of these answers would change our minds either way on the issue.
I don’t know, I’ve not seen any data on this and don’t know if it exists, but these are all important things to look at. Partly, I think that the religious right would have pulled and let us know any data that would confirm their side, so I don’t know that there IS any (or much) unfavorable data out there. I’d love to see any data, favorable or otherwise, if you know of any.
And I appreciate the conversation. I think it is very important for each side to understand the other. Religious right and liberal homosexual left may never see eye to eye but if they can understand where each other is coming from, there may be some compromises that can be found, and at least we can all be more civil and spew forth less hate and lies toward and about one another. That is my ultimate hope.
23 jjv // May 17, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Yes, that is the ticket, because liberalism always allows freedom of contract and private arrangements to continue unmolested. These have been well-argued and interesting pieces and I like the multi-part format but when marriage is under assault as it it now this will not save it. The key asault on marriage is from the Courts, and bought and paid for Democratic legislators, not the majority. If the majority can not have what it wants, no same-sex marriage than we are not a Constitutional Republic anymore. That is worse than same-sex marriage.
24 VerityJones // May 20, 2009 at 2:03 pm
“Do you not see the irony in denying gay people the right to marry, and speaking of the institution of marriage as of crucial importance to society and culture, and then simultaneously criticizing the culture of many gay people? …But it takes a certain level of sadism to criticize those aspects and advance them as a reason for continuing to deny gays the right to marry. (I realize you’ve said you are for marriage equality, but you’re still advancing your criticisms of “gay culture” as plausible arguments against marriage equality).”
If the lack of access to legal marriage for gay men was responsible for the negative aspects of gay men’s culture or if it had been a point in this debate, then perhaps you could feasibly accuse someone of being sadistic for using those aspects of gay culture as an argument against gay marriage or there might be some irony in the whole thing. As it is, I’ve never seen evidence presented for such an argument. I’d also like to point out that someone could be unintentionally cruel, and perhaps that’s what you meant, but they could not be unintentionally sadistic, since by it’s very definition sadism involves intention. Therefore, you’d have to prove that I had some knowledge of this correlation/causation argument for your accusation of sadism to stick. I do take exception to it, especially as I haven’t actually advanced arguments against gay marriage based on criticisms of gay culture, or really at all for that matter. I did speculate on possible negative impact scenarios. I repeatedly asserted support for gay unions and gave, I thought, a persuasive reason or two for my position. When someone who supports legal unions for gays says “marriage is an important societal institution and changing it isn’t to be undertaken lightly and gays shouldn’t try to shut down debate and here’s why” that doesn’t actually hurt gays.
Yet, because I had pointed out some interesting or important information brought up by the other side about the importance of marriage and marriage stability for children’s well-being, I’d essentially been called a bigot anyway. I criticized the gay rights proponents for this type of knee-jerk reaction and criticized the strategy for attaching the issue of gay marriage to civil rights movement issues, which I see as different enough to be unconvincing. I also made my criticisms of gay culture, since it is practically verboten to do so and still support gay marriage.
To summarize my main points, the debate around gay marriage could be a lot more productive if handled by people making rational arguments. I hate the Biblical justifications and I can’t stand the constant manipulative refrain about gay victimhood. Since conservatives are undergoing a period of self-examination, I wanted to speak up about the nature of the arguments being made and make a point about how valid points get lost when Christian coalition types fight it out in public with unpleasant gay celebrities like Dan Savage. This is an opportunity to reaffirm marriage as an important thing at a time of historic change.
25 VerityJones // May 20, 2009 at 3:20 pm
bamazook — I agree with you that a lot of the problems seem to be generational. It’s really too bad that the nascent gay rights movement had to coincide with the sexual revolution. Attempts to live out those ideals have presented no end of real emotional, psychological and physical health costs. Many gay Baby Boomers cling to a gay identity that they equate with a lifestyle of “sexual freedom” — and many in Gen X assumed it, too, as an extension of their own glorification of “self-expression.” In turn, they still influence too many younger men, hence, rising. I’m not advocating Victorian morals, just an approach that brings in more self-discipline, responsibility, kindness and commitment to what is healthy.
As for gay adoption, I just want same-sex parents to serious examine and remedy any difficulties the same-sex parental unit may present for their children and not be defensive about it.
I’ll look into some of the data on how marriage has changed in Massachusetts or the Netherlands in the next few days.
26 VerityJones // May 20, 2009 at 10:55 pm
sorry, I wasn’t able to find much on Mass marriage impact. You can read some stuff if you google, but it seems mostly slanted one side or another.
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