Gay Marriage Killed Our Family
As has been previously noted, there seems to be a small kerfluffle going on about gay marriage. The State of California is being sued by the city of San Francisco over it's law outlawing gay marriage. Massachusetts will begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses within the year. And yesterday the President of the United States weighed in, calling for a Constitutional amendment to codify marriage as a purely heterosexual union.
In all this, I think it's essential to be familiar with the arguments for and against same-sex marriage. While I'm of the opinion, previously shared, that the opponents of gay marriage are working from religiously based prejudices, they probably don't agree. Let's look at the arguments as we're likely to hear them in the coming weeks and months.
By far the most complete exposition of the "Hetero Only" argument I've found is here. I'll do my best to address what they've said here, but if you want the real unabridged version, follow the link. We'll wait.
Okay, our friends begin by outlining two broad thrusts of their argument: that homosexuals cannot marry, because marriage by definition refers to a heterosexual union, and that homosexual relationships are harmful in and of themselves.
The first argument takes roughly the following form: Marriage is a public sexual union for the purpose of producing children and creating "kinship-obligations." This definition spans cultures and eras. Homosexuality, by it's nature, is not reproductive and does not result in any blood kinship, therefore it cannot by definition partake in marriage.
This suffers from several misconceptions. First of all, it is by no means obvious that marriage is between a man and a woman and is solely or primarily for producing children and "kinship-obligations." Marriage has been many things in the past, and it's function in society varies from culture to culture even today. Some examples from our history and present day societies (rural India, for example) include its use as a political contract between families and sects or as payment of debts (with the woman as payment). Marriage hasn't even always been exclusively monogamous, either - cultures past and present have practiced various forms of polygamy. Today, as a result of the expansion and evolution of our notions of individual liberty marriage, in our society marriage is far more about the love two individuals share for each other than about specifically producing children or satisfying familial obligations. The definition of marriage presented by the folks at NoGayMarriage.com is neither universal nor is it even really the norm in our own society today. While bringing same-sex relationships into the fold may change what marriage is in America, it's hardly the first time or most radical way it has happened.
Of course, marriage is also more than merely an expression of love between two individuals. While the production of offspring has become less central to the concept of marriage over the years, marriage is still very important in the *rearing* of offspring. Marriage is by far the best method for giving children the stable and loving environment they need growing up, which NoGayMarriage.com (henceforth NGM) takes pains to point out. If homosexuals cannot reproduce, isn't a major chunk still missing from their marriages?
Anyone familiar with the state of reproductive sciene today no doubt already has several answers to this. In fact, homosexual couples already adopt or foster children all over the country. Women in lesbian relationships can become pregnant through artificial insemination. So while homosexual couples cannot reproduce by themselves, they can and do acquire children via the same methods available to infertile heterosexual couples. (This very fact has been used as an argument *for* allowing same-sex marriage, in order to extend the benefits of marriage to these non-traditional families.)
So we see that in fact same-sex relationships can and do share the same characgteristics as heterosexual relationships that we find important in our society today. Homosexual relationships are expressions of love between two individuals just as much as heterosexual relationships. Homosexual couples can and do raise children. On the issues important to our society, a hypothetical homosexual marriage differs only from a heterosexual marriage in the genders involved.
Which brings us to the second argument preseentd by NGM. Is this difference harmful? And if so, to whom? NGM claims only indirectly that homosexual marriage (or a non-married homosexual relationship) is harmful to the children of such a couple, but the argument is made often enough elsewhere that it is worth addressing here. In fact, "not a single study has found children of gay or lesbian parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents." (American Psychological Association, Lesbian And Gay Parenting: A Resource For Psychologists (1995))
NGM attempts to list ways in which homosexual marriages harm "traditional" marriages. They argue that homosexual marriage will reinforce existing trends in the deterioration of marriage: the de-stigmatization of divorce and loosening of public sexual mores including great acceptance of pornography, single parent families, and pre-marital sex. Homosexuals, they argue, are much more promiscuous than heterosexuals and are more inclined to all of the activities above.
This is perhaps the strongest argument that the opponents of same-sex marriage have, if you think these trends are a bad thing (this is a different, though related, argument and beyond the scope of this post). In fact, studies have shown that homosexuals are more promiscuous as a group than heterosexuals. Several "family values" sites have pointed to a recent study in the Netherlands that purports to show that this applies as well to homosexuals in committed relationships.
I do not have ready access to this study, but I can come up with a few possible answers to this. The first is that, because they have been pushed outside the mainstream in the first place, homosexuals likely have less incentive and less conditioning to conform to "traditional" rules of monogamy. If they are already condemned for their sexual preference, why worry about bothering to adhere to any other "traditional" strictures about sex?
Secondly, the references to the Dutch study never tell us whether homosexuals in marriages (legal in the Netherlands) have significantly less stable or less healthy unions than their heterosexual counterparts. The numbers given refer only to "steady partnerships," a phrase so vague as to be useless in this discussion.
It is not immediately obvious that homosexuals would remain significantly more promiscuous than heterosexuals if welcomed into the sexual mainstream. In fact, the institution of marriage would likely select for those homosexuals who are less promiscuous and more interested in long term, committed, monogamous relationships (as it does in the heterosexual population). NGM disagrees, but without further scientific study on the subject the argument has to end there.
The arguments presented that homosexual relationships don't need the legal protections and privileges of marriage (because these are all available individually with a little forethought) are severely undercut by NGM's subsequent insistence that "The legal and financial benefits of marriage are not an entitlement to be distributed equally to all," and "Society grants benefits to marriage because marriage has benefits for society." Saying "You don't need these rights" out of one side of your mouth and "You can't have these rights because you don't deserve them" out of the other seems a little disingenuous.
There were several other claims - that homosexual relationships provide a temptation for married heterosexuals to leave their spouses, that homosexual parents are more prone to abuse children, and that they put their children at a disadvantage whether or not they are actually abused - that are either laughable or in blatant contradiction of the studies done on the subject. As such, I won't go into depth in rebutting them here. I suggest reading the run-down the ACLU has posted on the subject (it's geared towards the question of gay adoption, but the issues are largely the same). They also have some good pointers to studies on the subject.
The claims that same-sex marriage (and relationships) harm "traditional" marriage made by our friends at NGM are fairly weak. Whether or not same-sex marriage harms other marriages or the actual participants (spouses or children) are falsifiable claims. Indeed, for the most part they have already been widely falsified. The argument against the notion that same-sex unions cannot be marriages is a bit more complicated, but - as demonstrated - ultimately wins through. Without these two arguments, opponents of same-sex marriage have only cultural inertia and prejudice on their side. Not very good company.
Posted by Palabris at February 24, 2004 11:35 PM
