Last week, the inimitable Mrs. du Toit had one of the most fascinating and thought-provoking essays (and online debates) on gay marriage I'd seen in some time. I marvel at the way the woman's mind works, and agree with her on many things. I just don't agree with her on this.
At least, I thought I didn't.
In my lovely wife's thread on gay marriage, I left some comments that I intended to turn into a first draft of an article. I was thinking to call it, "The Conservative Case For Gay Marriage." Not that I'm all that conservative, but I believed that a very strong conservative case for gay marriage could be made. Let me show you how:
-=-
First, we must start with an undeniable reality: unlike any time in the last 10,000 years of human history, large numbers of people are choosing to identify as exclusively homosexual. Yes, certainly, we've seen societies in the past where people often involved themselves in gay relationships outside their marriages, or buggered each other while off on long trips away from the family. That's been seen in many times and places. But gay families, formed by people who decide to identify as exclusively gay, as a widespread phenomenon? No, that is very new, and conservatives do not have any easy answers for that if tradition is their guide.
Furthermore, we cannot reasonably blame moral dissolution for this sudden appearance of exclusively-gay families. If we look at the debauchery of other socities, it should be fairly obvious that America today is hardly any worse than other socities of today or yesterday. In fact, America's morals are arguably better, in a lot of ways, than societies which never had this phenomenon of large groups of queers.
No, I think it should be obvious what the real reason we have all these openly-queer people running around is: people now live longer, have more wealth, can communicate across great distances, and can travel across those distances, to a far greater degree than has ever been possible in human history. Thus, people with homosexual inclinations who, 500 years ago, likely would have hidden themselves, or maybe only found a friend or two of similar inclinations, are instead finding each other, and joining together to support each other, in a way that's simply startling in its newness.
Thus, some of Mrs. du Toit's arguments, while sharply reasoned, are weak. Calls to tradition mean little when we're presented with a completely new social phenomenon. A large, identifiable gay community only first became noticeable to society in the early 1970s, and has been with us ever since. The people who once hid their urges because they were surrounded by straights, or married the opposite sex but had gay dalliances on the side, have, over the last few decades, begun to find each other and band together to follow their true heart's desires.
This toothpaste isn't going back into its tube any time soon. Furthermore, if the situation has never existed in history, it presents conservatives--those who care most passionately about tradition and preservation of that which is good and decent in society--with a challenge. A response must be formulated, and tradition simply does not provide sufficient guidance.
-=-
In the 1970s, when gays first become politically organized, they were a radical group, and tended to identify with anti-establishment, left-wing causes. They tended to identify with radical feminism, the black civil rights movement, free love, drug use, abortion-on-demand as a civil right, and other such causes. The larger society tended to view them as part of that broad left-leaning social movement, too. Gay sex and queer identity were part of the general movement to "challenge the establishment."
But over the last decade, a rather startling change has slowly taken shape. For most people, this is not at all apparent until someone points it out, but I challenge anyone to deny it: The gay rights movement has, for the most part, become a conservative movement.
Don't believe it? Think back over the last ten years, and ask yourself what the primary issues that gays have agitated for have been. I'll bet your list looks something like this:
* They want to hold steady jobs.From everything I can see, what they want first and foremost is to lead unassuming lives, merging quietly into the culture of traditional, establishment Middle America.
* They want to go to church and join the clergy.
* They want to live in nice, respectable communities without being kicked out.
* They want to join the military and fight for their country.
* They want to join the boy scouts--the freaking Boy Scouts!And, oh yes,
* They want to settle down, have kids, and raise families.
In short, these people don't want to destroy Republicans. They want to be Republicans. And they represent a problem that conservatives are going to have to address, one way or another.
"What problems?" you may be asking. "Why not just express my disapproval, teach my children what I think is right, and otherwise ignore it?" Here's why that's not good enough:
It's not PC to say so, but gay men have an unfortunate tendency to indulge in dangerous sexual behaviors. Yes, of course there are exceptions. But, because they don't have to contend with female reluctance to sex, gay men surrounded by other gay men often have a lot more sex than even the most wild straight men. Simply put, without the restraints that females put on male libido, men tend to fuck a lot, and they'll often not be very careful about it.
If you read the late Randy Shilts' And The Band Played On, you'll be astonished to learn that in places like San Francisco, it hasn't been unusual for gay men to have several different sex partners a night, with literally hundreds of anonymous and semi-anonymous sex partners a year not being particularly unusual. You'll further learn that, long before there was any such thing as AIDS, the gay communities in places like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco were a major vector in the United States for syphilis, gonorrhea, hepatitis, and various forms of herpes.
Furthermore, we've all learned this track from AIDS: from gay man to bi man to girlfriend to child. That cycle existed long before AIDS, with all those other diseases. It still does, with considerable data showing that young gay men have lost their fear of AIDS and are almost as sexually active as young gay men were back in the late 1970s, before the AIDS epidemic hit.
Purely from a public health standpoint, then, society has an interest in discouraging young horny gay men from being so irresponsible. Yet the American public has also made it clear that they're simply not going to put up with sodomy laws: even before the Supreme Court struck them down, such laws were being quietly removed from the books in most states anyway, and were very rarely being enforced in the states that still had them. They were largely unenforceable once the gay community got big enough anyway.
Thus, gay marriage could be a carrot (not a stick, a carrot) to discourage sexual profligacy in this unique, new social group that's known to have a habit of irresponsible behavior. Although nothing would eliminate such behavior, just as nothing will eliminate heterosexual promiscuity, marriage clearly serves as a deterrent to profligacy in many straights. There would be social value in doing that for gays.
Of course, to do that, we would have to return marriage to an institution wherein the law--not just society, but the law--frowns upon dissolute behavior. More on that below. First, however, let's get to the even more important conservative argument for gay marriage: children.
Childrearing is, to the conservative mind, the main purpose of society. Conservatives say--and I believe they are correct--that marriage is primarily there for just that purpose. Yes, we allow infertile couples to marry, because sometimes doctors are wrong and children show up. Besides, such couples often adopt. We also let elderly couples marry, even though we know they aren't going to have kids, primarily because they will at least serve as an example to young people of the value of marriage. Ultimately, it's all about encouraging young people to settle down, restrain their irresponsible urges, and commit to cultivating stable families and well-reared children.
Well guess what, my righty pals: queers are having kids. Mind you, they've always done it, but they're doing it in greater and greater numbers all the time. Frown on them all you want. Gag and say "YUCK!!!" as loud as you like. Snort and stomp, wag your finger and yell, "bad homo! stop that! bad homo!" to your heart's content: increasingly, they're just laughing at you anyway.
Furthermore, you are dreaming if you think the law is going to tolerate anyone trying to forcibly remove those kids.
So you are going to deal with queers having kids. Period. The phenomenon is growing, and sooner or later those kids are going to be showing up in schools and playgrounds and neighborhoods--if not yours, then in neighborhoods where your friends and relatives live. Especially if they're near a major metropolitan area. You can run, but you can't hide: they're here, they're queer, and one way or the other, you're going to have to get used to it.
-=-
Conservatives tend to cringe at the left's habit of using "for the children" as their justification for just about everything. Oppose the war: do it for the children! Nationalized health care: do it for the children! Pour more money into failing schools: do it for the children! Support the Kyoto treaty: do it for the children! And so on. Every conservative is familiar with the litany, and cringes whenever he hears it.
But this is one area where conservatives are almost universally agreed: the primary duty of society is to cultivate the raising of children in stable, healthy environments.
Furthermore, any conservative knows that single-parent homes (and unstable two-parent homes) correlate highly with children who wind up living lives involving crime, depression, drug use, suicide, and difficulty forming stable relationships. Such households also suffer from a higher degree of poverty.
The two-parent ideal works not just because of the male-female dynamic--which I would agree is valuable--but for a host of other reasons: stable two-parent homes offer economic security, stress relief for the primary caregiver, and shared responsibilities that otherwise tend to overwhelm single parents. The social consequences of too many kids growing up in unstable, uncommitted households (and by the way, I grew up in one of them) should be obvious.
Furthermore, the fact is that your kids are going to see and encounter kids raised by queer parents in the future. When they see that, do you want them seeing these as informal, lazy relationships? Or would you rather these relationships, even if sub-optimal to traditional standards, at least be conforming to an important ideal: that of two parents committed to staying together come hell or high water so they can raise their children?
-=-
But of course, this would, again, require that we fight for a return to the notion that marriage is not lightly entered into or dissolved.
So what would a gay proposal that conservatives could swallow look like?
I suggest that gay marriage should be coupled with laws which move us back toward more traditional, less destructive notions of marriage: that marriage should be somewhat difficult to enter into, and should involve penalties for people who leave it lightly. Not by putting people in prison, but by ending no-fault divorce as an option for couples with children. Once you have kids, No-Fault goes out the door, and cause has to be proven to justify a breakup, such as abuse or adultery.
No-Fault's fine if there aren't kids. But if there are, you should have to document strong reasons for a breakup--with strong financial penalties in the divorce settlement for the aggrieved party. Because breaking up such a marriage doesn't just hurt those individual kids, or the person who is being abandoned. It hurts society as a whole.
Recognizing this, and coupling this with strong social disapproval of people with children who divorce for light or transient reasons, would probably go a long, long way toward helping to win grudging support from pragmatic conservatives on the issue of gay marriage. Such pragmatists, even among the religious, are probably far more common than most people realize.
-=-
Gay rights activists frequently take joy in the fact that demographic data shows clearly that young people tend to be more gay-friendly than older people. The idea of gay marriage has much more support among people under 40 than it does among people older than that. They usually point to this as proof that they will probably win their cause eventually.
However, there's a catch. One they probably haven't thought of.
If you look at any decent survey data on young people's attitudes about marriage in any area besides gay marriage, you will discover that, startlingly, they are far more conservative than their parents. Generation X and Generation Y grew up in a time when divorce was commonplace, and most of them don't like it much. If you ask them questions like, "Is divorce okay as long as both people are in agreement," they're much less likely to be blase about it than Baby Boomers were. If there are kids involved, they're even more disapproving. They're far more likely to agree that you should be married to have kids, and far more likely to agree that even if two people aren't getting along, working hard to stay together is a worthwhile goal if there are children in the house.
"Staying together for the sake of the kids" was considered unfashionable in the '70s. It's way more fashionable today. Women under 40 are also opting to stay home full time more often than their mothers did, and of those under 40 women who are in the workforce, most of them say they wish they could be home more with their kids. Hell, it's even fashionable for young women to take their husband's names again.
Gay marriage enthusiasts who see young people as their eventual salvation need to wake up to the fact that young people today are actually very conservative in their attitudes about marriage. There is a very distinct possibility that, for the moment, most of the young people who favor gay marriage do so because they haven't thought much about it, and because it seems mean-spirited to say "no" to their gay friends.
But let them really start to consider the possibility that gay people want to flit in and out of marriages for the sake of convenience, and that they really, truly, don't think that marriage comes with any obligations to society as a whole, and those young folks could turn on a dime, and start suggesting that gay people find other ways to formalize their relationships.
-=-
I must confess, as an under-40 person who's been gay-friendly his whole life, and has favored gay marriage, I recently began to rethink my stance. And it was, in fact, a conversation with a few gay men that made me rethink it. It was a debate in this thread where, some gay men started suggesting that married people have no obligation to anyone except whatever obligations they voluntarily accept between themselves. Easy divorce should be the rule of the day. With the intrinsic assumption that it would be authoritarian and statist to put any rules or limitations on people's ability to marry or divorce whenever they want, for whatever reason they want.
There was no sense of social obligation--obligation to society, to future generations. Nothing but a concentration on "fairness," as if the quite minor tax benefits and credit sharing that comes with marriage are, somehow, something we should all get just for the asking.
And not one jot or tittle of appreciation for the notion of marriage as something government encourages because it sees a long-term benefit to society as a whole from doing so.
In other words, gay marriage is not about obligation, duty, responsibility, or a passionate belief in future generations and raising healthy children. Just, "It's not fair, I want it! If you can have it I should have it too!"
I don't wish to insult these men, but in having this conversation, it suddenly flashed on me: every conservative argument I've heard against gay marriage suddenly sounds completely valid. This might well dilute the institution of marriage, and it may be an institution in need of defense. Because at least some of those who want gay marriage just don't seem to take it seriously. They want it out of a sense of entitlement, as something the government owes them just because they want it, or "deserve" it.
In reading such comments, I began to think that the cause of gay marriage is lost--and found myself wondering if we weren't better off that way.
Which I found rather depressing, because I really thought for a while there that gay marriage was probably a good idea.
What about civil unions?
I am surprised you didn't bring that topic up since in the minds of a lot of people they are very much intertwined with the idea of gay marriage.
Seems like a fine idea to me but I'm so lost in thought and uncertain now I don't know what to think.
"Civil unions" seems like a nice compromise that should give gay people a fair shake on things like inheritance and shared credit and whatnot while letting straight people keep a sense of special status to marriage. But some gays object that it's "back of the bus" and the equivalent of the Jim Crow "separate but equal." I don't mind saying I find that silly, because any gay person in America who thinks he's even a tenth as oppressed as black people were in the 1950s in America is nuts, to put it kindly. But I digress. Yes, it's definitely a "double standard," the question being, "so what? Are you looking for a symbol, or are you looking for legal protections?"
Then again some say that if there are civil unions, then straight couples who now cohabit outside of marriage will want civil union INSTEAD of marriage and that this will weaken marriage. Which I frankly don't agree with either becuase I think people who are cohabiting who at least make the effort of having a "Civil Union" are at least doing SOMETHING responsible, and this still holds up marriage as an ideal to be striven for.
But I don't know. I'm about ready to throw my hands in the air. No one wants to compromise on anything, it's always all-or-nothing.
Bleah.
You make a persuasive argument Dean, but I can't fathom any way that it could be considered right for a govenment based on "all men are created equal" to institutionalize discrimination. My point is that the moral implications of denying equal treatment to any segment of citizens are far greater than the implications of the government failing to promote moral behavior. Frankly, that is not the US government's primary mission.
If the state provides a service for one segment that should not be provided to all segments, then the state should not be providing that service to anyone.
Also, I think it is very unlikely that the vast majority of straight americans will accede to any such reductions in "freedom" to divorce as you describe. About as unlikely as passing a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage.
There's support already for getting rid of No-Fault. It's not that crazy an idea, especially if it's tempered with ending No-Fault only if there are children. I think you could pass such a law right now in a lot of states with No Fault, if someone wanted to put the energy into it. The idea is worth pursuing all by itself if you ask me.
As for equal protection--as others have pointed out, all you have to say is that gays can marry people of the opposite sex and that this argument is a non-sequitur. You may not agree with it, but it's not a bizarre argument.
People who advocate gay marriage who cannot fathom or see any validity to their opponent's objections are setting themselves up for long-term defeat on this thing. They really are. Just because Holland and Canada have done it doesn't mean it's going to happen everywhere--or that it's even going to go the way in Canada long-term that people think.
Oh I give up. All or nothing, all or nothing, the rule of the day shall be all or nothing. Seems foolish to me, but what do I know?
Yup, you've come around to the right (that is, proper and accurate) conclusion.
Marriage is an instituition found in all societies, and found in all of recorded history. What with so many other things that are completely different in different societies, WHY is this one thing so ubiquitous?
Other things are done different ways in different societies, so why is this one thing virtually identical in all societies?
The answer must be that marriage is a sine qua non of either human society or human existance. From a societal point of view, marriage is not about tax benefits or inheritance or sex, or even love. Nor is it about "fairness".
It's about successfully bearing & rearing children. Period. Full Stop. EndOfFile.
Other than a passing fad, gay marriage cannot and willnot last. It fulfills no purpose in a human society, therefore it is ephemeral and even if instituted will eventually disappear. (It may well serve the purpose of certain individuals, but not society.)
One of the questions that has yet to be answered in this is the HOW ? The moral and societal angle is that allowing this will undermine the instution of marriage, and all that will send us down the slippery slope to Soddom and Gamorrah.
Well I want to know HOW ? What is the societal and marrital failure mode that causes this ? To suggest that this will happen relies on the assumption that a sufficient number of people are currently tempted to lead lives of debauchery, but are not and that simply providing a model whereby gay people are afforded the same rights to inheretance, visitation, shared credit, and health insurance coverage would be the thing that pushes them over the edge. I find this argument laughable.
Dean, you mentioned that if the eventual solution were to separate "marriage" from "civil unions" that heterosexual couples would opt for civil union rather than marriage. They already do. It's just a word and in the legal sense it may be traditionally based in societal support and all that, but in practice it does nothing more than provide legal rights. Many of which can be legally obtained by gay people without recognizing a gay marriage. There is no real difference between a "civil union" and a marriage performed by a justice of the peace. To me, somehow legally acknowledging that there is a moral implication to marriage runs counter to the 1st ammendment. No one is out there forcing people to have moral and just marriages, and that isn't even taking into account divorce.
So someone, please explain to me the marrital and societal failure mode that will result in the end of the world over this issue. And I want a plausible one with some idea who the otherwise moral people are that will be led into a life of immoral sin if gay marriage is legalized.
Yup, Dean. You nailed it in those last few paragraphs.
I think that homosexuals really started coming out of the closet after Kinsey's statistics showed us that not everybody was the same and then Pschologists got together in the 60's and changed the diagnosis of homosexuality from something sick to something not sick. From this point on, you could walk down the street hand in hand and not be put in a crazy house or stoned or worse. Fear for your life will make you act straight. And I would wager that it has more to do with the fear of your life than anything else.
Next, I think to categorize all homosexuals into something out of "and the band played on" is totally biased and ignorant. Of course the people in the middle of "do what ever you want sexually" were central to this tragedy. That is how the disease spread. That you lump us all together to deny equal rights is very offensive. But this is not really the issue. If convicted straight prostitutes can get out of jail and run to the court house and get married why can't gay people who have been in a monogomous relationship for 10 years? Or just as slutty as the straight prostitutes?
None of our dead AIDS family can speak out for themselves and say, "you know maybe i would have lived if i was able to get married" But I think it would have helped. Are married people less sexually risky than single people? I think so. And in some areas, the incidence of AIDS is much higher in straight people. And then what about lesbians? They have like the lowest incidence.
Marriage isn't an option for all homosexuals but it should be an option. There will be some seriously screwed up gay marriages but it isn't a reason to deny gay marriages across the board. There is enough room for everyone to be equal and free and it wont threaten anyone else's marriage or religion or freedom.
Wow! Great! Damit! (I had many of these ideas before...)
But I think "marriage" for men with women (as it has always been defined), for life, when there are children, is the right goal. No Fault divorce not an option.
And civil unions, legally identical to marriage except for children's issues (eg health benefits, etc.), for those gays & straights who want the legal advantages of a committed relationship. With no fault an option.
Back of the bus status to those relationships which allow no fault divorce.
You are right about the all or nothing attitude but that is coming from a vocal minority.
Our culture however has evloved to reward the squeaky wheel with grease.
I feel somewhat responsible for this because it a large part my generation has caused a lot of these problems to be created and fester.
The 60's and early 70's changed our culture in ways that we are still suffering from.
One thing I don't agree with is that marriage is only about children. A large part, for sure, but there are other dimensions to a successful marriage that transsend just child rearing.
It is putting 2 plus 2 and getting 5.
The whole is more than the separate parts.
This is why no-fault divorce has damaged marriage so much and why gays with their much freer attitute towards multiple partners would damage it further if allowed to marry.
Civil Unions I would go along with for economic and emotional reasons.
Dean,
I don't know why straight couples would prefer a civil union but if some want to go that route I don't see how or why we should stop them.
I don't think there would be many going that way and there would still be people who would prefer common law marriages in states that allow them.
Thank you, Dean. That was EXTREMELY well written!!!
Here is how I see it:
1) I don't hate gays. I try not to hate people, but if I do, it is usually for some personal injury upon me or someone I love. That would have to do with betrayal or callousness or direct intent to harm. It would be a sign of paranoia to go around thinking that gays are "out to get straights."
2) On the otherhand, seeing how the Radical Homosexual Lobby has "jumped the snark" and used the Supreme Court judges to whomp a state's rights to determine its own laws, I may have to rethink that position. Just because I am paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
3) I am all for individual freedom. These freedoms are spelled out in the Bill of Rights, INCLUDING the right to Free Assembly, which is within the same parameters of the freedom of speech, but which is conveniently forgotten by people with a Nanny Agenda. I include the Radical Homosexual Lobby in that group. They preach to me of non-judgement, yet when ever I give any sign of going against their purpose, they are VERY quick to shut me up with dismissal and reproof.
4) I see none of the "mainstream" gays who are more reasonable in their life and logic stand up to the more extreme elements of their society. This places them on the level of the Muslims, who after September 11 straddled the commentary with "it was horrible and not according to Islam...BUT..." Rare was the Muslim who denounced their brethren for allowing their faith to become radicalized that way.
This is why you see such a furor in the Christian community. More Christians are willing to stand up for their beliefs and criticize their own for what they deem to be misinterpretation of their faith. It is not a sign of weakness by any means. Indeed, I would be sincerely aggrieved if I didnt see this debate rage in our society. It is a mark of our freedom and blessing that we people HAVE that luxury to spend our time and hash this out. There is no such room for qualms and hesitation in Third World countries...like Iraq.
5) I understand completely the desire to protect and nurture those who remain in each of our lives and bring it the blessings of love and friendship and care. I would not pray for denial of that on ANYONE, regardless of their spiritual state. Our society has formulated means of doing so, by law, by tradition, by convenience. For a gay couple, the desires to ease the path of the future by providing insurance, support in times of medical crisis, inhritance, etc., is natural and human. That I will agree with. And in no way would this conservative, in her beliefs of individual freedom...life, liberty, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, would ever wish to suppress the equal footing of the said gay couple to that equal standing. That is what law is for. That is what the Bill of Rights spells out.
But the gay couple's freedom ENDS where mine begins, and even though they are equal under the law, they are NOT equal in HOW they determine that freedom. Forcing me to agree that they have equal claim to the concept of marriage, a unique human feature, only serves to degrade my ability to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
6) One final word, if it is all about legality, I wonder at the deliberate laziness and willful ignorance of those lawyers and activists who are able to find ALL SORTS of creative language for all other tranactions in the legal realm, but have to glomm onto a simple word like 'marriage,' a human feature that is beyond any Historical record, as a cure-all to the ills and frustrations of a minor community. The paranoid person in me automatically rings a bell, alerting me that there is something more to the intent going on, and those pushing for it will have to be up front about it before they can get much further with me. And once they do, I would believe that there is probably a more simple solution that everyone involved could accept and agree to.
But then, even from my short experience in watching politics, I have determined that certain parties within our society are not interested in solutions. Only chaos. Real Saul Alinsky if you doubt my thoughts on this.
Very well written Dean. A lot to think about.
"No-fault" divorce should only be applicable in the case of marriages without children. Ending no-fault divorces for all is unnecessary and counter-productive. Great post Dean and highly convincing. I have never seen the attraction for gay men of "marriage" anyway.
Dean,
While marriage as an institution functions to socialize children, that is not its only function. Just as there are many unmarried couples without children, there are also many married couples who will never have any children.
You see, the reason many gays have been arguing for marriage is that it's the only way that society has offered to give them all the relationship protections that they desire. But if those protections are really given because only they foster a good evironment for child-rearing, then why are they given to straight couples who never plan to have or adopt children? Should civil marriage be denied to straight couples who intend to remain childless?
The solution to the gay marriage debate is to think beyond marriage. Instead of remaining fixated on marriage, we should totally re-examine how governments treat relationships. What are the state's interests in the areas of relationshps? What objectives is it trying to promote? How are marriages and other relationships relevant to those objectives? How can it promote those objectives while allowing people the autonomy to define relationships for themselves?
I strongly urge you to read the Law Commission of Canada's report entitled "Beyond Conjugality." While parts of it will not be directly applicable to the US, the basic principles behind it are. The executive summary gives an overview of what the Law Commission examined and the full report, which you should read to fully understand the reasoning behind the Commission's recommendations, is available in PDF.
You have several good points Dean, and the resumption of marriage as a commitment is important. But denying gay marriage doesn't help with that, and allowing gay marriage wouldn't, by itself, make marriage any less stable. And marriage isn't about the children, it's about stable relationships. One of the things stable relationships help is children, but they also make the people in them happier and healthier on average.
Society is built on people and relationships between people. Stable and healthy relationships make for a more stable and happy society, and I think it is the height of insanity for us to deny that stabilty to gays because it hurts all of us.
Not only is it more fair to allow them to formalize their relationships, but I see it as good for us as well.
On No-fault divorce:
If two people are unable to continue to live in the same house without screaming at eachother then they should get divorced. Even if neither of them have broken the marriage contract they should be able to disolve it. Even with children... growing up in a familiy where your parent's cannot be civil is not conducive to a healthy childhood. I don't think no-fault divorce should be easy, and it should never be one sided, but it needs to be arround, because it's important not to get people stuck in marriages that are not just loveless, but hate-filled.
Dean, you say that "a lot" of gays are having children. I wonder how many this is, if 1-3 percent of the population is homosexual? or do we *think* there are "lots" of them because there have been a few high profile cases?
I don't know. But I would guess that the actual numbers are relatively small.
Darn you, Dean.
I'd come to virtually the same conclusions you have, and now an essay would be virtually superflous (not that I might not write one anyway :) ). One quibble, which has already been mentioned above: I think the term 'marriage' should be reserved for heterosexual lifetime unions like it has been for thousands of years, and made a lot stricter (bans on no-fault divorces, etc.) And if a couple in a civil union has (or adopts) children, that union should be indissolvable until the children are 18 (except for the obvious like abandonment, infidelity, etc.)
Great post.
I think the point is that "marriage" is really two things: it is a set of civil contracts and state benefits accrusing to a pair of unrelated adults that has no connection to procreation and it is a partnership that is dedicated to the raising of children, often with religious connotations.
I don't see how allowing any two gayt people in a committed relationship to have equal access to the benefits the state provides any man and woman threatens ANYONE'S marriage. Call it a civil union, but it really is an equal protection issue. I think it can be argued that the state has an interest in promoting stable relationsips for the good of society and not limited to children.
If the state's only interest is in supporting families, then restrict marriage to those who have children. and force everyone else to give up all those benefits. (Although what will you do with committed gay couples raising children? Are they not a family entitled to the same civil protections?)
Many societies separate the civil part of the contract from the religious part that is invoked by "marriage" and maybe we need to do that as well.
Although everyone points at the "radical homosexual agenda", the minority of gays who make up that media presence actually don't want to be married. The ones who do are the one's you've never noticed because they don't wear leathers and they have normal haircuts. You know, the nice couple with kids down the street who pay taxes and mow the lawn on saturdays....
And as for why they don't step out and yell at the radical agenda like Muslims against the Taliban--well, it's because who you sleep with is no more defining of a community than what color your eyes are.
Yeah, what Ida said.
But the gay couple's freedom ENDS where mine begins, and even though they are equal under the law, they are NOT equal in HOW they determine that freedom. Forcing me to agree that they have equal claim to the concept of marriage, a unique human feature, only serves to degrade my ability to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
This I just cannot wrap my brain around. I have looked at it over and over and I truly cannot understand how that works.
Straight couples get married for all sorts of reasons (e.g. my cousin married a guy at the courthouse just so she wouldn't have to testify against him even though he set her house on fire). Doesn't it make sense that gay couples would have a variety reasons for getting married also?
If people have issues with the things that people can get away with under the current marriage laws, then that's a separate issue.
I'd like to see legal "marriage" scrapped and have "civil unions" take their place. For everybody. Maybe it needs to be a several step process.
I'll just toss in some totally anecdotal evidence about children raised by gay parents. A dear friend of mine for many years was raised by her mother and her girlfriend. They've been stable and monogamous for years. She is one of the happiest people I know, and isn't herself a lesbian of any sort.
Dean,
You know when you take a multiple choice test and you check the right answer first, then doubt yourself, then go back and change your answer?
Your original answer, or in this case, your original instinct was right, but you went ahead and talked yourself out of the right answer. I think this is what's happened to you on this question.
Just my thought. It's the people who think they have all the answers that scare me the most.
Tim the Soldier
Yeah, you're probably right, Tim.
The simple fact remains, like Mrs. du Toit said in her post, that the effects of legalizing gay "marriages" (or civil unions or whatever) are unknown. As a conservative, I am forced to err on the side of caution here. When the effects or consequences of an action are unknown, and possibly negative, I consider it unwise to take that action.
Also a point to note, MdT mentioned on her site that divorce figures are not somewhat misleading. While half of the marriages in the US end in divorce, most of the marriages are between people who have each been divorced more than once. Thus they skew the numbers. So conventional marriages are more stable than is generally believed. Gay men "marrying" each other could do real harm to the idea of marriage as a commitment in the US, since most studies say that male homosexual relationships tend to be brief, and often end due to infidelity.
In an ideal world, I would be all for gay "marriages". (I use the "scare quotes" because the term marriage refers to a man and a woman in wedlock, and I feel a new term is needed for the homosexual equivalent.) In an ideal world Saddam Hussein would not have ruled Iraq for close to 30 years, the Communists would not have killed tens of Millions of people, and the French would be polite. Unfortunately, our world is far from ideal, and the unintended consequences of gay "marriage" on our society could be profound.
I disagree with the whole concept of gay marriage for the simple fact that gay men are pedophiles at a far, far higher rate per capita than heterosexual men. Is it any wonder that gays desire to be scoutmasters? If I were single, I'd dearly love to join the girl scouts as a leader and go camping in the woods with a bunch of young girls just discovering their sexuality. Don't you think gays that are pedophiles, if allowed to marry, would be eagerly adopting little male children as sex slaves? It is a fact that many gays were abused as children by other, older gay men. Granting the male gay population legitimacy by allowing them to marry is to disregard their tendency to be pedophiles. For further reading about pedophile gays I recommend "Gays Abuse Kids" by Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council.
Dean I also disagree that gays are as huge a segment of the population as you claim they are. But even if 90% of all men were gay, I'd hate to see them allowed to marry and adopt. I feel this way "for the children".
"Your original answer, or in this case, your original instinct was right, but you went ahead and talked yourself out of the right answer. I think this is what's happened to you on this question."
If this is true, then there must be a serious error in his reasoning. As this is not a timed test, there is no reason not to keep looking harder at the question.
Of course, I never cared for that line of "reasoning" anyway (note the irony). What about the times where you started with the wrong answer, and 'talked yourself' into the right one? Or are your original insincts always right?
Sorry, but that kind of thinking really makes me cringe.
Btw, great article. I can't believe I'm bookmarking a professed liberal as a weekly read...I'm really quite happy about it.
If I were single, I'd dearly love to join the girl scouts as a leader and go camping in the woods with a bunch of young girls just discovering their sexuality
Have you told told your wife this?
Is it any wonder that gays desire to be scoutmasters? If I were single, I'd dearly love to join the girl scouts as a leader and go camping in the woods with a bunch of young girls just discovering their sexuality ... Don't you think gays that are pedophiles, if allowed to marry, would be eagerly adopting little male children as sex slaves?
Translation:
"Marriage is the only thing that keeps me from molesting girl scouts. But if we give marriage to gays, all those gay pedophiles will start molesting children!"
This digusting argument isn't even internally consistent.
I like your views on eliminating no-fault divorce. No-fault and the ever popular "irreconcivable differences" make it way too easy to dissolve a marriage. Another thing that would have to change is the automatic "The woman gets the kids" reaction the law has to divorce today. A man has to almost prove his soon to be ex-spouse is the anti-christ, and spend all the wages he earns in a year, to even have a 50% chance of getting child custody. Gay marriage would force the courts to actually make an effort to find out which parents would be better having custody instead of rubber stamping each case.
Couldn't agree more with Dean's proposal. If you're going to tinker with marriage at all, it should be to strengthen it. No-fault divorce has been disastrous for children.
By the same token, I agree with Dean that gay couples are going to have children, like it or not, and should have a similar societal sanction to that relationship -- for the sake of the chiiiillllldddrrrrruuuuunnnnnnn. But no flitting in and out, which I think would discourage the majority of gay men, while giving sanction to those couples whose relationships merit it.
Kingslasher, you really DO have some problems here...
First of all, gays are not pedophiles. Gay means sexually attracted to same sex ADULTS, just as straight means sexually attracted to opposite sex ADULTS.
Pedophiles are sexually attracted to CHILDREN, often not caring about the child's gender. This is NOT adult sexuality, either gay or straight.
Gays are just as revolted by pedophilia as straights are.
Dean, you are wrestling with issues from a good heart. I don't always agree with you, but you are thoughtful and you listen.
marriage, or union, call it what you will--promotes stability and hope for socieity.
My biggest fear is that my life-partner and I will be traveling, get in an accident, and I won't be able to make medical decisions for her because we aren't considered "married". Or that if something happened to me, she wouldn't be eligible for my pension. Or that she can't get health insurance as my partner--because even the few employer domestic partner plans treat the insurance as taxable benefit, unlike spousal plans. I don't love her any less or with any less commitment than my straight friends love their spouses. I will spend my life with her regardless of these issues. But they make our lives more difficult.
If you want to talk about cheapening marriage, talk about "I married a millionaire" or spur of the moment vegas weddings. But do NOT tell me that my deep and abiding love threatens anyone. Marriage/civil unions and their benefits are not a finite pot. You don't get less just because I get to participate as well. So what's the problem?
First of all, gays are not pedophiles. Gay means sexually attracted to same sex ADULTS, just as straight means sexually attracted to opposite sex ADULTS.
All gays? No. But there's a signifigant portion of the gay males who *are*. The mainstream gay groups refuse to denounce NAMBLA - why?.
That's often the case that's said, but the actions of gay men - by no means all - but certainly some - and supported by more who denounce them - show that this *is* a problem.
Gays are just as revolted by pedophilia as straights are.
Not in my experience. Lesbians I've known have without exception, been violently against the pederasts, but among gay men, that percentance is MUCH smaller. Often (think Andrew Sullivan, for an apparently good example), the strong support *for* NAMBLA and such is ignored.
As to the "equal" issue.. When it comes to using that as a baseline.. How then do you promote denying polyspousal marriage? After all, if its a stable home, then that's what they're after, right? Who are we to decide that 1 man and 20 women is so wrong? (Heck, its certainly got a lot of historical support)
Addison
Good job, Dean. What I liked most is that you stated your initial reaction to the topic and then you though through the issue carefully, which allowed you to see both sides and perhaps change your original assessment. Well reasoned and logical. Also, your mention of the all-or-nothing mentality of people on both sides is dead on.
Excellent work, and well said.
I hold no personal grudge against homosexuals. Some of my friends are gay - not to mention my own brother.
But, please, step into the WAYBACK machine with me - say 200 years, give or take - to the founding of this country. This country was founded and our original laws were based predominantly on the moral values set forth by Christianity. I am in no way intending to be a bible-thumper here. And no, I'm not a member of the so-called "religious right". Just trying to provide input from a different angle.
--end time-machine trip--
Marriage is and always has been a religious institution intended to be blessed by the church in accordance with their teachings. Not necessarily Christian, mind you, but religious nonetheless. One can easily deduce that the government saw this as a positive for society, considering the Christian foundations upon which this country was built. Therefore, the government provided protections for this relationship - a monogomous, heterosexual union. The government merely protected what it saw as a beneficial to the whole of the country.
Given, many heterosexuals will still marry for the monetary benefits, and this goes dead against the true foundations of marriage. Marriage and money should never be placed in the same shopping cart (ouch...that will sit well with the gold-diggers). It must be obvious that money-marriages have contributed heavily to an increased divorce rate (while increasing the sales figures of the tabloids).
Homosexual marriage would do absolutely nothing beneficial for society, especially one rooted in a religious background.
--Stable relationships? Ya don't need a piece of paper (read: marriage certificate) to provide that.
--Adopt children? I can tell you that I would not want to undergo the brutality of social life as a child of homosexual parents. Yes, there will be some that come out of those homes without a mental "scratch", but what about the others? We never seem to hear about them. While I'm NOT bible-thumping, let me remind you that one of the Ten Commandments does NOT say "Honor thy father and thy father".
Homosexuality defies the teachings of Christianity, our country's basis, and allowing homosexual "marriage" will do nothing except satisfy the entitlement cravings of a loud, frenzied minority [...and cram another spoonful of Liberal "tolerance" down our throats].
I have good gay friends. They have been in relationship for over 14 years. They have solid social and personal values and principles. They may have been Republicans, if it was not for the conservatives' stand on gay marriages.
Why can't they marry? Why can't their relationship be formalized and recognized by the state if that is what they wish? They already demonstrated commitment to one another far beyond what what is typical for many straight couples.
I am not speaking about church marriages here, that is different topic and matter for individual Churches to decide.
"...considering the Christian foundations upon which this country was built."
Where's the part that decimating the native inhabitants of the land? Jesus would have loved the genocide that this "Christian" nation was founded upon.
You've got to remember that for the most part, the Anglican Church (and its subsequent offspring) was founded because one guy wanted to divorce his wife. Divorce is perhaps the most clear taboo that Christ spoke about yet we don't hear protestants (or Catholics for that matter) trying to create an amendment to ban divorce. Please tell me if I'm wrong about the fact that Jesus spoke clearly against divorce, I'd like to hear the rationale that it is a lesser social evil than homosexuality...at least according to what we know Jesus spoke about.
Fact is, organized religion is about social control. People don't like the idea of same-sex marriage - God says it's wrong.
I'll paraphrase Thomas Jefferson - "I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming quality."
Dean,
I'm angry about this whole thing...the friggin Christian hypocrisy...You know, if Christians would follow the actual teachings of Christ instead of the teachings of the goddamn church...I don't know, maybe things would be a little better for everyone.
Tim the Soldier
"The Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
- George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11 (1797)
Kingslasher (who cites the Family Research Council as an authority -- it has as much to do with research as the Institute for Historical Review has to do with historical review) disagrees with Dean that homosexuals "are as huge a segment of the population as you claim they are". This is, of course, the familiar refrain "these degenerates are only 1% of the population -- and yet they control Hollywood, the media, the universities, the banks, etc., and they are out to corrupt your children." Now, where have we heard that before?
'This country was founded and our original laws were based predominantly on the moral values set forth by Christianity' - SuperToad
That statement IS true. The United States was built on Western values derived from Judeo-Christian teachings. Much of British Common Law, from which ours is descended, is based on the morals of the period.
Tim, the 'decimating' of the Native American culture was predominatly done by disease. I do not recall the Pilgrims (Or French, or Spanish) having sealed Hazmats suits with them, much less any kind of understanding of how diseases are spread. Much of the rest of the damage was done by Native Americans to one another. They used to the new tools and materials the Europeans brought to kill on another. None of the Native Americans were the 'Great Noble Savage' of the Romantic period. They fought bloody wars over land, slaves and dominion, just like every other group of humans on Earth. Their technology base was simply lower.
For the record, I am not a christian, of any stripe. However, whatever complaints you may have with WESTERN CIVILIZATION, it is far, Far, FAR better than anything that came before it. I, personally, am unwilling to throw the baby out the bathwater, and abandon the social and moral values which are at the center of WESTERN CIVILIZATION. Tim, ask yourself this, could you even have this discussion in Saudi Arabia, Sub-Saharan Africa, or Cuba?
And Tim, those Eeeeevvvvviiiilllll Christians did NOT invent slavery, or even buy most of the African slaves, but they well and truly KILLED slavery as a world-wide trade and cultural norm. The ardent Christians (mostly Methodists and Quakers) in early 19th Century England actually united sufficently behind the abolition of slavery as a political force, that the British Empire not only banned slavery, but began to seize ships on the open sea suspected of carrying slaves. The placed embargoes, or even fired upon, cities and nations that sold or bought slaves. In less than 50 years the Brits essentially destroyed the slave trade, worldwide. Because a bunch of Christians told them too, or face a social revolt at home.
Are Christians perfect, Tim? Nope, not by a long shot. However their track record is FAR better than many religions'.
Mr. Anderson, I have not heard anybody compare homosexuals to Jewish people, much less suggest that they be rounded up, forced from their businesses, forced to identify themselves, or be exterminated. The people I have seen in here that disagree with your view simply see homosexual "marriage" as preferential treatment for a certain minority. They are asking for a "right" that no one else has.
Heterosexuals don't have the right to marry?? That's news to me! I thought my parents were married!
I was not attacking Mr. Esmay, who I respect, or even necessarily Mr. Noonan, but this Kingslasher (with whom you choose to identify) who cites the Family Research Council as an authority to be believed. And _his_ arguments _do_ indeed fit the pattern. Compare:
http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/hatespeech/hitler.html
It _can_ happen here. It _did_ happen here. John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner _were_ seized from their bed in the middle of the night and hauled away to jail in their underwear.
Only in the last few of these dozens of mostly intelligent replies has the idea of religious-based marriage been aired. Dean, you introduced the concept, but then ignored that thread in your essay.
Something wonderful and great may come out of this debate, and the effect has nothing to do with the actual resolution of the gay marriage debate. It is simply that Americans will begin to realize that they have been living a lie since George Washington, as quoted above.
The Judeo-Christian religious conglomerate HAS PLAYED AN ESSENTIAL PART IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS NATION. It can't be denied. The concept of Christian marriage is the perfect example of the fact that THE UNITED STATES IS A RELIGIOUS REPUBLIC. A more specific example is the judge in either AL or MS that refuses to divest his courthouse lobby of the very religious presentation of the Ten Commandments, and the fact that he is still a sitting judge, and not rotting in the calaboose.
A small but important change needs to be made to the Constitution of the United States to end the two-centuries-old lie that it is interpreted to contain. This Union is a Judeo-Christian Republic, and it's guiding document should say so.
The religious status of our lives need not be regulated by the change, as few would want to REQUIRE religion of the citizens, and certainly the majority doesn't want to establish the Judeo-Christian conglomerate as THE religion, but the simple fact remains that our lives are totally based on the concepts of that religion, and that fact should be recognized.
Such a statement would end the witch-hunts of the ACLU over religious symbols at holiday times, and it would give the impetus for the establishment of a proper code of marriage as defined in the posts above.
When the Reverends, Rabbis and Priests finally concluded their convention and presented the change for ratification, they probably would have decided the above debate on gay marriage as well.
Some position for an agnostic, eh? As I pass six decades of life, having read millions of words on the state and fate of our nation, and having written quite a few myself, I have come to the simple conclusion that Americans can no longer ignore their heritage. They must encode it.
George Schneider
I agree! We are a Judeo-Christian nation, or, rather, we will be once the Constitution has been changed as you suggested. We must therefore insert the following verses from the Bible into the Constitution as guidelines for our behavior: 2 Kings 2:23-24 (for Jews), and Mark 16:18 (for Christians).
Each time I read this piece I get angrier. You close out by saying that gay and lesbian Americans shouldn't be allowed to marry because perhaps they won't appreciate the gravity of the commitment in the way you think they should. At the same time, straight people are currently getting married for whatever reasons they choose, and divorcing just as easily. To deny a public institution to citizens of the United States based on your fear that they might not value that institution according to your standards is unsupportable. That isn't happening today with heterosexuals. How can you hold us to a higher standard than you yourselves are held to?
Easy answer: because you can. You can sit around and philosophize about the fate of people you don't know, in the full knowledge that in the current system you are the gatekeeper of their rights. Put a fresh coat of paint on it and talk about benefits to society, but when it comes down to it, it's so very easy for you to calmly ponder the value of my citizenship when you have nothing to lose one way or the other.
I am profoundly unmoved by your thoughtful presumption.
Short version: you're some guy with a site.
Yo John,
Pot, kettle, black. Obviously Dean is a guy with a site that hit a nerve in your elbow.
That said, I think you are making a valid point about how heterosexuals in the US have devalued the idea and ideal of marriage. They have indeed.
So let's broaden our horizons and take a look at societies where there is a high marriage participation rate and low divorce rates, and see if we can learn something from them. What you'll find is an emphasis on children, continuity, tradition, and putting others before your own selfish desires.
Strengthening heterosexual marriage does not entail allowing "gay marriage."
Dean,
Regarding gays having children, they can't have children without engaging in some form of heterosexual contact, even if mechanically and third hand. At some point, a sperm has got to hits an egg. Sorry to tell you this John, but it takes a male and a female to make a life, and yeah, that is why no matter what happens legally, I for one will never think of gay relationships as equal to straight ones.
Parents who breed babies with the intention of raising that baby in a family w/out the parent of the opposite gender are, in my opinion, engaging in a form of emotional brutality towards that child. To raise a child on purpose to be motherless, or fatherless, is sheer abuse.
Last but not least, I think AIDodoge is making a good point about differentiating between marriages w/children & those w/out. We may have to create two totally different forms of legal marriage based upon the distinction of with children and without.
If you open the door to valuing certain marriages over others (according to, say, whether or not they have children), then you open the door to further qualifications of marriage (say, how many children they have or whether they are sexually active or whether they use contraception or whether they instill "traditional" values in those children). If you make the State the arbiter of what is or is not a "valid" marriage (for instance, are a celibate man and a celibate woman married, if they never physically consummate their relationship?), then you create a slippery slope in favor of State interference in family life. Knowing what we know about the State, historically, given them some power and they will take more power, and before you know it we'll have a "Christian Marriage Amendment" to the Constitution, as well as an "Fruitful Multiplication Amendment" and a "Bloody Bridal Sheet Amendment".
If you allow your *personal feelings*, i.e., my relationship is less valuable -- objectively -- than yours, to entitle you to using the State's power to deny me certain societal benefits, then may you never live to feel the edge of the sword you're grasping. This is a foolish argument, made by entitled persons who would deny the rights of others simply because "good taste" demands it. Fools.
My criticism of Esmay on being "just a guy with a site" is based on the fact that he isn't gay. What does he care if I'm denied marriage, as long as it's available to him? He has no personal stake in the argument, just a philosophical stake -- and abstracting philosophy from concrete reality is the kind of mental masturbation that results in systems like Communism and other statist perversions.
An interesting observation, having read most of this comment thread, is that "traditionalists" on the marriage issue are essentially saying, "I'm not saying that our nation is bound to honor our Judeo-Christian roots -- I'm just saying that we have to honor our Judeo-Christian roots!" They don't want to go so far as to encode Christianity into the Constitution, as long as the end result is the same. This is only a position that can be held by someone -- as a serious argument, at least -- who lies in a comfortable majority.