WHY DON'T POST-MENOPAUSAL WOMEN DO THE SAME THING?: Justin Katz replies to Mark Miller
Mark Miller asks, "If marriage laws were about children, even primarily but not solely, then why not support polygamy?" To be sure, polygamy is not purely objectionable because of its direct effect on children, but that effect certainly can't be discarded as a non-factor. Would it be better for a child from the first marriage if the father were to marry a second wife? Whatever one's response to that question, it would clearly be better for the child to have marriage law that does not encourage the father to seek additional wives and, consequently, to produce half-siblings.
As for the supposed disingenuous of "the 'mother-father preference' reasoning," I'd suggest that Mark has merely restated the arguments of many SSM opponents, but turned around. Take the most significant example that he provides as one area in which "we have decided as a culture that giving adults the freedom to do it outweighs the costs of allowing" it: divorce. If same-sex marriage makes coupling between adults the definitive factor of marriage, then reforming divorce laws becomes all the more difficult.
To personalize it in a generational way, I was not among the culture that decided no-fault divorce was the way to go, and my generation has reason to come to different conclusions about the costs that the freedom must outweigh. Somehow, I don't suspect Mark will chip many SSM opponents away from their opinion by insisting that they'd have to favor divorce reform, as well. To the extent that folks see that the case for same-sex marriage rests partially on the current ease of divorce, Mark's argument may actually have the opposite effect than he intends.
posted by Eve at
5:46 PM | link
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