CAN CONSERVATIVES SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE? Maggie Gallagher

I would have to agree Mark that empircally the answer to number 2, is yes. e.g. I know conservatives who support gay marriage, tacitly or explicitly. Of course the bigger question I am sure you would agree is not the ideological politics but the actual consequences: would it be good or bad for marriage as a social institution? Truth over politics, always.

posted by maggie at 6:31 PM | link 0 comments

CAN LIBERALS OPPOSE GAY MARRIAGE? Mark Miller

1. Is it still possible to oppose gay marriage and still be a liberal in good standing? Simple answer - Yes.

2. Is it still possible to support gay marriage and still be a conservative in good standing? Simple answer - Yes.

Do we agree on 2. ?




posted by maggie at 6:29 PM | link 0 comments

WHAT'S SEX GOT TO DO WITH IT? Maggie Gallagher

Forgive me Gabriel for not actually responding to the content of your post. I am struck instead by certain formal qualities of argument. Consider these two lines of reasoning: First the UNBEATABLE INFERTILITY ARGUMENT a) some infertile couples marry therefore b) the law of marriage is not primarily about procreation. In order to be about procreation, marriage law must c) investigate the fertility status of couples before they marry, and d) forbid infertile couples to marry.

OK, let's do the same thing with sex. a) Some married couples do not have sex. b) Therefore marriage as a legal union has nothing to do with sex. (Gabriel thinks it consist of a promise to exclude all others but not neccessarily to include one's spouse but let's leave that aside for a minute) c) Unless the law investigates whether married couples are having sex and forcibly divorces those who are not d) marriage as a legal union has nothing to do with sex.

Does anyone else think that both of these lines of reasoning are absurd?

Can anyone else explain why?

posted by maggie at 1:12 AM | link 0 comments

WHAT'S SEX GOT TO DO WITH IT?: Gabriel Rosenberg

Thanks to Eve for posting her thoughts on the D.C. Debate, with Jonathan Rauch and others. It was especially helpful for those of us that wish we could have been there. I am quite interested in some of her thoughts about gender roles and gender divide, but first I just wanted to briefly respond to her comment on marriage and best-friendship.

Eve notes De Solenni's question, "What makes marriage different from best-friendship?" and she asks why "nobody thinks the state should sanction or affirm her closest chosen relationship unless [she starts] sleeping with her."

My short answer to De Solenni is that best friends are not so interdependent as married couples. We don't commit to our best friends the same way we commit to our spouses. My short answer to Eve is that I wouldn't require that she and her best friend sleep together as long as they didn't sleep with anybody else for the rest of their lives. I see an important difference between forbidding extramarital sexual relationships and requiring all married couples to have sex. I know my wife and I don't think our sexual relationship with each other is anyone else's business. I certainly don't approach other married couples and inquire into their sex life. Extramarital sex can threaten the trust and permanence on which marriage depends. It can also create rival dependents (the sexual partner and possible offspring). For these and other reasons society has an obligation to help prevent it in order to sustain marriage. Any
interest society has in controlling couples' sex lives within marriage, though, fails to override its interest in leaving that issue to the married couple itself.

posted by maggie at 1:02 AM | link 0 comments

WHAT'S FIDELITY GOT TO DO WITH IT? Paul Nathanson

Fidelity, no matter how you define that, has always been important in marriage and not in gay relationships. That's partly because infidelity threatens the stability required for children, true, but also because it threatens the political interests represented by marriage (at least among the elite)--that is, family or clan alliances. Gay relationships, as such, involve neither of these factors. Sexually transmitted disease, of course, is another factor. Many gay (and straight) people believe that they can get around that by means of "safer sex." Maybe.

Having said that, I must point out that Eve's discussion is historically anachronistic in connection with sexual fidelity--which has not always been enforced or even idealized. (I'll refer here to Western societies, although what I say applies to many other societies as well.) The most obvious example of not enforcing sexual fidelity, even of encouraging it, is the medieval institution of courtly love. (Polygamy is another discussion. I'll just add here that polygamous fidelity is a more direct analogy than monogamy to maternal fidelity.)

But I suspect that some degree of sexual infidelity has always been tolerated in circumstances defined by factors such as class, property, religion, and so on. By the eighteenth century, both husbands and wives were having extramarital liaisons more or less openly (see Hogarth's series of paintings called Marriage a la Mode); the resulting children--especially those resulting from the sexual infidelity of wives--were aborted, killed as infants, or left at churches as foundlings. These folks hardly ever divorced, even though some might have had legal grounds for doing so. Clearly, their marriages were based on something other than, or at least in addition to, the expectation of sexual or even emotional gratification.

And I'm not sure that the (surviving) children were always severely disadvantaged. What harms children so severely now is the intense hostility generated by the sexual infidelity of one parent or both (and stats show that women, by the way, are quickly closing the gender gap in this respect). But that hostility is a result of two very recent developments: supremacy of the middle-class (with its insistence on respectability and gradual rejection of what came to be understood as upper-class hypocrisy) and the glorification of sentiment (what I associate with neo-romanticism).

Well, that's a start.
posted by maggie at 12:50 AM | link 0 comments

WHAT'S FIDELITY GOT TO DO WITH IT? Maggie Responds

Dale, with all due respect I think you are too quick to treat Eve's question as essentially rhetorical or strategic. The answer you give to the question of why marriage and marriage alone of all relationships, is supposed to be exclusive is first of all social expectations. In other words, no particular reason that is just the way marriage has always been. Tradition isn't holding up as a very good reason these days and in any case, it is not really an answer to why tradition holds only THIS intimate relationship as requiring one to "forsake all others."

Answer two is of course an answer, but it is also circular: By forsaking all others sexually you invest more in the relationship. But why does one relationship "intrude" on another in this relation but not in almost any other intimate relationship? What is the good that excluding love with others creates? And why, might I add, is this not merely a social expectation, but a legal one?

The poverty of the way you and most of the legal profession these day approach the procreative dimension to sexuality is also I am afraid deeply revealed. Many couples do not want children Voila! The fact that sex makes babies is irrelevant.

Maybe it's the fact that I had a baby at 22 that makes this reasoning seem so shallow and preposterous to me, whereas it seems so strong and ironclad to you. I dunno. Thinking doesn't have that much to do with makin' babies, Dale.



posted by maggie at 7:11 PM | link 0 comments

WHAT'S FIDELITY GOT TO DO WITH IT? Dale A. Carpenter

Here's a thought on the fidelity-within-marriage issue: Baby-making is not the only, and maybe not even the most important, reason why physical fidelity remains the normative expectation of marriage. Witness the many non-procreative marriages (non-procreative by choice or by necessity) that nonetheless embrace the ideal of sexual monogamy. Why would they do this? Two answers immediately come to mind: (1) those around them expect that they will be faithful sexually, regardless of whether they can make babies as a couple, and they would be shamed if they weren't monogamous (the social expectations imperative), and (2) people make an important investment in their marriage partners emotionally, financially, and physically that would be threatened by even the occasional intrusion of outsiders whom the other partner might grow to love (the investment imperative). The second feeds on the first. People feel safer maker the initial investment when they marry because they know their partner will be shamed if he/she is discovered violating social expectations. The relationship is more durable and stable as a result.

Now consider what happens when a group of people is denied access to marriage. First, the social expectations imperative is erased, or at least diluted. There is no template of sexual monogamy to follow and no corresponding powerful social expectation pressuring the partners to remain sexually faithful. The culture forgives or is more forgiving of "infidelity" outside the marriage context because everyone understands the relationship is less serious to begin with. The social cost of straying is lower and so we should expect a higher incidence of straying. Second, because the social expectations are lower, the initial investment and subsequent investment in the relationship are lower because the investment is less secure. For that reason, less is expected of the partner.

What gay marriage could do is force the social expectations imperative onto gay couples, giving them a template to which they've not had access and buying them into the cultural meaning of marriage, with all its attendant pressures. That might, in turn, increase their own investment in their relationship, knowing that the investment will be more secure and more fully supported.

I would expect, as I believe Maggie has acknowledged, that the most tradition-minded gay couples will be most likely to marry anyway, and that marriage itself will bring them further along. The availability of this important institution to a class of persons previously denied it might also affect gay culture generally, which has been less supportive of monogamy than it otherwise could be. This is precisely what many queer leftists fear about the effects of gay marriage on gays. But it is a development conservatives ought to regard as salutary.

By the way, given the importance of sexual fidelity within marriage, why aren't lesbian couples the most suitable candidates for marriage, better even than straight couples?


posted by maggie at 7:04 PM | link 0 comments

CAN LIBERALS OPPOSE GAY MARRIAGE? Maggie Gallagher

One of the things that happened when MarriageDebate.com went to D.C. aka the Cornyn DOMA hearings, is the testimony of the Rev. and Dr. Ray Hammond, an extremely well-known and well-regarded inner-city pastor and reformer who is on the board of the Alliance for Marriage. Sen. Kennedy went out of his way to compliment Dr. Hammond, despite his support of the FMA, as this story from the Boston Globe. Is it still possible to oppose gay marriage and still be a liberal in good standing? Or are all the "good" people on one side and only bigots on the other? Excerpts below:

"NEWS: On this Isssue, Allies are on Opposite Sides

By Yvonne Abraham, Boston Globe Staff, 9/16/2003

"They have stood together on many an issue, from protecting welfare benefits to curbing youth violence.

But earlier this month, the Rev. Ray Hammond and US Senator Edward M. Kennedy sat in a Senate hearing room on opposite sides of another major question of the day: a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gays and lesbians from legal marriage.

Hammond, pastor of Bethel AME Church and one of the Boston's most prominent community leaders, supports the amendment because he believes same-sex marriage would multiply the number of fatherless families. Kennedy opposes the amendment.

That difference of opinion has surprised and distressed some of Boston's gay and lesbian activists, who argue that Hammond's opposition to same-sex marriage is at odds with his long record as a liberal on other social issues.

"A lot of people locally were shocked," said Mary Bonauto, a lawyer for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders. "He's obviously a very impressive individual and he does incredibly important work, but it's puzzling at a minimum to understand why this is going to be part of his activism."

But Hammond's stand has delighted opponents of same-sex marriage, who see hard-to-pigeonhole supporters like him as the best way to broaden support for their efforts to restrict marriage to heterosexual unions.

Still, Hammond cannot fathom why anybody could think his testimony unforeseen, or read it as antigay. "I'm surprised they're surprised," he said. "This is a view I've articulated for a number of years."

In his testimony before Congress on Sept. 4, Hammond said he supported the amendment in the interests of combating "the epidemic level of fatherlessness in America."

He said his stance reflects that of the community he serves, that the "understanding of marriage as the union of male and female is so fundamental to the African-American community that over 70 percent of all African-Americans in the United States would currently favor a constitutional amendment" like the Federal Marriage Amendment.

"The courts in America are poised to erase the legal road map to marriage and the family," he testified. "If allowed to continue, this revolution will deprive future generations the . . . road map they will need to have a fighting chance to find their way out of the social wilderness of family disintegration."

Without a definition of marriage that restricts it to heterosexual unions, the institution is weakened, Hammond said in an interview. "Marriage is more than a contract and just the love between two people," he said. "[It is the] place where one of the critical divides in the human race is worked on, and hopefully reconciled. This is where kids can see: this is how men and women work together."

Hammond, a married father of two daughters, took great pains to point out that he is in favor of extending many rights to gays and lesbians that heterosexual partners take for granted: "I am not accusing gay and lesbian people of being responsible for the breakdown of the American family," he said.

Copies of Hammond's testimony have been doing the rounds for days among gay and lesbian activists, said Gary Daffin, cochairman of the Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. "People are definitely talking about it," said Daffin, who also works on HIV prevention, sometimes with Hammond's Ten Point Coalition. "This is someone who testified from Boston, who is not a nut, and someone that a lot of us respect."

Several gay activists said they would contact Hammond to explain their position to him.
"Everyone says that if he understood how harmful the amendment would be to gay families, he would never support it," said Arline Isaacson , a board member of MassEquality, a coalition of gay- and lesbian-rights advocacy groups. "Talking about fatherlessness is so completely and totally off topic to this issue. It is a typical strategy of the radical right to use ministers and have them talk about fatherlessness because it confuses the issue."

Though he disagrees with Hammond on the issue, Kennedy said he was comfortable with the pastor's commitment to gay and lesbian rights. "I'm a big booster and supporter of what he does in the community," Kennedy said. "We may not agree on all same-sex issues . . . but I believe he understands there ought to be protections for gays and lesbians."

posted by maggie at 2:56 PM | link 0 comments

WHAT'S FIDELITY GOT TO DO WITH IT? Maggie Gallagher

Well, there Eve goes again being interesting to distraction. I don't have much to add yet, except to point out that, in addition to friendship, there is another sort of relationship that is deep, intimate, life-altering and yet not exclusive: motherhood. Presumably fatherhood too, but I speak about what I know.

A mother is not unfaithful in loving multiple children (although in preferring another person's child to her own she would be, I think).

And motherhood is probably the most intense, sustained experience of erotic love most women know. Judging from the marriage counseling books.

Which highlights all the more the deep importance of Eve's question: What is it about marriage that requires fidelity? Any answers? Or any disagreement?
posted by maggie at 10:18 AM | link 0 comments

WHAT'S FIDELITY GOT TO DO WITH IT? Eve Tushnet

Hello, all. I'd like to get back to Eve Taggart's letter since she brings us back to a question that keeps recurring in this debate: the question of fidelity.

It's a series of questions, really. Is marriage about "forsaking all others"? Should it be? How do or should ideals of fidelity differ for same-sex and opposite-sex couples? Is fidelity necessarily physical--does "fidelity" mean not having sex with other people? Again, is this definition different, or should it be different, for same-sex and opposite-sex couples?

I think there's at least one large, fairly obvious reason why fidelity is part of the marriage ideal, and why fidelity for opposite-sex couples is defined in (not exclusively, but importantly) physical terms. It's the pregnancy thing again. If your man might make babies with someone else, you're more likely to see the point of restrictions on male sexuality. If you can get pregnant, you're more likely to see the problems that might result if the father isn't legally tied to you. We want babies to come into the world linked to their parents, linked to a man and a woman who have pledged to protect them and who have powerful biological and emotional impulses toward protection. We can certainly talk about other reasons for physical fidelity, but the babies are a big deal.

Fidelity, "forsaking all others," is not the ideal in all close relationships. The emotional closeness of a relationship isn't defined by its exclusivity. Exclusive relationships aren't the only way to provide stability, love, help (as in "helpmeet"), comfort, or challenge to be one's best self. We can see this easily when we look at friendship. Some people--I would guess that women do this more than men, though I can hardly be sure--get very jealous of their friends. They demand exclusivity, "forsaking all others," from friends. But pretty much everyone judges that to be unreasonable. We think that friendships can be deep, life-shaping, intense, good, honorable, ideal, all that wonderful stuff, without requiring that the friends forsake all others.

So perhaps one way to frame my questions (and if this doesn't work for you, by all means take a different approach!) is to ask whether and in what ways homosexual relationships are more like friendships or more like reg'lar-old-marriage when it comes to exclusivity and physical fidelity. ("Exclusivity" = "forsaking all others"; "physical fidelity" = "'forsaking all others' means not sleeping with them.") Or we can ask what the calculus of fidelity is for same-sex couples--what are the benefits and drawbacks of making physical fidelity part of the normative ideal, part of the rules? (One obvious benefit is reduction of sexually-transmitted diseases.)

I do think it's a bit odd to assume that male-male sexual relationships, male-female sexual relationships, and female-female sexual relationships are all more or less interchangeable, with similar needs, structures, and goals. So it's worthwhile to cash out more clearly the ways in which these kinds of relationships are similar and different, and fidelity seems like one of the most important places to look.
posted by maggie at 10:15 AM | link 0 comments

IS MARRIAGE A FORM OF DISCRIMINATION? Maggie Gallagher

[From CNSnews.com, full story HERE. The question these people raise is a valid one: What is it about marriage that qualifies it for distinctive treatment under the law? I don't think love is going to hold up as the explanation.]

"Singles' Group Calls Marriage Benefits 'Discrimination'
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Congressional Bureau Chief
September 23, 2003

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - An advocacy group for single adults said Monday that federal and state laws and private employment policies designed to encourage traditional marriage constitute "discrimination" against those who cannot or choose not to marry.

Thomas Coleman - executive director of Unmarried America (UA), the membership division of the American Association of Single People (AASP) - believes there is no justification for government or private businesses to encourage or reward marriage.

'Marriage, number one, doesn't mean what it used to. It's not 'till death do you part;' probably half or more of the people will divorce, and many of them will be in multiple marriages throughout their lives,' Coleman said. 'So it's gross generalizations, vague and stereotypical, and really not helpful to good public policy, as far as I'm concerned.'

Data from the 2002 American Community Survey, released by the U.S. Census Bureau earlier this month, seem to support at least the first part of Coleman's claim. The research indicated that 49.4 percent of American households are headed by an unmarried adult.

The Census data also showed that of the 86 million unmarried American adults, 59 million share their primary residence with others.

'Most of the people live with somebody, in a household, in a family-type setting of some nature,' Coleman said. 'Yet, most of those families are not really recognized or properly valued by society, and the federal government does not recognize or value those families in the way that it should.'

UA wants federal and state legislation to counter the many laws, regulations and policies that it alleges "unfairly discriminate against people" based on their marital status, including:

Deferment of income and estate taxes on money and property left to surviving spouses not automatically available to survivors of an unmarried decedent's choice;

Employer-sponsored health insurance and other benefits offered to spouses and children of married workers that unmarried employees are not given for others of their choosing;

Inclusion of marital status as a rating factor for automobile, health and property insurance;

'At a time when we have almost half of the households in the nation being headed by unmarried adults, and it's going to be increasing to an unmarried majority,' Coleman argued, 'it's time for a comprehensive national policy prohibiting marital status discrimination in all forms, just like other types of discrimination are prohibited on the basis or race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability and all of that.'

posted by maggie at 3:48 PM | link 0 comments

POLL SAYS 6 IN 10 OPPOSE FMA: Dale A. Carpenter

"NEW YORK, Sept. 22 (UPI) --A majority of Americans oppose allowing homosexual couples to marry legally, but it's not worth amending the U.S. Constitution, an ABC News poll has found.

In the poll, 37 percent of Americans say same-sex marriages should be legal while 55 percent say they should be illegal. But when opponents are asked if it's worth amending the Constitution to ban such marriages, six in 10 of them say it's not.

Other polls have found much more support for a constitutional amendment, for two possible reasons. Some pose the issue in a single question, conflating views on same-sex marriage with views on an amendment to ban them. This poll asks about the two issues separately. Also, the ABC poll asks if it's worth amending the Constitution, inviting consideration of the amendment process.

The poll, released Monday was conducted by telephone Sept. 3-7 on a random national sample of 1,028 adults. The results have a three-point error margin."

posted by maggie at 10:28 AM | link 0 comments

WHAT'S SEX GOT TO DO WITH IT? Maggie Gallagher

Jonathan, your argument presumes that the decline of marriage--high rates of unmarried childbearing, divorce and in particular at least, cohabitation, are being driven by what gays and lesbians do. Because same-sex couples can't legally marry they cohabit. And that is undermining the legitimacy of marriage.

Boy, would I get smacked with the charge of scapegoating gays if I tried to make that argument. And quite rightly. Because really, it is hard to swallow. One minor point: permitting people to live together unmolested is not the same as legitimating anything. It is called freedom, privacy, whatever. It is a private act, not a public one.

Secondly, as Stanley Kurtz quite correctly points out, there is no sign at all the gays and lesbian community will join you in insisitng on marriage as the gold standard. What is being embraced is the right to marry, not the duty to marry. Most advocates of gay marriage are in the family diversity school. They don't believe the state has the right to privilege a particular family form or coerce people into accepting a standardized relationship. This will continue apace after gay marriage (it dominates the family law academy right now) only the arguments against it will be notably weaker. Why exactly does the law insist people love only one other person? Why do you have to sleep with the person you love to get benefits? Why is the government in the business of regulating love anyway?

You will have ripped marriage from its underpinnings, the only ones that makes sense of it as a public, shared institution, important not only to the couple, but to the community.

People cohabit, and have multiple sex partners outside of marriage, and have babies outside of marriage, and divorce, not because they don't believe in romantic love. They do. When I asked unwed white moms why they didn't marry, they responded, essentially, that marriage was about romantic love not babies. They didn't want the father to feel he was obligated to marry them. They wanted to be the object of a great erotic passion. Babies were quite secondary.

What is causing our current crisis is a weakened commitment to the idea: adults have an obligation to conduct their intimate lives so they don't hurt their own children. And the related idea: putting your child, the one to whom you have the greatest duty to love, into an alternative family form without a mom and dad, is ordinarily wrong.

By emphasizing adult desire and adult happiness as the main justification for marriage--as a legal institution--you are unermining what needs to be recovered Jonathan. Marriage is about love, but it does not consist of loving feelings. Feelings, particularly erotic passions, are not their own justification. Decency, if nothing else, requires more of us.







posted by maggie at 10:13 AM | link 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND POVERTY: Jonathan Rauch
Co-bloggers, you may be interested in some new evidence in an article by me on the power of marriage in reducing poverty (it far exceeds the power of cash welfare).

(Not a durable link; article will be posted thru Oct. 2.)
posted by maggie at 9:55 AM | link 0 comments

WHAT'S SEX GOT TO DO WITH IT?: Jonathan Rauch

Eve, thanks for the kind words. Excellent summary of the whole event.

A clarifying note: my argument isn't that straights will imitate cohabiting or domestic-partnering gays. I wish gay influence were that strong. Here's what I do think will happen--and is already happening:

First, regarding domestic-partner programs: in about two-thirds of cases, hetero couples are given access to domestic-partner programs that are set up with homosexual couples in mind. That's just a fact of majoritarian political life. (And in some jurisdictions it's the law: you can't "discriminate" against heteros by denying them benefits that gays get.) The way to slow or (if we're lucky) even reverse the process is to render domestic-partner programs unnecessary. Go back to a clear, unitary standard: marriage!

Second, as regards cohabitation: obviously, lots of straights do this already. Cohabitation is rapidly on the increase. I don't think straights will imitate gay cohabitants, per se (they hardly need to); but I do think that when society says that cohabiting is better than marrying for gays it perforce legitimizes cohabitation as a marriage equivalent. It's hard to insist that marriage is the best thing for serious couples when you're denying marriage to a whole class of serious couples. You wind up saying, "If two people really love each other, they should marry or live together--as the case may be." What Robert Knight misses is that his attempt to marginalize gays by excluding them from marriage will end up marginalizing marriage instead.

Same-sex marriage is a big opportunity to renormalize marriage itself. It's a chance to say, "Marriage is the gold standard for committed relationships--everyone should do it, no exceptions. Accept no substitutes." What a pity conservatives misperceive this opportunity as a threat.




posted by maggie at 7:13 PM | link 0 comments

WHAT'S SEX GOT TO DO WITH IT?: Paul Nathanson

I agree that straight folks already gravitate to relationships favored by gay people (who aren't allowed, after all, to marry other gay people). But this has been going on for a long time, beginning long before anyone had ever heard of "gay relationships." Even straight people who do marry often resort to serial marriage. This situation will remain unless we take steps to reinforce the status of marriage: discouraging divorce and granting privileges to balance the responsibilities of marriage. And those steps will never be taken unless enough people regain the idea that marriage is communal institution, not merely a personal and private one.

Actually, there are people who ask what makes a marriage different from an emotional friendship or even a business partnership. So far, though, their question is mainly rhetorical, a strategy intended to confuse advocates of gay marriage. (As in: Do you really want everyone to marry?) It might be a good idea for some of these relationships to be given legal status--but not, of course, as marriage. It's the all-or-nothing premise that troubles gay people: you're either married or you're nothing. That's why they demand inclusion. If many of these relationships had legal status according to function--not necessarily sexual--gay people might find it easier to accept something other than marriage. Of course, the whole notion that marriage has high status is anachronistic, to say the least. All that remains of that status is the (often tawdry) glamour of a wedding.

I had to laugh when I read Guerrerro's definition of marriage. Why? Because who knows what "love" means these days? Sentiment, I suppose. If so, it's no wonder that these vaunted "lifelong committed relationship" often amount to nothing more than "starter marriages" or steps on the road to "personal growth." Frankly, I don't believe that sentiment (no matter how dolled up in psychological or even theological jargon) is enough to sustain any important relationship: marriage or friendship, straight or gay.

I'm in profound agreement with Eve about the "unwarranted American pursuit of 'the authentic self'--what I am rather than what I should do." And while I’m on the topic of identity and identity politics, I should just add that "gay identity”"is a very recent innovation. Until the day before yesterday, no one had ever heard of either that or "sexual orientation." Most of those now called "gay" considered themselves ordinary folks, not innately different, who occasionally had sex with other men or other women; most of them married and had children, therefore, without deceiving anyone. (A few of them, however, really cannot function heterosexually; these folks were either unhappily married or single.) Katherine Young and I have modified our paper, yet again, with this in mind. And it's important.

Eve mentions the "desire for gender," another topic that should be discussed. Academics are so used to thinking of gender as the result of a patriarchal conspiracy that few bother to ask if it serves (or has served) a useful purpose. Even though gender systems vary considerably from one culture to another, gender (like marriage) is a universal feature of human existence both historically and cross-culturally; every society has had a gender system, though some are rigid and others flexible, some complex and others nominal. And one reason for this, in our opinion, is the need of men to make some distinctive, necessary, and publicly valued contribution to society (and thus to invest in its stability and continuity). In addition, there's something to be said for the idea of "reconciling" opposite sexes. Even though men and women aren't nearly as different as some feminists and anti-feminists want to believe, they're different enough to need cultural support for bonding.
posted by maggie at 4:54 PM | link 0 comments

THE OPPOSITE SEX: Maggie Gallagher

I am always being credited with good lines that belong to someone else (most notably Mona Charen's smashing response to Andrew Sullivan in a debate in the 90s, "Andrew it's not marriage that civilizes men, it's women!"

The phrase "Reconciling the opposite sexes" I heard for the first time in Ray Hammond's Senate Testimony, but Dan Cere and the other Canadians developed a similar idea, that one purpose of marriage is to help men and women "bridge the gender divide."

Speaking of which, did you see today's NYT with its new section on "Men and Health"? It is quite unexpectedly amusing. The topic was pain, who has more, who complains more. Men it seems actually do tolerate pain more in experiments, esp. when the experimenter in male. But when they do complain, they complain to their wives. One of the ironies of sex is that men puff themselves up to appear manly to attract a woman, and then, once they have her. . .Their game faces are for other men, not their wives.

Jim Dwyer reports that, if you are a middle-aged reporter with numerous small aches and pains, the best cure might be, going to war. Natalie Angier conducted an informal survey of married folk. Here is one man's explanation for why he does NOT complain to his wife when he is feeling ill: "I don't like admitting I'm feeling sick," he said, "because then I think [my wife] won't want to have sex."




posted by maggie at 9:24 AM | link 0 comments

THE D.C. DEBATE: Eve Tushnet

THOUGHTS ON THE A.F.F. SAME-SEX MARRIAGE DEBATES, starring Jonathan Rauch. Scattered impressions, of course--what, you expected concise paragraphs in military formation?

The panelists were Pia de Solenni, Robert Knight, Patrick Guerrerro, and Jonathan Rauch. Rauch was by far the best speaker, as I'd expected. He kicked off the panel with a strong defense of two things that may or may not be the same thing: marriage, and "long-term caring relationships," "someone to come home to," someone to provide stability in one's life.

He also argued that if same-sex marriage doesn't pass soon, a Chinese menu of alternatives to marriage will arise (or rather, will gain in popularity--all of these already exist): domestic partnerships, civil unions, committed relationships without marriage, etc. etc. Basically, the idea is that heterosexual couples will see these other relationship models being practiced by homosexual couples, and will pick these looser-but-stabler unions over the demands of marriage. (Interestingly, this claim rests on the premise that hetero couples will take advantage of problematic relationship models offered by homosexual couples. That's a premise that advocates of SSM generally deny when the question is whether hetero couples will imitate male-male couples' often laxer standards of infidelity.) I think this is Rauch's strongest claim, and will perhaps write more about it later.

De Solenni made one really good point, which is that advocates of SSM rarely cash out what makes marriage different from best-friendship. I think it's fairly important to ask why nobody thinks the state should sanction or affirm my closest chosen relationship unless I start sleepin' with her. More on this soon. Unfortunately, this interesting point was sort of lost amid vague, un-cashed-out talk of "complementarity" and children.

Guerrerro is a politician--he's a big wheel in the Log Cabin Republicans--and talked like one, for good and for ill. He spoke movingly about 50-year-long loving homosexual relationships that have lasted through thick and thin. I found myself wondering whether Guerrerro really thinks that nobody is ever really in love with his mistress. IOW "but they love each other" is not really the end of the argument, you know? For oh so much more on that tip, check out Denis de Rougemont's incisive and potentially life-changing literary study, "Love in the Western World."

He also offered a very attenuated understanding of friendship (can you tell I've been thinking about this a lot?), as if a friend is just a casual acquaintance, rather than, so often, a well-loved shelter from the storms of life.

Knight... well, eh. I've seen him speak more persuasively than this on topics relating to homosexuality. Basically, he said that anal sex is bad, and we should be encouraging people to become "ex-gays" (not a notion I'm super fond of).

Then the moderator asked everyone to define marriage. You can probably do Knight's and De Solenni's yourself, but Guerrerro's and Rauch's definitions were interesting: G. said that marriage is when "two loving people choose to have the state recognize their lifelong committed relationship, with all the legal rights and responsibilities offered to heterosexuals." Rauch, in a clipped and passionate tone, simply said, "To have and to hold, to love and to cherish, for richer and for poorer, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, 'til death do you part."

Overall take-home thoughts from the debate: Like most of these discussions, it was framed in terms of heteros vs. homos. I think that's unnecessary and misleading; I've said before that I think this is an issue about men and women, not gays 'n' straights.

Similarly, both Knight and the pro-SSM speakers seemed to think it was very important to figure out whether or not people could change from a homosexual to a heterosexual orientation. I don't think that's an especially important question (to the extent that it's important to one's personal life, you can find my answer in the "ex-gay" article linked above), and I think it reflects an unwarranted American pursuit of "the authentic self"--what I amrather than what I should do. Include me out.

Opponents of SSM need to work much harder on explaining what "the children!" are doing in our argument. There needs to be much more careful attention to the role of ideals and models in people's lives. Instead, we're getting bogged down in questions about infertile couples, etc., which I think are just plain irrelevant.

We need to talk about the effects of changing the ideal marriage to a unisex, not necessarily physically constant model, where children only enter the picture when you specifically go out and plan and get 'em. We need to talk about the expectations that new model raises, and the desires it does and doesn't cater to. (Does = the desire to have control over our bodies, a control that is, frankly, illusory, especially for those whose sexual relations can and often do lead to pregnancy. Doesn't = the desire for gender. For example.) None of that stuff got brought up last night.

Advocates of SSM really need to stop talking about me and my best friend when they think they're talking about marriage. I mean, I don't think Knight's approach was super helpful either, but at least he did in fact talk about sex. Let's have a less abstracted and more visceral, embodied understanding of what makes marriage unlike other socially-beneficial relationships.

Advocates and opponents of SSM might usefully discuss what they think about children and gender. Should children learn gender roles? Is that harder with a same-sex couple? Is it harder in a society with same-sex marriage? Do those questions matter, and if so, how much?

The language of "gender complementarity" is kind of bloodless. I more like a formulation, which I think Maggie Gallagher may have come up with?, that marriage is how we reconcile the opposite sexes.
posted by maggie at 9:12 AM | link 0 comments

THE D.C. DEBATE: Eve Tushnet

THOUGHTS ON THE A.F.F. SAME-SEX MARRIAGE DEBATES, starring Jonathan Rauch. Scattered impressions, of course--what, you expected concise paragraphs in military formation?

The panelists were Pia de Solenni, Robert Knight, Patrick Guerrerro, and Jonathan Rauch. Rauch was by far the best speaker, as I'd expected. He kicked off the panel with a strong defense of two things that may or may not be the same thing: marriage, and "long-term caring relationships," "someone to come home to," someone to provide stability in one's life.

He also argued that if same-sex marriage doesn't pass soon, a Chinese menu of alternatives to marriage will arise (or rather, will gain in popularity--all of these already exist): domestic partnerships, civil unions, committed relationships without marriage, etc. etc. Basically, the idea is that heterosexual couples will see these other relationship models being practiced by homosexual couples, and will pick these looser-but-stabler unions over the demands of marriage. (Interestingly, this claim rests on the premise that hetero couples will take advantage of problematic relationship models offered by homosexual couples. That's a premise that advocates of SSM generally deny when the question is whether hetero couples will imitate male-male couples' often laxer standards of infidelity.) I think this is Rauch's strongest claim, and will perhaps write more about it later.

De Solenni made one really good point, which is that advocates of SSM rarely cash out what makes marriage different from best-friendship. I think it's fairly important to ask why nobody thinks the state should sanction or affirm my closest chosen relationship unless I start sleepin' with her. More on this soon. Unfortunately, this interesting point was sort of lost amid vague, un-cashed-out talk of "complementarity" and children.

Guerrerro is a politician--he's a big wheel in the Log Cabin Republicans--and talked like one, for good and for ill. He spoke movingly about 50-year-long loving homosexual relationships that have lasted through thick and thin. I found myself wondering whether Guerrerro really thinks that nobody is ever really in love with his mistress. IOW "but they love each other" is not really the end of the argument, you know? For oh so much more on that tip, check out Denis de Rougemont's incisive and potentially life-changing literary study, "Love in the Western World."

He also offered a very attenuated understanding of friendship (can you tell I've been thinking about this a lot?), as if a friend is just a casual acquaintance, rather than, so often, a well-loved shelter from the storms of life.

Knight... well, eh. I've seen him speak more persuasively than this on topics relating to homosexuality. Basically, he said that anal sex is bad, and we should be encouraging people to become "ex-gays" (not a notion I'm super fond of).

Then the moderator asked everyone to define marriage. You can probably do Knight's and De Solenni's yourself, but Guerrerro's and Rauch's definitions were interesting: G. said that marriage is when "two loving people choose to have the state recognize their lifelong committed relationship, with all the legal rights and responsibilities offered to heterosexuals." Rauch, in a clipped and passionate tone, simply said, "To have and to hold, to love and to cherish, for richer and for poorer, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, 'til death do you part."

Overall take-home thoughts from the debate: Like most of these discussions, it was framed in terms of heteros vs. homos. I think that's unnecessary and misleading; I've said before that I think this is an issue about men and women, not gays 'n' straights.

Similarly, both Knight and the pro-SSM speakers seemed to think it was very important to figure out whether or not people could change from a homosexual to a heterosexual orientation. I don't think that's an especially important question (to the extent that it's important to one's personal life, you can find my answer in the "ex-gay" article linked above), and I think it reflects an unwarranted American pursuit of "the authentic self"--what I amrather than what I should do. Include me out.

Opponents of SSM need to work much harder on explaining what "the children!" are doing in our argument. There needs to be much more careful attention to the role of ideals and models in people's lives. Instead, we're getting bogged down in questions about infertile couples, etc., which I think are just plain irrelevant.

We need to talk about the effects of changing the ideal marriage to a unisex, not necessarily physically constant model, where children only enter the picture when you specifically go out and plan and get 'em. We need to talk about the expectations that new model raises, and the desires it does and doesn't cater to. (Does = the desire to have control over our bodies, a control that is, frankly, illusory, especially for those whose sexual relations can and often do lead to pregnancy. Doesn't = the desire for gender. For example.) None of that stuff got brought up last night.

Advocates of SSM really need to stop talking about me and my best friend when they think they're talking about marriage. I mean, I don't think Knight's approach was super helpful either, but at least he did in fact talk about sex. Let's have a less abstracted and more visceral, embodied understanding of what makes marriage unlike other socially-beneficial relationships.

Advocates and opponents of SSM might usefully discuss what they think about children and gender. Should children learn gender roles? Is that harder with a same-sex couple? Is it harder in a society with same-sex marriage? Do those questions matter, and if so, how much?

The language of "gender complementarity" is kind of bloodless. I more like a formulation, which I think Maggie Gallagher may have come up with?, that marriage is how we reconcile the opposite sexes.
posted by maggie at 9:10 AM | link 0 comments