POLYGAMY AND UNISEX MARRIAGE: RK Becker replies to Tom Sylvester
In response to
Jonathan Turley, Tom Sylvester
writes:
"I don't see it, of course. Polygamists aren't a 'minority' in the sense that, say, homosexuals are a minority. Most gay men probably realize they are gay sometime around puberty (maybe earlier? I don't know). It's not as if a 15-year-old thinks, 'I'm a polygamist.' Polygamy is just not analogous to race, sex, national origin, or sexual orientation. A homosexual is a homosexual whether or not he acts on those desires. A white person is white. A woman is a woman...."
The problem with Tom's argument is that to refute one false analogy, he himself is drawing a false analogy between polygamists and gays as categories identically situated in regard to the unions they respectively seek, namely, polygamy and SSM. The proper analogy is between polygamists and, not just gays, but anyone, gay, straight, or bisexual, who for any reason might decide to enter into a same-sex marriage. The analogy Tom makes would be true only if it could be stated with certainty that only gays, not bisexuals or even heterosexuals, could or would ever enter into same-sex marriages. Being in a polygamous marriage makes one a polygamist by definition, but being in a same-sex marriage does not by definition make one gay anymore than being in a heterosexual marriage makes one straight. Hence Tom's attempt to refute Turley (and hence allay fears of any slippery slope between SSM and polygamy) by demonstrating a false analogy breaks down.
This relates to the argument that the cultural perception of what SSM means will in time shift from the idea of a special side-category of marriage for gays only to the total androgynization of the concept of marriage as something between any two persons regardless of gender or orientation.
To date, I have not heard any advocate of SSM propose that it be limited only to those medically or psychologically certified as gay. And I don't expect them to, as it would be abhorrent, but it is the only scenario under which I could see the public perception of SSM not sliding over time into something quite different from what most advocates present it as.
posted by Eve at
5:08 PM | Link |
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