Bravo, Futile Gesture.
Well said.
Okay, I’ll take a stab at a non-religious argument against gay marriage. Ahem… mi mi miiiiii… Okay, here goes:
Most non-big-L-libertarian types will concede that the government has a vested interest in promoting certain types of activities that are, generally speaking, beneficial to society. These promotions can take a variety of forms, from putting out commercials urging kids to Say No To Drugs, to offering tax breaks for small businesses to encourage entrepeneurship, and so on. Some of these efforts involve financial incentives, some don’t. Government promotion of useful ideals only goes so far, though. There must also be a general social acceptance and promotion of an ideal if it is to be maintained. Prohibition was an abject failure in large part because liquor consumption was not socially unacceptable. Government can ban or discourage something all they want, but if the people don’t bite, it’s going to be an uphill climb, and a futile one at that.
Marriage is an extremely useful social tool, primarily because of the benefits it grants to the family structure. Despite all of our enlightenments and “progress” and whatnot, traditional man-woman couples, generally speaking, still make the best set of grown-ups when it comes to raising kids. Yes, better than single parents. Yes, better than same-sex parents. Of course this doesn’t mean that every man-woman couple makes a better parenting unit than every same-sex couple, or every single parent, but it’s a definite trend. Men and women each bring different strengths to the parenting table, and a child benefits most when presented with all of these strengths. This isn’t to say that same-sex couples or single folks shouldn’t be allowed to have kids. But it does mean that the government has a vested interest in encouraging the flourishing of traditional families.
One thing essential to the idea of the traditional family is the idea of monogamy. Open relationships tend not to last as long as monogamous ones, even when those involved are absolutely certain that they’re mature and open-minded enough to handle them. Jealousy frequently rears its ugly head, and makes such arrangements unteneble. Again, this isn’t an absolute, merely a trend. If you throw kids into the equation, monogamy becomes increasingly important - polygamous relationships increase the likelihood of the parents breaking up, and that increases the likelihood of an unstable parental environment.
So according to the above, the government has an interest in promoting parenting units that both consist of a man and a woman, and are monogamous. This interest is derived from the fact that such an arrangement is the best environment in which to raise a child, and raising children in healthy environments has all sorts of happy side effects, including lower crime rates, lower poverty, and, of course, happier children.
So how does the idea of same-sex marriage undermine this structure? Well, for one thing, it undoes the idea that a man and woman getting together to raise a family is anything uniquely special. But most importantly, it in part legitimizes the ideal of monogamy. Gay couples, on average, are three times as likely to be unfaithful as straight couples. A common argument for gay marriage is that marriage will somehow force these men into being faithful, but that’s doubtful, given that gay men are far less likely to be monogamous than unmarried straight couples, as well.
More likely is that the lack of monogamy inherent in gay relationships will cross over into marriage in general. Infidelity will be seen as the “enlightened” state of being, with stuffy monogamous couples being implictly encouraged to shed their shackles and try out polygamy, for a change. With infidelity already far less of a stigma now than it used to be, this doesn’t seem too far of a stretch.
There’s also the possibility of a slippery-slope into polygamous marriage. How hard is to imagine a lesbian couple using a mutual friend to father a child, then wanting to include the father as part of the family proper? And since marriage is no longer an exclusive one-man-one-woman entity, why not expand marriage to include this new type of family? I mean, shouldn’t this “family” be granted legal recognition? I’m curious to hear an argument for same-sex marriage that doesn’t also apply to polygamous marriage.
Of course, nothing here excludes gays from living together, or even from holding religious ceremonies in order to marry in a non-legal sense. And I would support civil unions that grant most or all of the benefits of marriage, as long as they are not actually called marriages. But I strongly feel that it’s in the best interests of our society to preserves the traditional notion of marriage, and continue to push that as the preferred way of raising a family.
There’s a lot more I could say, but this post is already way too long, so I’ll end it here for now.
Jeff
Nice try, but I’ve got a few counter points.
First of all, given how prevalent divorce has become in this country, I’d argue that marriage as a lifetime monogamous commitment is already in bad shape from heterosexuals. To throw out one example off the top of my head, one of the stock sources of jokes in Frasier was Niles’ adulterous lusting after a woman other than his wife.
Second, I’m a straight woman who has never planned on having kids, nor do I intend to. This is due not only to a lack of opportunity, but due to a suspicion that given my mental quirks, I would not be a good parent. I haven’t married yet. Since I have no intention of having or raising children, is it therefore in the state’s best interest to keep me from every marrying? Since my moral standards forbid sex outside of a committed relationship of some kind, are you therefore willing to condemn me to a life of celibacy? That’s more or less what forbidding me to marry would amount to.
Because there is no homosexual equivalent of marriage in the United States, technically a homosexual’s long term partner has no more relationship with him in the eyes of the law than an acquaintance. This includes no right to visit him in the hospital if only family are allowed. I’m told that in one notorious case which led to Vermont’s changing its law, after a man died and was buried, his family had the his body buried in a new location without telling his partner. His partner had no recourse under law to find out where he was buried. How can this be just?
CJ
So, the gay couples who are eager to adopt all the children out there who need parents desperately don’t need the legal protections, including custodial rights, that straight people do because straight people are statistically more likely to become better parents? If I gave you a set of statistics that said that people with green eyes make the best parents, ever, bar none, would that mean that all other marriages don’t need legal status? It’s an interesting philosophy…
So?
Are you citing a report that compares the monogamy of married straight couples to the monogamy of all gay couples? Without legal status, gay couples all look the same; the ones that are really, truly committed are in the same statistical block as the ones who declare themselves in a relationship which will disintegrate after two weeks. I’d be impressed if you could show me a study which compared the monogamy of all straight couples, regardless of marital status, to that of all gay couples. Or one that established a baseline for commitment in order to get a realistic assessment. But I can’t think of a study that’s done that. In other words…
Cite?
Hmm. Cite?
Anything there you can prove?
It’s absurd to think that, after the intense decades of fighting for gay rights, polygamists are just going to be able to ride the gay rights movement’s coattails into legitimacy. But it’s an interesting notion… if it’s not entirely conjecture. Can you prove that this is likely to happen? It’s not hard to imagine Congress lining up to do the Macarena, either. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
Can you demonstrate any actual harm that would come from legalizing gay marriage? Because I sure can demonstrate harm from keeping it illegal. At what point does the vague possibility that gay marriage will harm our society in completely intangible ways override the actual damage that’s being done to people, legally and financially?
You’ve restated the vague notions, preconceptions, and the unsubstantiated claims that people have been using for years. But you’ve said, in effect, nothing. You’ve provided no proof. You’ve got slippery slopes, you’ve got strawmen, you’ve got unprovable statistics.
Those tactics don’t seem to be working anymore. People have developed too much compassion to swallow that kind of thinking these days. Have you got anything new?
While this is very true, I hardly see how the fact that marriage is going through a rough time right now is reason to further cripple it. Though last I checked, divorce rates were going down. It seems that some of the damage done to marriage by the sexual revolution may be healing itself.
I have a few things to say to this. First of all, there’s no guarantee that you won’t someday change your mind about raising children. I know a few of “I’ll NEVER have kids!” people who have reconsidered. Thus, I would argue to allow you to marry just on those grounds.
More importantly, though, I would let you marry just because it’s simpler, policy-wise. When we issue a tax-cut, we don’t require that everyone who’s getting money back invest it or spend it. You could stuff it in a pillow, thus doing the economy zero good, but you would still get to keep it, in part because it’s just simpler that way. The fact that some people may do things with their money that is of zero economic benefit doesn’t alter the fact that in general, tax cuts help the economy.
And lastly, if we’re trying to keep alive the idea of traditional man-woman marriage, it’s beneficial to have as many traditional man-woman married couples as possible - even if some of those couples don’t perform the intended goal of having kids and raising them in a healthy environment. The more married folks, the more marriage will become ingrained as a siginificant social institution - in turn leading to more marriages, and so on.
That’s not just at all. Which is why I support some sort of civil union that would grant certain rights to gay couples currently enjoyed by married folks. As long as it’s not called “marriage”.
Jeff
I’m curious, Jeff; why do you think that calling it marriage, or something else altogether, makes it less likely to have the effects that you assumed it would have in your earlier post? If gay marriage is such a threat to society, surely calling it something different wouldn’t neutralize the threat? When did renaming something make it any less dangerous?
You know what? I’ve been reading through wedding vows of various Christian sects, and I’ve yet to find a ceremony which includes the vow to procreate like rabbits and have a family. There’s all this “love one another” and silly things like
Which we all know those horny homosexuals just can’t work up enough devotion for. It would just completely devalue everything the sacrament says it stands for!!!
Also, ElJeffe, I believe you assume too much about homosexuality and not enough about men. Lesbian couples are more likely than either heterosexuals or homosexuals to be monogomous and faithful throughout their relationship…
Even more, lesbians are also the vast majority of those utilizing gay marriage and civil union rights where available. Would you ban a monogomous, statistically very stable couple the right to marry?
Separate but not equal.
You also want us to ride at the back of the bus, not drink from heterosexual fountains, and to make sure that your eyes aren’t sullied by seeing us holding hands?
MrVisible:
Here’s some info:
A study from the University of Vermont. It compares married hetero couples, gay couples in civil unions, and gay couples not in civil unions.
Here’s Stanley Kurtz discussing a 1999 study by Gretchen Stiers:
Hopefully that address your question.
Andrew Sullivan discusses gay marriage quite a bit in his blog (go fig), and this is a common argument of his. I’ve seen it other places in print, though I don’t have a cite at hand.
It’s impossible even to prove that the sun will rise tomorrow. Best I can do is look at trends, and make an educated guess. Do you deny that infidelity is less of a social stigma than it used to be? Do you find it unreasonable that if the institution of marriage is redefined to include a set of people for whom monogamy is much less important, this altered set of values will affect the institution as a whole? Lastly, can you provide any evidence that an inherently non-monogamous class of people are going to be somehow domesticated by the idea of marriage? You seem to claim that any promiscuity inherent in gays either doesn’t exist (for which I have provided evidence to the contrary), or if it does exist, will all vanish once men can marry other men (and only marriage will do this, it appears - civil unions haven’t seemed to do the trick).
I don’t claim it’ll happen in a weekend, but the legalization of gay marriage will give new life to the polygamy movement. Can you think of a good reason to oppose polygamy, yet support gay marriage? And again, no I can’t prove anything, until I manage to secure a working time machine. All I can do is make an educated guess, based on existing trends. Can you prove it won’t happen?
Jeff
Priam:
So because it’s not expressly written into the vows, that means it’s not a traditional part of marriage?
That’s very true. Lesbians as about as likely to be monogamous as hetero couples, because it’s the woman, not the marriage, that typically provides domestication. So shall we just allow lesbians to marry, and not gays?
And to answer your question, yes, I would deny this monogamous, statistically very stable couple the legal privalege of having one’s living status recognized and endorsed by the state.
Mockingbird:
Oh, please. A homosexual man has every right a straight man has - he can marry any consenting woman of legal age he chooses. Unless you’re arguing that his right of marrying whomever he loves is being violated, in which case you’ve just argued in favor of incestual marriage, as well.
Jeff
Isn’t it sexist to say that a man can marry woman, but a woman can’t.
It is discrimination to say that a conservative Christian definition of marriage should stand for everyone, regardless of their religion.
This is leaving aside the obvious, that this is heterosexist, and thus discriminatory.
Your argument, if applied to the old miscegenation laws, would have an equivalent – a black man have the same right: to marry a woman of their own race.
Hm. I’m a member of an inherently non-mongamous class of people.
I’m also a straight, married woman.
Hmmm.
From a Constitutional point of view, this would be perfectly allowable, though it would be a horribly vile law (much as sodomy laws should be constitutional, even if they’re awful). But you’re missing the larger point, in that the differences between a man and a woman are far larger than those between a black man and a white man. The inter-racial analogy is a poor one.
And as for the whole “sexist” angle, you’re just being silly. Is it sexist to keep men from going into ladies’ restrooms? Uh oh, alert the ACLU!
Jeff
May I ask to which inherently non-mongamous class of people you belong?
Jeff
The class of people with two life-partners.
Jeff, I’m pushing 40, as the saying goes. Given my standards for the circumstances under which I’ll have sex with a man, I’ll be over 40 by the time I give birth to a child, and that’s if the man of my dreams knocks on my door this minute. In other words, I’m at the point now where it is biologically risky to the child for me to become pregnant, as well as psychologically risky to myself. In other words, it’s inadvisable to immoral for me to become pregnant.
I do agree with this statement:
It happens to be why I would like a friend of mine who’ll be celebrating his 10th anniversary with his partner to be able to legitimately claim to be married as, say, Larry King, who is currently on his 6th wife. Admittedly, you could say Larry King has been responsible more marriages, but, if I’m ever so blessed, I’ll take quality over quantity.
By the way, why don’t I hear the “homosexual marriage is a threat to marriage” crowd talk about Mr. King or the way the media glorifies Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Taylor, etc. Ronald Reagan, a champion of family values was married twice; Newt Gingrich, I believe, is on his 3rd wife. How is it my homosexual friends who are very happy in their first and what they intend to be their only marriage are a greater threat to that institution than these folks?
CJ
IIRC, it was not so long ago that blacks were frequently described as a seperate species. I suspect the America of two hundred years ago would have seen a wider biological gulf between a black man and a white man, than between a white man and a white woman.
What will the America of two hundred years from now make of your argument?
Interesting, Jeff, but entirely sophistry. It doesn’t matter that 79 percent of men think non-monogamy is wrong, they still cheat. As do women.
Doesn’t seem that marriage has anything to do with monogamy.
So, I shouldn’t be able to marry who I want to because you and people who “think” like you don’t believe I should be able to?
The study by Stiers is totally useless from the get-go… She had to abandon protocol just so she had “enough” Gay men to fill out the surveys…
It’s also interesting that you seem to think that 20 percent of the Gay men not being monogamous is horrible, but in the University of Vermont Study 21 percent of straight men agreed with non-monogamy… Seems like there isn’t too much difference between straight men and Gay men according to your studies…
And… you seem to have left out the part of the study that showed there was NO difference in the support for monogamy between lesbians and heterosexual women… Guess that didn’t fit into what you wanted to prove?
Hmmm… trends that are quoted from the National Review might be a little biased, don’t you think?
I’m looking at the same trends and seeing that Gay people want to get married… So my guess is… no matter how many times we get told that we should shut up and accept what you’re willing to give us, we’re gonna fight til we’re equal…
I think that is totally reasonable… So I guess from today onwards, only lesbians and straight women shall be able to marry… Can’t trust men with monogamy - Gay or Straight!
And promiscuity seems to exist in straight men, so I feel that they should not be allowed to marry… From now on, they will only be allowed to have civil unions and will be given SOME of the rights of women and lesbians…
Can you think of a good reason to throw in a totally off topic subject?
I don’t have to prove anything… Gay people are getting married… Canada has changed the rules… I don’t have to make educated guesses based on trends… I can make statements based on reality…
Survivor