CIVIL RITES: Andrew Sullivan replies to Shelby Steele

[Man, I'm slicing this like a Cuisinart. It's much longer in the original.]

...The only reason for marriage rights for homosexual citizens is the same reason for marriage rights for heterosexual citizens: that human beings are emotional and sexual beings; that they long for love and intimacy; and that marriage is the best institution to harness and channel such longings while providing a structure to include as many as possible in the civilizing and humanizing aspects of family life. There is absolutely nothing in the love that one lesbian has for another woman that is anything less in dignity or humanity than the love that a man has for a woman. If such marriage rights remove stigma, all to the good. But Steele is making too sophisticated a case. Perhaps if he imagined for a second that the government could restrict his own right to marry the person he loved, he would see why this bar is so inhuman and unequal. It stings before it even begins to stigmatize. It bars love before it bars identity. ...

There is a great deal bound up in this paragraph. So let me start with its conclusion. Steele supports civil unions that include "the legal prerogatives" of civil marriage. So in fact, he affirms the substantive case for equality in marriage rights. His objection--his only objection--is to the inclusion of such couples within the unifying institution of civil marriage. And in order to buttress this argument, he talks the talk of cultural separatism. When it comes to blacks, Steele was a pioneer for integration. When it comes to gays, he is an advocate of balkanization and separateness. He wants gays to develop their own alien culture, keep apart from straight society, nurture their differences. And then he criticizes integrationist gays for "mimicry." Does he see the irony here? A man who has bravely fought against the notion that being black should consign anyone to a path they do not choose for themselves wants to keep gays in a separate but equal category. Does he recall being told that because he believes in civil equality and transcending victimhood that he is not black enough? Yet, he is not so subtly describing gay people who wish to be a full and equal part of society as being not gay enough.

In fact, in many ways, gays are more easily integrated into the society of the other than many blacks are. The reason is that almost all gays in every generation are born into and grow up in heterosexual families. Most blacks grow up in black families. Most blacks spend their most formative years in black culture; almost all gays grow up in straight culture.

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posted by Eve at 5:50 PM | link

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