A small comment in one of his posts yesterday finally sent me off the edge. But let me back up a bit - I believe most people who are uneasy about gay marriage are not so because they are hateful bigots, but because they are looking back over forty years of trends in marriage, divorce, and sexual behavior that (righly) disturb them - serial marriage, high divorce rates, contempt for concepts of duty and loyalty toward spouse and family, the view that children's lives are secondary in importance to the ever-shifting desires of adults. They see the push for gay marriage not as a separate argument revolving around fairness and justice, but as an extension of those deplorable trends - and they are encouraged in that perception by many of ssm's proponents, who do make the argument in those terms. Sullivan most prominent among them, and most egregiously on Sunday last. He starts off by quoting the odious Santorum, with the assumption that we're all going to be appalled by another odious Santorum-ism: "Marriage is not about affirming somebody's love for somebody else. It's about uniting together to be open to children, to further civilization in our society."
This strikes Sullivan as patently outrageous. The problem is, the odious Santorum is essentially right about this. As state and society we don't poke our noses into people's reproductive plans or fertility status before they marry, but this (quite proper) delicacy and respect for privacy cannot negate the fact that societies institute marriage because of the existence of children. If children did not exist, we would not be arguing this issue at all, for an institution of marriage would never have arisen to fulfill a non-existent need. But children do exist, and marriage exists to look after them, and the fact that not all couples produce children does not change its fundamental purpose as a mechanism by which couples submit to the claims of the past and the future on their behavior. Note that this does not necessarily exclude gays and lesbians from marriage any more than it excludes childless couples - it can be argued that any couple willing to submit to the rules and form a stable social unit contributes in its own way to the stability of that necessary institution and does its part to "further civilization". But nobody who is going to petulantly brush aside the issue of children in marriage as irrelvant, when in fact they are fundamental, is going to gain any sympathy from people, anti- or fence-sitters, who deplore current attitudes toward marriage. (Instead of arguing at length around the sterility or impotence of privileged heterosexuals, the allegedly conservative Sullivan ought to be putting more effort into persuading people that gay and lesbian couples are as likely to make solid parents as straights are.)
Marriage is not "about affirming somebody's love for somebody else". What is this, freakin' 1972? Apparently. Sullivan's statement that compelled a click on "new entry":
I hope this view of Santorum's gets a wider hearing. Memo to all you straight married couples out there who view your marriage as fundamentally about love.
I have this fantasy world of Moira's Ideal Fascist State - that is, a world where everything is arranged according to my lights of what is sensible and proper. Traditional views of the social importance of marriage and marital stability prevail, but marriage is open to gays and straights. The catch is that all couples must get my permission to marry, coming before me to plead their case while I sit Mr. Burns-like behind my Mr. Burns-like desk, with that little lever to the side that permits me to spring a trap-door and send petitioners down into the dungeon, or the corpse-hole, or wherever it is they go.
So, the couple comes before me and I ask a single question: "What is the purpose of marriage?" If, gay or straight, they start twittering "Oh, it's all about whether two people wuuuuuuv one another..." or the like, well, fwomp......fwack!...
No, twits. When I've been in relationships that were all about whether I and a man loved each other, I called them "love affairs", with no public affirmation necessary because it was none of the public's business. The lover became a wife when I married - that is, when I was willing to enter into a state that is, unlike the former love affair, not fundamentally about being in love, and to submit to claims on my person that could possibly, some time in the future, directly conflict with my desires and preferences. In other words, affirmed a fundamental thing beyond my personal feelings that is, as a matter of fact, the public's business.
I am certainly old-fashioned enough to be leery of any view that makes private feeling an argument for public policy - that part of marriage really is private, and not a concern of marriage as a social institution. Thus I find arguments for ssm that consist of examples contrasting the noble loyalty of member of a gay couple with the selfishness of some heterosexual jerk to be wrong-headed and finally downright creepy: does state or society have a claim on regulating or sanctioning your private feelings of sexual love, or, worse yet, your friendships? Enduring loyal friendship is profoundly admirable and desirable, but it is not marriage. I'd admit no claim of state or society on my friendships, nor on any love affair, meaningful as it may be, that produced no children and did not negatively affect the stability of an already existing marriage - because state and society do have a claim on me, not as a friend or a lover, but as a married woman.
As for the arguments that straights have pretty much already hosed the traditional institution of marriage, I can only say that people who are not happy about current law and attitudes are not going to be impressed by a "let's have more of the same for everybody" approach. Donald Sensing has a post and discussion regarding this point.
UPDATE: OK, Mr. Sensing's anchor links are hosed. Scroll down to "Gay marriages? Look at divorce laws first." (8/2/2003 10:30:21 AM)
I think you lay out an underlying purpose -- children -- for marriage nicely. Given that gay couples can adopt and raise good and happy children -- I'll assert from observation -- I see no obstacle here to homosexual marriage. Sullivan at least touches on this in the course of getting mad about the Vatican claiming such children are harmed.
I do think, though, that the "death do us part" words suggest there is a childless aspect to the promise of marriage: that you'll stick by eachother, regardless of children. Again, this level of commitment is attained by some homosexual couples, just as it is not attained by some heterosexual ones. It carries with it meaningful social privileges and expectations, and I think homosexual couples are entitled to the chance to live up to those responsibilities and enjoy those privileges. (And I'm not saying you don't.)
I think the "nobly loyal homosexual couple" vs "selfish heterosexual couple" stuff comes up just because the stereotype about homosexuals can be the opposite, and the similar behaviors by heterosexuals can be overlooked.
It may be that all amounts to "more of the same for everybody," but I don't see why homosexual couples should be prevented from failing at marriage by simply forbidding the attempt.
I hope I've remained somewhat on your points. I suppose Sullivan doesn't make the full spectrum of the pro-"ssm" argument in each post, but he gets around to some of the points you've made eventually. Maybe the
[[["Captain, we've definitely entered an alternative universe: sensors indicate Thomas Nephew has sided with Andrew Sullivan regarding a comment by Moira Breen." "Run a level 4 diagnostic." "Aye aye sir... sensors are nominal, sir." "Ready room, everyone!"]]]
Posted by: Thomas Nephew on August 04, 2003
You would be on firmer ground here if civil marriage did not give a spouse legal privileges and duties with respect to one another, but only with respect to the children---say, if spouses did not automatically inherit from one another, or were not responsible for one another's debts, or were not given authority to make decisions for an incapacitated spouse.
But it does.
Now, you could institute a kind of contract that would give gay couples (and others) those kinds of privileges and responsibilities, without reference to children. But it would be so similar to marriage, in all other ways, that it seems pointless to give it another name.
(Actually, in Australia they had a thing called "de facto" marriage. The requirements were usually less stringent than those for common-law marriages in US states that have them, and you actually have to register for it. I'm not sure how it's legally different from regular marriage, except that it's easier to get out of.)
By the way, if I had come before you asking to get married, you'd have had to spring the trap door, because I have never wanted children, and would not have thought of them when asked the purpose of marriage.
Posted by: Angie Schultz on August 05, 2003
Sure I realize the stuff about survivorship, etc., Angie. I think for most people (me included) that's the strongest argument for ssm rights - it's unarguably unjust that only straights can claim such benefits. But that system of benefits was originally predicated on the existence of wage earners' vulnerable dependents - wives and children - not on tribute owed to Cupid. I'm not arguing that we have to continue to view benefits in terms of tradtional marriage - but I assume society privileges and subsidizes marriage for a reason, and it ain't twue wuv. (As an entirely separate issue, I've always wondered how it came to be that employers got stuck subsidizing their employees' dependents well beyond wages, and I do think it's interesting to ponder how it came to be and how this all ends up - in the economic sense.)
By the way, you misundertand the corpse-hole rules. You don't have to have any intention to reproduce to marry in Moira's IFS. You just have to give some indication you understand that a love affair is a different thing than a marriage.
Posted by: Moira on August 05, 2003
Thomas - I think we're pretty much in agreement on most things. But I don't think I've been clear on one point: to say that the form of marriage arises from and must be structured around the needs of children (which I do say) is not to say that childless people can't participate. You just can't dick around with it to the extent that its form is contrary to the interests of children. That in itself is not, by my lights, a good argument against gay marriage.
The problem of "more of the same for everybody" is that it puts the argument for ssm, as I said, exactly where it's most likely to arouse the most resistance. Sure it's fair - but it ain't gonna fly with people who aren't persuaded that gay marriage activists just want a purchase on traditional family life.
Addendum: oh, and think "'til death do us part" is more about property and family structure than affection - "institutionally" speaking, that is. Grandparents aren't redundant among humans.
I'm certainly not dissing or dismissing the enduring love and affection we admire and seek in marriage, but that's not why we make a public to-do about it.
Posted by: Moira on August 05, 2003