DISESTABLISH MARRIAGE?: Joel Bruhn replies to Eve

I read your reply to Ryan's and my postings. You have soundly answered Ryan's arguments, but you haven't addressed mine. I never advocated disestablishing marriage--I said that we should entirely separate civil marriage from religious marriage. All
but one of your points (the exception is the second one) are irrelevant to my argument.

Your second point--that society benefits from codifying heterosexual marriage--well, I agree with you, but good luck making that argument in a secular forum. Try something just for me: go find someone with a rainbow bumber sticker on their car, and explain your point to them. Let me know how they respond.

I'm not being facetious, but acknowledging a practical reality. Gays in this country mostly do NOT agree with us here, and being citizens, taxpayers, and voters, are fully entitled to lobby accordingly. And they've been far more effective in persuading the public on this issue than have the conservatives who oppose them.

Others have correctly noted that it is mostly judges, and not voters, who have been giving gay-marriage advocates their latest victories, but I see that point as basically irrelevant here. Gay marriage has seen popular support rising steadily for many years now, and this trend isn't going to reverse. We're already past the point where a federal marriage amendment could find sufficient support to be passed, and momentum is on their side, so we'd better make a contingency plan.

Which is why I advocate separating civil marriage from religious marriage. What are your thoughts?

[Eve replies: First, I do think the rest of my post is relevant, at least in terms of laying out the stakes of our disagreement. But really I just think this is an over-dark reading of the political situation. Now is not the time to come up with "throw the supplies overboard, we're sinking!" contingency plans; now is the time to make better public arguments. I suppose I am more sanguine about the future than Joel because a) until quite recently (about a year or so ago) I hadn't heard strong, cogent, secular arguments against same-sex marriage--I think opponents of SSM were largely caught unawares, have been scrambling to understand the issue, and are doing much, much better now than we were a year ago, so slowly our message is getting out; b) I do spend a lot of time talking to rainbow-bumper-sticker-people, and I've seen minds change; and c) the political situation here is really volatile, with people being pressured to take sides, and coming down in ways that are still quite unexpected. So... I don't think focusing on a "contingency plan" is really a good idea right now.]
posted by Eve at 4:23 AM | Link |

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