SSM AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS: R.K. Becker replies to Mark Miller

Mark says that I misunderstood Gabriel Rosenberg's analogy about sibling marriage and SSM. He misunderstands my argument, but that's understandable as I was quite vague. But I think he's misunderstanding Gabriel's analogy more than I am.

Here are Gabriel's words: "Permitting homosexuality does similarly affect the relationships between men (and those between women). The effect is not so significant, though, because unlike adultery and incest it's not interfering with the more important family relationships. It only affects general social relationships like business contacts". My argument is that friendships are more important social relationships than business contracts, and I think Gabriel, by not examining the effect of SSM on friendship, is leaving out a major question that might undermine his contention that the effect of SSM will not be as great as would that of sibling marriage.

For now, I'm just going to give a couple examples of what I mean. I don't think it needs to be said that to this day, it is very difficult for a married heterosexual to have a close friendship with someone else of the opposite gender without arousing strong misgivings from their spouse. With SSM causing more and more people to be open to the idea of homosexuality or bisexuality, could SSM not result in increasingly strong misgivings from heterosexuals regarding their spouses SAME-gender friendships? In other words, will husbands become increasingly jealous of their wives' (female) best friends (and wives of their husbands' male friends)? How will this affect marriages? Married people still need other friends---will this lead to an increased sense of isolation which could cause more marital tension and eventual breakup? And will children and adolescents feel less secure in their same-gender friendships, seriously damaging the "latency period" in which children need to develop their non-sexual relations? And what will be the ripple effects? Please don't respond to this question as if there was a neat dividing line between gay and straight with no degrees of bisexuality, something we all know is not true.

Mark: "I agree. SSM does change the definition of marriage and that will affect those growing up in the future".

I'm glad Mark agrees with me now. But in his earlier reply, he disputed my contention that SSM was "radical," and stated that all it did was extend marriage. To me, if it changes the definition, it's radical, if it merely extends it (as the end of anti-miscegenation laws did), it is not. So, by Mark's own words, I stand by my contention that SSM is a radical change. And the more radical (and unprescedented) a proposed change is, the more I would argue that we should not jump into the change without testing it first.
posted by Eve at 4:16 PM | link

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