Does Family Structure Matter? What SSM Advocates Say

. . .when they are not debating Maggie Gallagher, or sometimes (see Evan Wolfson) when they are:

William Eskridge argues that procreation is relatively unimportant to marriage, to people, and to society:

"Post-Freudian society understands sexual expression as an important goal of personhood, the modern liberal state guarantees its citizens substantial liberty to make choices about their own sexuality, and an earth that struggles to feed its existing population is not an earth that should overemphasize procreation. Procreation is good and important, but procreation is no longer central to either relationships or to social welfare." Again, "[i]n today's society the importance of marriage is relational and not procreational. "

[Note: the number of intelligent people who seem to believe that procreation is no longer central to social welfare is simply astonishing. . .]

E.J. Graff:
"Marriage is an institution that towers on our social horizon, defining how we think about one another, formalizing contact with our families, neighborhoods, employers, insurers, hospitals, governments. Allowing two people of the same sex to marry shifts that institution's message. . . . If same-sex marriage becomes legal, that venerable institution will ever after stand for sexual choice, for cutting the link between sex and diapers." Same-sex marriage, she argues, "does more than just fit; it announces that marriage has changed shape."

Andrew Sullivan:
"Because marriage is such a central institution in so many people's lives, because it forms such an integral part of our own self-understanding, any change in it opens up a host of questions about what the union of two people means, what it has become, and what it could stand for-for everybody. . . . [MG: Yes Andrew it does doesn't it?! ] It is at moments like this that we realize that marriage itself has changed. . . . From being a means to bringing up children, it has become primarily a way in which two adults affirm their emotional commitment to one another."

Mark Strasser downgrades both the importance of procreation and its relationship to marriage, and the significance of family structure:

"In Skinner, the Court held that "[m]arriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race." Yet there is no reason to think that the very existence and survival of the human race should or will rest on the shoulders of only those individuals who are raised by both of their biological parents. Otherwise, the human race would be in great danger indeed, given the number of individuals raised by single parents or by two parents, at least one of whom is not biologically related to the child."

Evan Wolfson:
"[T]here is no evidence to support the offensive proposition that only one size of family must fit all. Most studies-including ones that [Maggie] Gallagher relies on—reflect the common sense that what counts is not the family structure, but the quality of dedication, commitment, self-sacrifice, and love in the household."

Judith Stacey, who testified before Congress that social science evidence showed "what places children at risk is not fatherlessness, but the absence of economic and social resources that a qualified second parent can provide, whether male or female," also speculated with approval on the likelihood that gay marriage would inaugurate a new, more expansive embrace of family diversity:

"Legitimizing gay and lesbian marriages would promote a democratic, pluralist expansion of the meaning, practice, and politics of family life in the United States, helping to supplant the destructive sanctity of The Family with respect for diverse and vibrant families. . . . Subjecting the conjugal institution to this sort of heightened democratic scrutiny could help it to assume varied, creative and adaptive contours. If we begin to value the meaning and quality of intimate bonds over their customary forms, people might devise marriage and kinship patterns to serve diverse needs. . . . Two friends might decide to "marry" without basing their bond on erotic or romantic attachment. . . . Or, more radical still, perhaps some might dare to question the dyadic limitations of Western marriage and seek some of the benefits of extended family life through small group marriages arranged to share resources, nurturance, and labor. After all, if it is true that "The Two-Parent Family is Better" than a single-parent family, as family-values crusaders proclaim, might not three-, four-, or more-parent families be better yet, as many utopian communards have long believed?"

BTW, is Judith Stacey also prejudiced or irrational for seeing that same-sex marriage radically transforms the social meaning of marriage and opens up dramatic new possibilities for future revision? Or is that a special argument reserved only for opponents of SSM?
posted by maggie at 5:44 PM | Link |

5 Comments:

At 11/01/2005 7:23 PM, Marty said...

Let me get this straight -- believing that children need, deserve, and have a God given right to their own Mother and Father is now considered "the destructive sanctity of The Family"? Right. Got it.

These days, preservation is destructive, and destriction is "vibrant". Got it.

 

At 11/02/2005 4:04 AM, Chairm said...

Well, sure, there is no requirement in the law that each and every married couple produce offspring. And no requirement that each and every married couple be sexually attracted to one another.

Therefore, it is said, marriage is not about procreation, nor about sexual relations, in our culture. Nope, marriage now fits the natural limitations of the one-sex-short arrangement.

SSM as trhe reinvention of marriage is sounding more and more like the non-marriage alternative that would be explicitly denoted with Recpiprocal Beneficiaries, an adult trust relationship declared by affidavit. But SSM would replace marriage itself.

If SSM gets enacted, nothing is going to hold the fragmentary pieces together as a whole. It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy: the social institution of marriage will no longer be greater than the sum of its parts. It will be a menu of bits and pieces held together by legal gumption and vague notions of intimacy and adult consent.

Scratch the surface of the SSM argumentation and that is the goal of the long march of progress.

What is the independant purpose of society, through the state, recognizing the unisexed type of relationship in our society? The proposal is for a preferential status in the law, so what is its explicit purpose?

Please, could SSMers try not to piggyback on marital status as per the merger of so-called civil union with marriage in Vermont? SSM needs to stand on its own hind feet.

 

At 11/06/2005 7:28 AM, Bill Ware said...

Society has an interest in looking after the welfare of all of our children. This goes beyond the 58% of our children who are being raised by their biological parents. There is no legitimate reason to exclude from these rights and protections the children being raised by gay parents.

 

At 11/08/2005 11:28 AM, John Luke said...

That only 58% are raised by their parents is reason enough to get back on track with marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

The children do not get rights from marriage. The adults do.

 

At 11/10/2005 7:31 PM, Chairm said...

SSM depends on the devolution of marriage.

 

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