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 Saturday, August 16, 2003
ALTERNATIVES TO MARRIAGE: Ben Dykes
Ben, btw, teaches philosophy at Minnesota State University Much of the territory we have been covering is typical of the way most civil rights arguments proceed, until the opponents (here of gay marriage) have to lay their cards on the table. I think this blog has matured to that decision point. After the dust of the initial flurry of statistics, fine legal points, and logical analysis clears, two things happen to make the basic position of the opponents plain: First, those with the civil right just say some variant of “no.” When Maggie and others are asked repeatedly to make a positive contribution and suggest what equivalent alternatives gay couples might have, they basically say, “I don’t know what will work. It isn’t my problem. But marriage isn’t for you.” Usually this is combined with dogmatic assurances of cultural catastrophe, because they haven’t been able to show how it would actually happen on the day-to-day level. Then come the self-praising purple passages (like what Dan recently wrote) about how those who have the civil right have rightfully been at the center of all civilization anyway. The same things were said about whites, men, Gentiles, you name it. Maggie can deny it, but it is in fact an appeal to cultural superiority, combined with condescension at those who just don’t understand. Maggie, you don’t have to say “we are the greatest” in order to act culturally superior. You can simply turn every discussion into a description of yourself. It’s like someone at a party who monopolizes the conversation: try to break in and become part of the group, and he/she says, “well, I don’t know about that; but let me tell you more about me.” Even on a blog about gay marriage, gay relationships and well-being are hardly even the topic. Instead, everything usually turns back to praising heterosexuality, evincing concern for heterosexual relationships, gay contributors trying to assure heterosexual opponents, and obsessions with that old heterosexual – not homosexual – institution and bugaboo: polygamy. Opponents of gay marriage: slow down, take a breath, and try to listen. Not everything is about you. You don’t have to keep talking about yourself. Opponents of gay marriage cannot have it both ways. You cannot say both “I don’t want to keep gay people down” and “They do not belong in the basic social institutions.” You cannot both say you care about human well-being, and that it’s not your problem that gay people want to be part of the program. The price of denying marriage rights is that you have to say that you’ll accept a class of people who are permanent second-class citizens, and that you don’t really care what arrangements they have so long as they’re quiet and accept their lot. Are any opponents of gay marriage here ready to take that final step?
THE POLITICS OF GAY MARRIAGE: Report from Canada
Here are two Canadians news report, the first here suggesting Parliament will reject the Government's draft of a law redefining marriage as "a union of two people, to the exclusion of all others." The second is more interesting: A major Conservative MP is proposing getting government out of the marriage business altogether. This is another quite likely way gay marriage will lead to the deconstruction of marriage, if courts impose it here: Christian conservatives, libertarian elites, and the left will join together to support the legal abolition of marriage and its replacement by some kind of domestic partnership registery. Of course this is not a necessary consequence of court-ordered gay marriage, just a likely compromise (if efforts to overturn court decisions fail), given the depth and strength of opposition to gay marriage among religious groups with traditional sex codes. Excerpts below, full story here. "Conservative Party Leader Peter MacKay called yesterday for the federal government to get out of marriage completely, leaving it only to churches, and said he would seek to rally his caucus to his position. Friday, August 15, 2003
THE POLYGAMY QUESTION: South African report
In South Africa, pension benefits have now been opened to life partners, straight or gay, and the old-limit of only one "life-partner" per person has also been removed. Story here, excerpts below. This is one way that (to revert to last week's question) gay marriage leads to the deconstruction of marriage. There aren't that many gay people. So politically, in order to widen the returns, the tendency is to increase the number of non-married people who get new entitlement to benefits. "Radical changes to the public servants' pension fund, which will bring relief to government employees affected by the HIV/Aids pandemic in future, were published in the government gazette this week. . . .One of the most important amendments is the change to the definition of a spouse. In the past, spouse referred to a legally married man or woman.
ARE ALL COUPLES ALIKE? Dan Cere
Dale’s alleges that I merely assert whereas he argues. Nice try. I suspect the disagreements between Dale and I go deeper than the marriage question. Dale wants to dismiss my arguments by appealing to some epistemological distinction between argument and description. When one deals with fundamental choices in the organization of human society there is no stark distinction between description and argument in establishing a case for the pursuit of certain goals. This marriage debate cannot be resolved by the application of some form of legal casuistic reasoning. Particular accounts of human anthropology and sociality are integral parts of any public controversy about fundamental features of human society. These descriptions have a telos or intentionality--they imply and articulate a vision of social goods. The best arguments will be the ones that offer richer accounts of the complex goods of human experience. This cuts to the heart of this current debate. Does the reduction of marriage to an adult close relationship with sex (or without--there are sexless marriages) offer a richer account of the goods intended by this institution? Over the last few decades the movement of legal theory seems to be plodding towards an ever thinner concept of marriage. This latest debate proposes the reduction of marriage to a bond between consenting adults. This one-shoe-fits-all-sizes approach to marriage offers a flatter and more one-dimensional reading of human experience. Opponents of the existing definition of marriage want to promote the basic human goods of equality and non discrimination. Those on the other side of this debate maintain that pursuit of these goods should not be predicated on the social deconstruction of other human goods: the unique public affirmation and support for the critical role of male/female bonding, procreation, the good of the intact family, etc. Marriage is the distinct institutional home for these goods. To assert that this deep shift in the public meaning of marriage would have little or no impact on this social institution repeats the same flawed mantra that experts employed at earlier stages in the evolving marriage debate.
THE DIVORCE THING: Jonathan responds:
Friends, I just read Maggie's August 13 NRO comment. In her refutation of Andrew Sullivan, Maggie winds up inadvertently (?) making his point, which is that many conservative opponents of same-sex marriage apply a double standard and treat the welfare of gay people with a cavalierness that they wouldn't dream of applying to heterosexuals. Or have I missed something? Maggie says this: "Will same-sex marriage strengthen or weaken marriage as a social institution? If the answer is that it will weaken marriage at all, we should not do it." And later: "By what moral calculus do they [same-sex marriage advocates] decide the interests of adults with statistically unusual sexual tastes is the most important thing? To me it is a striking example of a revival of Seventies/'Me-Decade' adult narcissism." I don't insist that heterosexuals regard gay welfare as the "most important thing." But I do feel justified in insisting that they take gay welfare seriously. Maggie's first comment above, I think, suggests she is engaging in single-entry bookkeeping. any benefit to children outweighs every benefit to homosexuals. No responsible SSM advocate says that the welfare of children is unimportant. Or that the welfare of heterosexuals is unimportant. Or even that homosexual welfare is "the most important thing." We just say that the welfare of homosexuals counts too. We insist that gay lives and loves be weighed in the balance. And we insist that being told we can never marry anyone, ever--a whole life, a whole community, an endless future without the personal and social and civic benefits of marriage--is an exceptionally bleak requirement, one that is cruel unless absolutely necessary. Andrew S. says of Sen. Santorum: "He hasn't thought for a second about the good of homosexual citizens." Maggie, please say in your case it ain't so. Do you really believe that gay people's desire for the blessing and burdens of marriage is mere "narcissism"? Would you dream of saying such a thing about, say, sterile heterosexuals who wanted to marry? I'll also disagree with the notion that Andrew is just changing the subject with his suggestion that, if Maggie et al. really care so much about preserving marriage, they'd ban divorce. Or at least, he might have said, ban divorce where minor children are present. Andrew is indeed changing the subject, but he's doing it to point out an inconsistency. By rights, the logic of Maggie's statement works both ways. If anything that weakens marriage at all should not be done, then surely anything that strengthens marriage at all should be done--or at a bare minimum should be seriously considered. So why not pass laws saying that married couples can't have a divorce until their kids are 18? To dismiss such ideas out of hand as impolitic or inconvenient or subject-changing seems to me a pretty good example of pandering to "Seventies/'Me-Decade' adult narcissism." It's more single-entry bookkeeping, in any event. I take Maggie's point that same-sex marriage is the only big change now on the table. I'm sure that if someone came along and proposed a public subsidy for adultery she'd strenuously oppose that, too. Maggie was out in front on marriage a long time ago, and blessings upon her. But Andrew and I aren't asking you to agree with us about the practical effects of same-sex marriage, Maggie. We're asking you and your colleagues to take gay lives and welfare seriously. Why should that be so hard?
DIGRESSION: A Reader Responds
Regarding my occasional posts from First Comes Love, a reader asks: "I am not sure what your point is here. Are you somehow holding up the cobbled together sanctuary these poor broken people have clawed out of a hostile world as a goal for gay men. Is this the kind of relationship you think would bebetter for Andrew Sullivan then marrying his boyfriend? I have to be missing your point! Must everything have a point? I told you these people are not role models. Eros is beautiful and terrifying and dangerous and disappointing and above all greater than the neat little boxes we create to contain it. If you look closely I also think you can spot some sexual truths about relationships between men and women in the specific, tortured attempts of these two real human beings to find love together. Or not as you choose.
DIGRESSION: First Comes Love
"We had these test results nine months before our wedding. But the fact that Tony was positive didn't make me not want to marry him or have his children. I figured that if everything we'd done so far hadn't given me the disease, why would a few more milliliters of semen be any different? The fact that my sister too was negative despite repeated exposure indicated to me that perhaps we shared some kind of immunity. I knew that if I didn't get the virus, my children wouldn't either, since transmission to the fetus occurs during gestation, from the mother's blood. . .
ARE ALL COUPLES ALIKE?: Maggie responds to Ben and Dale
Dear, dear Ben. Of course I know you did not call marriage a crutch. I called it a crutch. If you consider sex difference a vice to be overcome, then marriage is the vehicle (or crutch) for overcoming it. One of the persistent undercurrents I would like to bring out is the perfectly understandable, but false assumption on your part and many others that in saying marriage should be reserved for heterosexuals (actually cross-gender couples, since at least some gays and lesbians do marry, however deviant that is considered in the gay community) I am implying that heterosexuals, as a class, are morally superior to homosexuals. In fact being heterosexual is no virtue. The vices and shortcoming of heterosexuals are arguably the most dangerous to the community because they persistently break up families, or create fatherless children. You can consider marriage a remedial institution, if you like, for people prone to this particular set of sexual failures and sins. It would not be untrue. I can really see it that way. This is why, for years, I simply refused to enter the gay marriage debate. I was afraid that conservatives and other Americans of good will would rally against gay marriage (which I then considered unlikely in the extreme) and meanwhile we would lose marriage itself. It is the sins and shortcomings of heterosexuals that are creating so much sorrow, suffering, expense and that threaten the future of this key institution. Then, like a lot of people, I woke up to find that unisex marriage is here, while all the best marriage minds have been avoiding the implications of taking what is for me a trully radical redefinition of marriage that will have lasting consequences. Dale, I really think one of the problems with this debate is (please pardon me, I mean no offense) it has been left largely to lawyers, who use a particular form of intellectual reasoning: take a class, discuss whether it is under or overinclusive for the goals, etc. You can miss a lot of forests for the trees here. This is not a matter of sticking rigidly to a definition that makes no sense. It is a matter of looking at the underlying social institution, understanding its purposes, and grasping how the law can help or hurt these purposes. I do not think anyone but a highly intelligent and well-trained lawyer could fail to grasp that saying, in essence, gender does not matter, could fail to to be a real transformation in an institution that is in its nature a sexual one. I know you think that you can decide that unisex marriage will not have these effects. If you and me and Andrew and Jonathan could get in a room and make a gentleman's agreement about what this means for marriage, hey, you would be right. But there is an underlying logic to making this move which will have ramifications long after you and I are dead. Here is another way to put it: In a sense Andrew is right. If we adopt unisex marriage, it will be true that, faced between reforming marriage in a way that strengthens its role in managing sex difference so that adults do not hurt the children their own bodies produce, and changing the law so as to accomodate the interests of adults in personal intimacy, we will have chosen the latter. It is a big decision. Ideas have consequences, remember?
BLACKOUT NEWS: Maggie
I live in suburban NYC. We lost power for four hours yesterday but were back on the grid by 8 p.m. This morning, though, we just lost power again. I work on a laptop (battery power) which is why you are hearing from me. If we go silent for a time, you will all know why. One thing I have to say: I woke up this morning and heard that after 8 hours of blackout, there were only 12 arrests in the city of New York. The papers here are full of stories of civilians (as the cops call them) donning orange vests, directing traffic, helping fellow citizens. Throngs of New Yorkers trooping over the Brooklyn Bridge, or walking 5 miiles home to the Bronx are saying, "Hey this is nothing, compared to what we have been through." This is one demn fine country we share. Thursday, August 14, 2003
ARE ALL COUPLES ALIKE? Dale responds to Dan
There are two types of arguments that do not work, at least not by themselves. The first is definitional: "Marriage is the union of a man and a woman, so it cannot be the union of a man and a man or a woman and a woman." Believe it or not, a fair number of courts have offered this as an argument against gay marriage. The problem is that, as soon as the definition is challenged, it cannot without circularity be offered to sustain itself. There are a lot of "to be" verbs at important points in Dan's recent postings that function as authoritative declarations of a definition ("Marriage is sex-inclusive.") or as descriptions ("Opposite sex unions are the only social union that can become a procreative biological union.") Yet it's this very definition that is under discussion. And descriptions are not arguments. The second insufficient argument is historical: marriage has always been heterosexual, whether monogamous or polygamous, so it must remain so now. (There is actually some historical evidence to the contrary, and current practice includes gay marriage in some countries, but let's put that to the side for now.) The fact that something is traditional, coming from historical practice, is enough to lay a presumption in its favor for a Burkean conservative, but not enough by itself to sustain it against attack. Again, Dan's posting appears at points to try to preempt further debate by arguing from history ("marriage has always been . . . ."). But that is not enough, either. I will not begin to catalogue all the traditional, historical practices we have abandoned when we were given good reason, based on experience and learning, to do so. So Dan offers an argument from uniqueness: heterosexual unions are uniquely procreative and therefore merit a unique status. We agree on the premise; it's the conclusion that's troubling and, I think, still unsupported. Two problems I see with the conclusion. First, if heterosexual unions merit unique status by virtue of their procreative capacity, then why do we grant this unique status to sterile heterosexual unions? It is not an idle question; there are many such marriages, and they may well outnumber gay marriages. St. Augustine, not exactly slave to the latest academic fashions, suggested we recognize sterile marriages because of the companionate function they serve. Thus even when the procreative goal of marriage cannot be met, we allow marriages that serve the unitive goal of companionship and communion. Gay unions can serve the companionate, unitive function of marriage in ways similar to straight unions, as common experience and the studies I have cited suggest. The second problem with Dan's conclusion is that it simply doesn't follow from the premise. No gay marriage is going to prevent a straight couple from marrying, procreating, and raising children, any more than the existence of sterile heterosexual marriages do now. So what will be lost? Marriage may be an important support for heterosexual procreation within marriage, but this is no argument for why it cannot also be given to other bonds that help accomplish other important social goals, like raising kids in gay families. The existence of numerous childless marriages has not caused straight couples to throw up their hands and say, "See, the connection between marriage and procreation and mother-father-raising-kids has been forever severed. It's now just about love. So why need we get married?" If that has not happened for sterile and other childless marriages, there is no reason to believe it will happen when a tiny number (according to Maggie) of gay marriages are performed. Dan comes closest to an answer to this point when he asserts: "Opposite sex relationships . . . need a distinctive form of cultural support and affirmation if they are to develop into truly humane forms of human flourishing." It's a fine assertion, and it may be correct, but it's not an argument. The question is, why must the support be "distinctive" in order for straight couples to flourish? The powerful urge to procreate, to start a family of one's own, to bond with another person, will surely continue. The small number of gay marriages aren't going to repeal all heterosexual yearnings. Marriage, with all its entitlements and benefits, will still be the superior and normative way to have and raise children, including for gay couples.
POLL TRENDS: Maggie comments
Just like the New York Times last Sunday the Washington Post reporter appears to see this opposition as primarily a matter of religion: "Americans are saying, 'We're willing to move pretty far on this issue, we're much more tolerant than we used to be, but don't mix it up with religion and God,' " said Boston College political scientist Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life. Emphasize the civil, legal nature of marriage, and the opposition would diminish. However it seems to me that the key variable here is the move from tolerance to affirmation of gay sexual unions as a positive good. The argument for tolerance is winning, fortunately, but the majority of Americans are not now willing to say gay relationships are positive social goods, like marriage. Not only is opposition to gay marriage rising, but the Washington Post is a second poll that shows opposition to civil unions or other quasi-marital institutions is also rising: The poll also found, however, that public acceptance of same-sex civil unions is falling. Fewer than four in 10 -- 37 percent -- of all Americans say they would support a law allowing gay men and lesbians to form civil unions that would provide some of the rights and legal protections of marriage. Even the HRC poll found only 33 percent of Americans actively support civil unions, while an additional 17 percent would accept them.
POLL: 60 percent oppose blessing gay unions
From the Washington Post this morning, "Majority Against Blessing Gay Unions," here: A strong majority of the public disapproves of the Episcopal Church's decision to recognize the blessing of same-sex unions, and a larger share of churchgoing Americans would object if their own faith adopted a similar practice, according to a new Washington Post Poll.
THAT DUTCH STUDY: Maggie
Several people have suggested the Dutch study (which according to newspaper accounts reports that the average gay man in a long-term relationship has 8 outside partners in a year) has serious methodological flaws. I have been trying to download a copy from aidsonline.com so I could read and evaluate these critiques and the study, but so far I am too much of a cyberklutz to do so. Anyone have a copy they could send? Otherwise, be patient, I will track down a paper copy and report back to you.
THE DIVORCE THING: Dale. v. Maggie
I found this passage from Maggie's response to Andrew interesting: "Unmarried childbearing has leveled off (albeit at high levels); divorce rates have declined modestly (very modestly); recent surveys show the commitment to marital permanence is rising, not falling, among married couples and marital happiness is increasing; marital fertility appears to be up. Polls show young people hate divorce and want lasting marriage." It can't be repeated enough that all the bad trends Maggie and I bemoan--high divorce rates, children born out of wedlock, etc.--began long before the most radical gay activists ever thought of gay marriage. Gay marriage didn't create these lamentable trends in heterosexual ecology, the question is whether we should have any reason to believe gay marriage will add to them. What strikes me is that the modestly positive recent developments Maggie points to are happening even as Americans have grown more comfortable with gay people, tend less to think of homosexuality as immoral, tend more and more to oppose job discrimination, have witnessed an explosion of gay characters in movies and on TV, and as they have seen the growth of quasi-marital recognition of same-sex couples from government and private businesses in the form of civil unions and domestic partnerships. The gay-positive trend is most striking in young people, who now actually support gay marriage. And this is the very group that "hates divorce and wants lasting marriage" for themselves. Perhaps these developments are just coincidental. Or perhaps Americans are capable of holding in their minds at once what Maggie may think are contradictory ideas: they value their own families but don't think valuing their families requires them to denigrate gay families. Wednesday, August 13, 2003
THE DIVORCE THING: Maggie v. Andrew
This is as good excuse as any to post my response to Andrew Sullivan's argument, that if we really cared about marriage we would ban divorce not unisex marriage. Excerpt below, essay here. I am not sure gay marriage would matter to people who are now married, people whose ideas and values were already formed along the cultural norms of their time. But I am sure unisex marriage will dramatically affect the cultural norms and values of the next generation in ways that will encourage divorce and disconnect marriage further from childbearing. Young people today do not reject marriage, but they are extremely tempted to redefine it in ways the exclude the childbearing dimension. Marriage is about love between two adults. Children? They are another matter entirely.
MARRIAGE BONAFIDES: Maggie responds
Dan, I think you are often right about this, and thanks for the plug. Certainly I find it odd when Andrew says things like "You should be working on divorce!" when I have been doing nothing but that, and fatherlessness, and unmarried childbearing, etc. But I am not sure this critique applies to someone like Jonathan. Dale's work I know less well and for less long.
ALTERNATIVES TO MARRIAGE: Dan Cere
Many prominent proponents of gay marriage come into the marriage debate with a single-issue focus (redefining marriage to include same-sex unions). And once they get victory these advocates will most likely disappear from the marriage scene as they move on to other issues relevant to the public affirmation and recognition of gay and lesbian unions. Serious critics of redefinition, like Maggie, have typically been working at and writing on the marriage question for years (indeed decades). They have been concerned with a wide variety of marriage issues: divorce, courtship, single-parenting, marriage education, etc., etc. etc. They come to this new cultural debate with a long history of involvement in the marriage question.
ARE ALL COUPLES ALIKE? Dan v. Dale
Dale dismisses my arguments as a form of decaying natural law theory- as conclusions rather than arguments. He offers no response to the question of the distinctive significance of the heterosexual ecology of human life and the unique role of marriage in sustaining and working with that ecology. Proponents of the redefinition of marriage have been hard at work designing convoluted theoretical mazes to distract us from these realities of human existence. Dale's response seems to me little more than a bit of fancy footwork. Let me restate the arguments, conclusions, whatever you wish to call them: Amid all of its incredible historical diversity, marriage has been always been the main cultural frame for the deep-rooted heterosexual ecology of the species. Three fundamental features stand out. First, marriage is sex-inclusive. It bridges the basic heterosexual divide in the human species. Marriage provides a social context for the powerful forces of heterosexual attraction and male/female bonding. The proposal for 'same-sex marriages/ dumps sex-inclusive bonding as a defining characteristic of marriage. Institutions like marriage are about socially embodied meaning. Secondly, marriage offers a social context for the explosive procreative power of male/female bonding. The male/female bond is the only sexual union which is naturally, powerfully, uniquely procreative. The reproductive ecology of the human species is heterosexual. Opposite sex unions are the only social union that can become a procreative biological union. Take the entire male population of the planet, toss them into one continent, tell them to go at it hard and furious—nothing will happen. Ten years later you will find the same aging men-no new life. Heterosexual bonding is the procreative mainframe of human life. It deserves some reflective wonder – not a dismissive academic shrug. Third, marriage understands and supports the deep attachments of biological parents and their offspring. Many gay and lesbian theorists have dismissively referred to heterosexuals as "breeders." However, the bonding and relating of these "breeders" and their offspring has been and will continue to be a deep, pervasive, and creative force in the social/sexual world of the human species. Humans are cultural beings. Opposite sex relationships don't just happen. They need a distinctive form of cultural support and affirmation if they are to develop into truly humane forms of human flourishing. Marriage has been the unique institution guiding his cultural project. The question is not whether radically redefining the public meaning of marriage will make a major difference for future generations, but how it will make this difference. Dale's concluding "won’t-make-a-difference" comments are revealing. They echo a running joke, "Do you think that the gays will use up all the marriage licenses and won’t leave any for the straights?? The more I hear from the proponents of gay marriage the more I suspect they operate from a genuine but profoundly mistaken view of the role of social institutions. They treat marriage as an institution comparable to any legal registry system for adult-only activities (driving a car or owning a gun). This view, as I have argued earlier, is a skewed and reductionistic approach.
ARE ALL COUPLES ALIKE: Maggie responds
I sort of like Ben's formulation: "Bridging the gender gap is admirable, but having such a gap is a vice straight couples must overcome." Maybe your are right Ben. Maybe being attracted to the opposite sex is a kind of handicap to be overcome, and marriage is a kind of special crutch developed over the millenia to help these sexually challenged people. The thing is we all need men and women to fall in love, get married and make babies if the culture is going to survive over the long-run. So maybe, both out of charity and self-interest, you should leave marriage to the people who need this crutch. If you look carefully at what you said, Ben, you will see that for you marriage is mostly a word to describe an emotion, which both gays and straight have. I think you are wrong there. I also think you are wrong to imagine there will be two separate social institutions: gay marriage with their culture and straight marriage with their culture. There will be one thing, called marriage, when we are done. What it will then be (in its public, shared form) is, as you suggest, a word for celebrating emotions of love, that for some reason we attach some legal marriage benefits (and/or marriage penalties) to. Not nearly enough I think to get its most crucial job done.
DIGRESSION: First Comes Love
"Exacerbating these feelings was the fact that half our nieghborhood was composed of people Tony had once slept iwth. Both they and the other half wer eager to rexperience or newly experience the magic. Every time I turned by back, some guy would be chatting Tony up, buying him a drink, fondling his leg.
THE POLITICS OF GAY MARRIAGE: Canada
Excerpts below, full story here. Aiming to push Liberal divisions into the open and derail the government's plan to legalize same-sex marriages, the Canadian Alliance will force a vote on the issue as soon as Parliament returns in September. Tuesday, August 12, 2003
ALTERNATIVES TO MARRIAGE: Jonathan Rauch
I have been posting too much and too long lately, so a quick reply to Maggie's important question..."will quasi-marital legal benefits help bring the moral benefits of restraint and commitment to gay men?" My view: The entanglements and entitlements of marriage will have some effect of bringing increased restraint and commitment to gay men. The only question is how much--a lot, or a little? Legal marriage will make gay couples next-of-kin, with all the responsibilities that that entails; it will create inlaws and inheritance; it will be much harder to get out of than boyfriendship. All of which (and I could go on) will ramify in the direction of solidifying the bond. And those are just the legal ramifications, before considering the social ones. I see no rational argument for same-sex marriage making gay men less stable, committed, or faithful. The sign is positive, and it's only the magnitude that's unknown. Memo: Would E.J. Graff be a good candidate for this blog? Anyone know her?
ARE ALL COUPLES ALIKE? A Reader
From Ben Dykes: I am glad to see how Maggie has turned to cultural issues that highlight these fundamental misunderstandings held by many conservative straights. Let me address a few: Maggie's idea about men needing women as a relief from the world of competition reflects a common misunderstanding of gay men: that we are basically straight men who want to have sex with each other. Since (on this view) all men fear being 'soft' or being beaten or humiliated by other men, only a woman can provide a man--even a gay man--a safe space to relax and feel intimate. Therefore a "marriage" between two gay men is really just a temporary truce between two straight men while they have sex, with a bunch of legal goodies thrown in. Such a "marriage" is not emotionally real, because with two men, competition would destroy the home. This notion may make sense if your experience of male interaction occurs primarily in a heterosexual context, and especially if you believe that the only thing separating gay and straight men is the object of their sexual attraction. But male relationships are not that simple. It all depends on whom you're allegedly competing with, and for what. A male-oriented male culture involves a dynamic rather different from a woman-oriented male culture. Gay culture doesn’t assign a certain group of men to be the emotional caregivers and tell the rest to compete for them in a kind of zero-sum game. There is a potential for both friendship and romantic partnership in all people, so it's false to assume that even a gay man needs someone very different from him to find emotional support and a "safe space" (i.e., in a woman so defined). In a gay man's life, certain men will be acquaintances, others good friends, others sexual flings, others romantic partners and, in many cases, one man emerges as someone he wants to marry. Gay men differ from straight men in having to find these differences among the men with whom we interact, but it is not that different from the romantic rituals that straight men and women use to find a partner. Same-sex and opposite sex couples share enough common ground for the emotional features of marriage to apply to both, even if their cultural structures provide each with their own complexities and richness. So it's simply not true that gay men need women in the same way that straight men do. Even if some gay men--usually one or two generations ago--marry women for the sake of hiding their homosexuality, doing so for the sake of emotional support is psychologically highly deviant (numerically and normatively). Even in Will-and-Grace friendships, such friends are too smart to think that the woman will be emotionally satisfying for the man in the way another man would be. Many heterosexuals boast about their seeming to heroically bridge the "gender gap," even as they maintain a cultural cliche that men and women--even those married for many years--never really know one another. Bridging the gender gap is admirable, but having such a gap is a vice straight couples must overcome, not something to be held up as intrinsically important to all relationships. I daresay gay men aren't impressed with declarations about overcoming the gender divide, because plenty of us are close friends with women already.
ARE ALL COUPLES ALIKE?: Maggie responds
Perhaps so, Dale, but when you list sources as indicating the gay couples and straight couples have similar dynamics, and then these same sources indicate that non-monogamy is so rare as not to believed among gays, and that moreover, unlike straight guys (who generally have to sneak around) gay couples often accept non-monogamy in each other, it does make me wonder about the other sources you are citing too. At some level of abstraction, of course all couples are alike: there are two people, you need to get along, no doubt communication troubles or joys are similar, etc. But what is being lost in this level of abstraction
THE MYTH OF GAY PROMISCUITY: Dale v. Maggie
With all respect Maggie, the air of unreality on the issue of gay marriage and promiscuity is coming from conservative opponents of gay marriage, who continually hound gay men about their promiscuity and then deny them the one social and legal institution we have to encourage people to settle down into committed couples. I addressed the issue of promiscuity days ago when I posted the conclusions of law professor and blogger Eugene Volokh on the subject. Volokh concluded that, yes, there is support for the idea of a greater level of promiscuity among gay men than among straight men (but less promiscuity among gay women). I do not dispute this and have never done so, so I'm not sure what you think is "unreal" about my views on the matter. What I do dispute, and what Volokh disputes, is that the differences are as large as many have supposed and have tried to use for political purposes. Further, the Blumstein and Schwartz work was published in 1983, before the AIDS crisis had truly settled in and before there was any formal recognition of gay relationships, even as domestic partnerships, much less talk of marriage. As you note, the survey sample is not representative. While Blumstein and Schwartz have good and interesting things to say about similarities in the dynamics of gay and straight relationships, which is what the APA amicus brief cited them for, their conclusions on sex are a bit dated. There has been more reliable work on the subject since then. Meanwhile, even assuming that gay male couples (let's leave aside lesbian couples, as conservative opponents of gay marriage often seem to do) will be more promiscuous and will not be tempered by the development of a culture of marriage in the gay community, what would be the practical consequence for straight marriages? There are so few of us, as you've pointed out, who will even bother to get married, how do we matter? And the most practical question, one that I've asked twice before: will straight women stop demanding monogamy from their husbands?
ALTERNATIVES TO MARRIAGE: Maggie responds to Jonathan
Jonathan, I am trying to figure out why your ten-point post (below) makes my heart sing. I think it is point number 10, "Let the lesbians marry, then." How like a gentleman, chivalrous even. It gives me little bursts of inexpressible delight that you said this. As a woman, I thank-you. As an intellectual, though, I have to point out that the question of yours I was trying to answer is: will quasi-marital legal benefits help bring the moral benefits of restraint and commitment to gay men? Letting the lesbians marry is probably not relevant to this particular question. And the context in which I was raising the question of sexual fidelity is not Stanley Kurtz's concern (will promiscuous gay men compromise the public ideal of fidelity?) but as pointing to what might be called the natural basis for fidelity in marriage, arising out of the need to manage sex difference, including procreation, male jealousy etc. Whatever the exact proportion, there is I think without any doubt (see Troy Perry's remarks below) a sizable and public chunk of gay men in partnerships who do not consider sexual fidelity to be that important, either for themselves or their partners. Now, there are a fair chunk of straight guys who do not consider fidelity that important for themselves. But really very few who can manage that attitude towards their wives. This is a phenomenon that points (I think) to unacknowledged but profound differences in the basis of male sexual friendships and enduring relations between men and women. Monday, August 11, 2003
ARE ALL COUPLES ALIKE? Dale v. Dan
I have not argued, and I do not argue, that the dynamics of same-sex coupling are exactly like the dynamics of opposite-sex coupling. What I have argued (supported by research and, I think, common sense) is that same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples share significant common traits -- the desire for coupling, the importance of the sexual bond, the need for intimacy with one other person, the desire for social recognition and affirmation, and others. Contra Dan, these traits are not all shared by other human relationships, like those of siblings. Jon and I have also argued that gay marriage will help accomplish the social goods marriage is thought to accomplish: caretaking, sexual settling, and raising children. Because of this, we must have some persuasive reason for treating gay couples differently. Dan offers what he calls "fundamental facets of life" to justify the different legal treatment of gay and straight couples: (1) "the fact of sexual difference;" (2) "the significance of sexual complementarity;" (3) "the important place of male/female bonding in human life;" (4) "the procreativity of heterosexual bonding;" (5) "the unique social ecology of heterosexual parenting which bonds children to their biological parents;" and (6) "the rich genealogical nature of heterosexual family ties." This list has the stale air of natural law arguments about it, arguments that have often seemed to me to assert their conclusions as arguments. "Sexual complementarity," for example, is a description, not an argument. The list is less impressive than it seems at first. In fact, each seems largely a restatement of the one before: opposite-sex couples alone can procreate. But why are these differences adequate to justify different treatment? We need arguments, not conclusions. Males and females will continue to marry and continue to procreate. They will still bond with each other, still be bonded to their children, still bridge the sexual divide. The more I hear from the opponents of gay marriage the more I suspect they operate from a genuine but profoundly mistaken view: that marriage is a finite resource that cannot be shared, even with couples who can fulfill what Maggie has identified as the 3 basic purposes of marriage. If we give it to gay couples, there won't be enough left for us straight folks, with our special ecologies and genealogical charts. But it isn't that. Just because Joe and Bob can marry doesn't mean Mike and Sally can't or won't. Come on Dan and Maggie, don't you believe in marriage anymore? Malaise indeed.
MEN AND MONOGAMY: Interview with Troy Perry
From an interview with Troy Perry who is head of the Metropolitan Christian Church, the largest gay church in America. in the July 5, 2003 Dallas Morning News: "Monogamy is not a word the gay community uses. It doesn't believe that heterosexuals are monogamous anymore. Just look at all the divorces in America.
MEN AND MONOGAMY: anonymous
A family guy speaking to his Anglican in-laws: Next week, when I tell you that I am sick of my middle aged wife, she nags, she has these habits that I really don't like, and being with her makes me feel old and unattractive, and that I am moving out to be with my young and quite attractive receptionist who makes me feel young, virile, and happy, you will want to say that this is bad, that I am a cad, that I am acting immorally. I would expect you to actually say or at least think these things.
MEN AND MONOGAMY: Jonathan Rauch
A huge topic, men and monogamy and gay marriage. I'll just put some thoughts on the table. Perhaps they'll be fruitful for discussion later on. 1) I think it's almost certainly true that gay male couples put a somewhat lower value on monogamy within a relationship than do straight couples. But how big is the "somewhat"? I doubt the more extreme estimates. I think it's a spectrum, and the average differences will prove unstartling (especially after same-sex marriage establishes cultural traction--see No. 3 below). 2) I know many monogamous gay couples. Non-monogamous gay couples don't take an orgiastic attitude, contra Kurtz. Their general view is that now and then is OK, but regularly and/or often is definitely not OK. (See No. 4 below.) 3) If gay male couples are less monogamous, is that because they are gay, because they are male, or because they come out of a culture that has been forced for 2,000 years (or whatever) to have sex with strangers in the bushes? Maggie and I agree that #1, "gay," is not a decisive factor. We agree that #2 and #3 are both factors. But I'd say #3 is a very big factor indeed. We have no idea how same-sex couples would behave in a culture where gay people grew up expecting to marry. They might (or might not!) still be less monogamous than straight couples, but clearly the gap would narrow. The surprise, given the Dark Age that gays are only now emerging from, is that so many gay male couples are monogamous--how quickly men are settling down even without marriage! 4) Suppose, after gay marriage, gay-male couples turned out to have higher infidelity rates but lower divorce rates? In Japan, marriages are stabler than here, but it's not as a big deal if men fool around (on business trips in Thailand; with bar girls; etc.) Which country has the better deal, the U.S. or Japan? Worth pondering. 5) Infidelity isn't such a big deal SOCIALLY, if people keep it quiet. The vast majority of gay couples do. And will. They, too, have parents and in-laws. 6) If unfaithful gay couples set a bad example, won't faithful ones set a good example? It will be a mixture. When a gay actor accepts his Oscar by thanking his devoted husband of 20 years, won't that send a pretty good message about marriage? 7) When fidelity is a legal condition for heterosexuals to marry, it should be a legal condition for homosexuals to marry. Not before. 8) After gay marriage, maybe 2 or 3 percent of all marriages will be male-male. Only a portion of those will be nonmonagamous. Only a portion of that portion will be publicly nonmonagamous--probably a fringe group even among even gay marriages. They will be a cultural curiosity, not the death of monogamy as we know it. 9) Maggie points out that men and women are different where appetite for sexual variety (among other things) is concerned. Right. And, after same-sex marriage, straight marriages will still contain women, who will still not want their husbands to sleep around. The notion that large numbers of straight couples will imitate gay ones ignores biology. 10) Lesbians seem to do less fooling around than anyone. Let them marry, even if all the above points are wrong.
ARE ALL COUPLES ALIKE? THE RESEARCH: Dan Cere
Thank you Dale for taking up this question. Your response underscores the current malaise in the academy. Advocates of same-sex marriage make much of the fact that "researchers" discover "no difference" between homosexual and heterosexual relationships when it comes to the basic dynamics of love, compatibility and intimacy. This argument for the similarity of all committed sexually-bonded relationships grounds recent Canadian court judgments: "marriage must be open to same-sex couples who live in long-term, committed, relationships--marriage-Like in everything but name--just as it is to heterosexual couples." (Ontario Court) The scholarly authorities cited to support this thesis are typically proponents of "close relationship theory," a relatively new model of relationships that explicitly focuses on the "common" dynamics in all close sexually bonded relationships (see the authorities cited by Carpenter). The underlying thesis of close relationship theory is that all close dyadic relationships operate according to the same dynamics and values. Close relationship theory bleaches out the significance of embodied sexual difference and argues that all committed sexual bonds should be "subsumed under the broader construct of close or primary relationships." (John Scanzoni) This slanted academic approach reflects broader cultural trends. According to Anthony Giddens, Britain's most renowned sociologist, popular culture is creating a new grammar of intimacy. In The Transformation of Intimacy and, more recently, in the prestigious Reith Lectures, Giddens argues that we are moving from a "marriage culture" to a culture which celebrates "pure relationship." A "pure relationship" is a relationship that has been stripped of any goal or end beyond the intrinsic emotional, psychological, or sexual satisfaction that the relationship brings to the adults involved. Marriage is subsumed and understood under the big tent of the "close relationship." Not surprisingly this model is fine-tuned to discover exactly what it predicts: namely that same-sex couples reveal the same patterns of interpersonal intimacy evident in opposite-sex couples. But these core values turn out to be true for all relationships: sibling relationships, friendships, opposite-sex unions, parent-child attachments, same-sex unions, and so on. By inflating the notion of the "unitive" to this generic interpersonal intimacy, we bracket out the specificity of marriage as a form of life struggling with the unique challenges of bonding sexual difference. Close relationship theory is not designed to generate any conceptual insight into fundamental facets of human life: the fact of sexual difference; the significance of sexual complementarity; the important place of male/female bonding in human life; the procreativity of heterosexual bonding; the unique social ecology of heterosexual parenting which bonds children to their biological parents; and the rich genealogical nature of heterosexual family ties. A public discourse that screens out any meaningful recognition of the remarkable significance of human sexual dimorphism (male/female) and reproduction in human life must entail a fundamental change in the way marriage is viewed. The "close relationship" paradigm is relatively new, barely a generation old. To date it has not been subject to any sustained or critical evaluation within the academy. Critical review will come since the limitations of this approach are glaring. However, in the meantime close relationship theory already is beginning to seriously shape our thinking about marriage and family law. The pervasive influence of this approach can be seen in recent recommendations and reports by the Law Commission of Canada, Beyond Conjugality: Recognizing and Supporting Close Personal Adult Relationships (2001) and the American Law Institute, Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (2002). The inability of current academic theories to recognize significant differences between forms of homosexual and heterosexual bonding, differences that generate very disparate social ecologies, should raise serious questions about the conceptual blinders of these theories. Our courts and legislatures should resist pressure to build law on views and theories that may be new and fashionable, but still awaiting the tests of time and rigorous academic debate. This is particularly so when these new theories and perspectives seem so oddly out of step with core features of marriage pervasive throughout history and across cultures.
THE MYTH OF GAY PROMISCUITY: Maggie responds to Dale
Dale, there is an increasing air of unreality to your remarks on this issue. I do not have all of the research you cite here in my home, but I do have one--a copy of Phillip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz book American Couples. So I took a look at what it has to say about non-monogamy among gay men, husbands, and cohabiting guys. This is taken from page 269-274: "Many gay men do not care if their partner is monogamous. If a gay man is monogamous, he is such a rare phenomenon, he may have difficulty making himself believed." When asked, whether it is important is it that you yourself be monogamous, 75 percent of husbands in this sample (not nationally representative btw, for either straights or gays) said yes, as did 62 percent of male cohabitors, compared to 36 percent of gay men in couple relationships. Askied if there had been any instances of non-monogamy in their relationship, 26 percent of husbands said yes, compared to 33 percent of male cohabitors and 82 percent of gay men. How many outside partners? 7 percent of husbands had 20 or more outside partners, compared to 4 percent of male cohabitors and 43 percent of gay men. By contrast 29 percent of husbands had been non-monogamous only once compared to 36 percent of male cohabitors and 7 percent of gay men. Looking only at partners who had been together ten years or more (the most stable), 30 percent of husbands had experienced at least one instance of non-monogamy, compared to 47 percent of male cohabitors, and 94 percent of gay men in couple relationships. Of course you are right this data is not hard. We have almost no nationally representative research on gay men of any kind. But it is a repeated and rather well-confirmed phenomenon that sexual fidelity appears to be less core (and may even be counterproductive although that is more controversial) to sustaining long-term domestic partnerships between men. Again, I am not arguing that homosexuals are a special class of naughty people, too naughty for marriage. I am arguing that the basis for sustaining long-term relationships between men appear to be radically different than the those that help bridge the sex divide. Calling them both marriage, masks some pretty profound differences that won't go away just by playing with words. | ||||||||||
