Marriage is not, as the more stereotypical lobbyists on this side of the issue maintain, merely a right to be demanded of the state, as if it were an uncomplicated benefit to be conferred: it's an understanding to accept a set of obligations that marriage entails. There are reciprocal responsibilities between the two adults who agree to marry; but there also responsibilities that that married couple undertake to the rest of us, the wider society in which the institution of marriage is established.
UPDATE: Also coming at it from the right direction, but anti-, is a long post from Noah Millman. Like Eve Tushnet, via whom I found this post, I "strongly take issue with Millman's belief that to sustain marriage as a norm, society has to view people who don't end up following that norm as 'in some sense less than whole people'" - as well as a couple of other things. (Well, I would, wouldn't I, being an odd bird who found a compatible mate only because the machinating gods twisted my life through the byzantine byways necessary to throw him unavoidably smack into my path.) But thank you, Mr. Millman, for dilating on the issue under a section labeled "Marriage is not all about love" - a point which I would think would go without saying but which is apparently completely off-radar for many people. Part of his take:
This is the unromantic perspective that marriage is made of, far more than of love, sex or romance - far more, even, than of friendship, which is a different thing; also precious, and one's wife or husband really ought to be one's friend, but not the same at all.But this is not how the advocates of gay marriage talk about marriage, and there's a reason: this is not how gays will approach marriage. (At least not gay men; it's quite possible lesbians will very closely approximate this script.) Rather, they will look at marriage as a validation of existing relationships that have stood the test of time, a wedding as, effectively, the prize for having developed a love and a friendship of enduring power and depth. This is a beautiful thing, and perhaps it deserves a wedding as its reward. But it is not a plausible route to marriage for most people.
As with everything before, the assumption that marriage is fundamentally about love (with the corollary that if love fades, presumably so should the marriage - after all, there might still be time to actualize oneself through another, yet more thrilling love!) does not originate with the campaign for gay marriage; far from it. But again, acceptance of gay marriage entails explicitly understanding marriage in this way, and therefore bars the way back to a more realistic appraisal.
UPDATE II: Comments here also of interest.
What I enjoy about this debate is the level of seriousness with which people are taking the discussion. These really are vexing questions. I long had doubts about gay marriage, and eventually came to accept it as a fair and just arrangement--although I continue to be dazzled by people who don't think it will also lead to group marriage.
Posted by: Dean Esmay on August 09, 2003
It's interesting that Noah Millman is mostly fretting about gay male marriage, and regards lesbian marriage as a possible, minor exception.
My impression is that it's mostly lesbians who actually want to get married, and that they're going to be the norm of gay marriage rather than the exception; the kind of casual gay male couple Millman is fretting about won't get married anyway. But my impression may be distorted because I know a whole lot of lesbians.
Posted by: Matt McIrvin on September 07, 2003