Gay/Lesbian MarriageMuch has been made about the subject of gay marriage, which is not even an undivided subject in the gay/lesbian community. Whether you're for it or against it or just don't care, like the right for gays and lesbians to serve in the military, it's a critical issue in terms of legal rights in the largest of all possible scopes in society.
what's to lose? monetary impact of lesbian marriagesGirlfriends magazine, September/October 1996 issue, p. 27 (but do read the entire article, it's well done). Most lesbians are aware of some financial benefits (joint health insurance and tax returns, for example) denied to dyke couples because they can't marry. But when it comes to the exact -- and often hidden -- costs of compulsory singlehood, even the most die-hard bachelorette may be shocked. We invented three hypothetical lesbian couples and attached average dollar amounts to the ups and downs of queer coupledom.
Couple #1Thirty-three year-old Consuelo and 34-year-old Ellen are moving their cats, their student loans, and their 8-year-old relationship to Seattle for Consuelo's new $30,000 per year job in the software industry. Ellen is self-employed as a children's novelist. Because the women are legally single, the couple is forced to pay the following additional costs:
One Time Loss: $16,000 Total Loss: $18,600 Couple #2Over the past 15 years, 49-yo Mandy has supported her 51-yo wife Jennifer on her $40,000 salary while the couple raised Jennifer's adopted twins. After she discovered Mandy was having an affair, Jennifer packed the kids and left the home they bought together. Because they were not legally married, Jennifer can kiss good-bye to:
One Time Loss: $134,810 Total Loss: $154,058 Couple #3When Bernice's lover Joan, a 28-year old Marine corporal who served in the Gulf War, was killed in a freak accident on her base, the 30-yo medical assistant and part-time student lost more than the woman she'd fallen for two years past. Because they couldn't be legally married, Bernice always knew she'd never enjoy the perks of a Marine wife. When the circumstances of Joan's death turned suspicious, Bernice also discovered her lover's homophobic parents could sue Joanie's employer for wrongful death, but she could not. Overall, our lesbian widow can't collect:
Why Should Government Stand in the way of Gay Marriages? By Patrick T. Murphy When I read the arguments put forward against gay marriage I think of George and Dan. In the eight or nine years they were together before George died, they were as loving and giving a couple as I had ever met. George was an old-school type of guy, kind of like my grandfather. He was soft spoken, courteous, the type who would tip his hat to an older woman. I have worked with and supervised hundreds of exceptional lawyers in my career but few combined the dedication, professionalism and pure decency that George had. He graduated from law school in the late '70s and turned down earning more money to work with abused children and their families. He came to work with me in the mid-'80s and before long he was one of my top supervisors. During the next few years I got to know George and his companion. (They weren't married.) We shared lunches, dinners and a few social occasions together. His companion was more outgoing, vivacious and quicker with a quip than George but a good match for George's deep and quiet intelligence. At that time they had been together about eight years, longer than I had been married. And though I never saw them affectionate in public, they were obviously deeply in love and drew strength from each other's personalities. Then George got sick, very sick. He went on high dosages of experimental drugs and quickly degenerated. Before long he wasn't himself. I would walk into his office to find him sitting at his desk staring at a wall, not sure of where he was. However, despite intermittent hospitalizations, he continued to struggle down to the office and over to court. One day, while crossing the Michigan Avenue bridge, he collapsed sustaining numerous stitches on his face. Still, he dragged himself to work. His companion had been working but quit for a variety of reasons; mainly, I think, to be there for George who was slipping quickly. Finally, George could work no more and spent his remaining months between the hospital and his apartment. During this entire time, I don't believe the companion ever left George's side. Before he went into the final stages of his illness, George had several conversations with me about taking care of his companion financially. George brought most of the assets into the relationship. We both knew that he was dying and I encouraged George to see a lawyer but he waited too long, I believe, and failed to take care of his companion the way that I know he would have had he been thinking clearly. After George died, his companion asked me to say a few words at George's memorial service. In deliberating about what I would say, I thought of George's life, his dedication to serving the less fortunate and particularly the deep love he and his companion shared. When I did give the eulogy, I spoke of these and referred to words of St. Paul, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. . . Love is kind; love does not envy; love is not proud, it is not puffed up . . . And there are these three, faith, hope and love but the greatest of these is love." Since George and his companion, Dan, were not married, could not marry, Dan had no say about funeral arrangements. George's relatives who lived out of state were going to have their own religious memorial service and hinted to Dan that his presence would not be missed. They told him to express-mail George's ashes. Dan, of course, refused to do so and flew with the ashes and did attend the service. Dan himself was HIV-poisitive and was to die in a little over a year. I visited with him often and got to know him even better during the year. He bore no grudge to George's relatives nor was he concerned that he did not benefit financially as a widow or widower would have under Illinois laws or of other states. The money, he reasoned, would do him no good since he was soon to die. However, I could tell that he was hurt by the oversight. When I read the arguments put forward against gay marriage I think of George and Dan. In the eight or nine years they were together before George died, they were as loving and giving a couple as I had ever met. I also believe they were faithful. And if they weren't loving and faithful every day of their union, that would make them no different than many heterosexual couples. And they couldn't have children but neither do many heterosexual married couples, though they could adopt if they wished. Some gay couples will be louts and oafs and cheat on each other and leave the relationship at the first sign of stress. Ditto for some heterosexuals. Some argue that permitting gays to marry would give legitimacy to homosexuality which, in turn, will set a bad example for our kids. I don't think so. Children will not grow up to become gay simply because they see a relatively content homosexual couple living down the block. But conversely, some gay individuals who lead miserable lives closeted with their shame might be induced to shed their inhibitions, admit their sexuality and lead much more full and open lives. Marriage, like all societal conventions, is evolving. If gay people wish to enter a contract, which in our society we call marriage by which they vow to devote a substantial portion of their lives to each other, why should government stand in their way? Indeed, one's sexual orientation no more than the color of one's skin or the way one does or does not honor God should be no impediment to equal access to the rights and responsibilities the rest of us enjoy. CHICAGO TRIBUNE [ www.chicago.tribune.com ] Gay Marriage TriviaSome of our most-often seen arguments against the right of gays to marry:
Marriage Issue Just as Plain as Black and WhiteEric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1996Statements:
The quotes are culled from a Boston University Law Review article and a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, though I did take the minor liberty of changing the subject of the strangled rage, fear, and righteous indignation. Everywhere I quoted the speakers referring to same-sex marriage, homosexuality, and heterosexuality, they were actually referring to interracial marriage and their views of black people, white people, and the proper interaction thereof. And yes, that includes statement No. 6, which in original form articulated the old white supremacist belief that offspring of whites and blacks were -- like mules that result when horses mate with donkeys -- sterile. The quotes date from 1823 to 1964 and, though the sentiments look hatefully ridiculous to us in 1996, they had sufficient appeal and staying power that 15 states still criminalized black-white marriage until the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned those laws in the appropriately named 1967 case, Loving vs. Virginia. Those whose unaltered words today resemble statements 1 through 12 above, take note. The stench is familiar. The future is listening. Congressional Record, 104th Congress, 7/11/96 on Defense of Marriage ActThe following statement was made by Rep. John Lewis, an African-American Democrat from Georgia's 5th District, during last week's Congressional debate on the "Defense of Marriage" Act.CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, 104th CONGRESS DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT (House of Representatives - July 11, 1996) Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my friend and colleague for yielding me the time. Let me say to the gentleman that when I was growing up in the south during the 1940s and the 1950s, the great majority of the people in that region believed that black people should not be able to enter places of public accommodation, and they felt that black people should not be able to register to vote, and many people felt that was right but that was wrong. I think as politicians, as elected officials, we should not only follow but we must lead, lead our districts, not put our fingers into the wind to see which way the air is blowing but be leaders. Mr. Chairman, this is a mean bill. It is cruel. This bill seeks to divide our nation, turn Americans against Americans, sow the seeds of fear, hatred and intolerance. Let us remember the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths self-evident that all people are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This bill is a slap in the face of the Declaration of Independence. It denies gay men and women the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Marriage is a basic human right. You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used to say when people talked about interracial marriage and I quote, "Races do not fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married." Why do you not want your fellow men and women, your fellow Americans to be happy? Why do you attack them? Why do you want to destroy the love they hold in their hearts? Why do you want to crush their hopes, their dreams, their longings, their aspirations? We are talking about human beings, people like you, people who want to get married, buy a house, and spend their lives with the one they love. They have done no wrong. I will not turn my back on another American. I will not oppress my fellow human being. I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Mr. Chairman, I have known racism. I have known bigotry. This bill stinks of the same fear, hatred and intolerance. It should not be called the Defense of Marriage Act. It should be called the defense of mean-spirited bigots act. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, to have the courage to do what is right. This bill appeals to our worst fears and emotions. It encourages hatred of our fellow Americans for political advantage. Every word, every purpose, every message is wrong. It is not the right thing to do, to divide Americans. We are moving toward the 21st century. Let us come together and create one nation, one people, one family, one house, the American house, the American family, the American nation.
House Prevents Gay DivorceRob Morse, San Francisco Examiner, 7/4/96 My marriage has been threatened by a lot of I things, including arguments, marathon silences, raging hormones (mine), mid-life crisis (mine), dirty clothes piles (hers) and occasional failure (mine) to wash the backs of plates. My marriage has never been threatened by Bob wanting to marry Ted, or Carol getting engaged to Alice. Now, with the passage of the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act," the House of Representatives has saved the battered institution of heterosexual marriage. Let the marriage counselors of America, the ones who aren't in Congress, join the unemployment lines. If the bill passes the Senate, gay couples won't be able to share the joys of government-sanctioned connubial bliss. They'll have to decide who takes out the garbage without benefit of marriage licenses. Oh, yeah. And American civilization will be saved. And now a word about some of the legislators who saved the institution of marriage and America. Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., the sponsor of the bill, declared on the floor of Congress that "the flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundations of our society, the family unit." Barr ought to know about family units because he's been married three times. And he knows about the licking flames of hedonism too. He once was caught licking whipped cream off the chests of two buxom women. Of course, that's OK, because it was disgusting straight sex, not disgusting gay sex. However, it was shockingly high in fat grams. Then of course you have the speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., whose idea of traditional family values was to visit his cancer-stricken first wife in the hospital to say he was leaving her. Paying guys like this to defend marriage is like paying Bonnie and Clyde to guard your bank. That's what we're doing -- paying meddling politicians to deal with nonexistent problems. More precisely, to make problems. They're trying to make problems for Bill Clinton, and turn him into the best man of the gay marriage party. It's a desperation move by Republicans saddled with a dud candidate for president. As Sen. Ted Kennedy said, this should be called "The Defense of Endangered Republicans Act." President Clinton responded in true form, out of both sides of his mouth. He said he opposes discrimination against any group of Americans, but will sign the bill because he "has long opposed gay marriage." Another guy whose advice on marriage we need. The backers of the anti-gay marriage act say they're saving American civilization -- you know, the heterosexual civilization that brought us Al and Peggy Bundy. Rep. Steve Largent, R-Okla., who used to run around and get smacked in the head by NFL free safeties, said, "No culture that has ever embraced homosexuality has ever survived." Steve, no culture has ever survived. They all decline and fall. Homosexuality somehow stays with the human race, though. Largent seems to have been referring to ancient Greek culture, as represented by pederastic philosophers who live on in the Western Civilization courses conservatives love so much. So Greek culture doesn't live on? What was that Olympic flame all about? Think Græco-Roman wrestling, Steve. For the first time, the federal government has tried to define marriage. Legislators who claim to favor states' rights, religious freedoms and individual rights are over-regulating intimate human relationships. The House has forbidden citizens to peaceably assemble as man and man in their own bedrooms. The House that treasure the right to keep and bear arms can't bear two women legally in each other's arms. The problem with most Washington politicians is that they're so busy boozing and bimboing that they've never seen a gay relationship. They should do some field work in San Francisco, where the only normal people on the average block are gay couples. I live in a bungalow that was occupied for 45 years by two women, easily the stablest relationship for a radius of three miles. On my old block the two gay men next door were quiet, loving, neat and owned a successful small business. The other neighbors included a psychopathic heterosexual red neck couple who kept a .357 Magnum stashed in their broken dishwasher, and a zoned-out heterosexual hippie couple who grew pot in a house with so many grow-lights it glowed like something from "The X-Files." Everybody else was single and lonely. Congress should ensure domestic tranquillity, not prevent more perfect unions. If they want to save marriage, they should pass a law requiring that the backs of dishes shall always be washed. Gays Taunting Heterosexuals with a Subversive Notion: A Lawful Union can be Stable and Happyby Robert Scheer (editorial reprinted in Outlines with permission; contributing editor to LA Times. rscheer@aol.com) After careful consideration I have decided that I, too, am opposed to gay marriages. Not that any gays have asked to marry me; but ever since Bob Dole and Pat Buchanan made this a vital issue in the presidential campaign, I have felt the need to speak out. I agree with the conservatives that gays cannot fulfill the sacred obligation of marriages, which is to procreate. And to be consistent, I believe that heterosexual marriages that prove childless after nine months should be dissolved. This would end Dole's, Buchanan's and Newt Gingrich's current marriages; but I am sure they will understand. They are also right in arguing that gay marriages are very threatening to heterosexual marriages. If you've ever lived near a gay couple, you would know that they set a very bad example. I remember trying to be heterosexually married once in the notorious Castro district in San Francisco. My wife of the time kept comparing me very unfavorably to gay spouses. They managed to earn a living; participate in civic life; and still find the time to do the dishes, fix the sink, and even paint their houses. I kept telling her it's unnatural for a man to be so handy. Her unreasonably heightened expectations soon ended our marriage. Another thing is that gay men who want to get legally married as opposed to just living together or, better yet, having one-night stands are clearly abnormal. I have never met a heterosexual man who was thrilled at the prospect of tying the legal knot. That's why we get stupidly drunk and destructive at darkly ritualistic pre-wedding bachelor parties. My heterosexual friends always thought that their live-in relationships were going along just fine and suspiciously questioned why their girlfriends felt the need to rush into marriage. My experience extends to a recently overheard conversation at a coffee house in my neighborhood. A scruffy, never-employed screenwriter was panicked that the successful executive woman he was being fixed up with for a blind date would prove desperate to lure him into marriage. Heterosexual men think they can never be too careful on this issue. Marriage is scary. Suddenly, you are legally responsible for someone else's debts, health insurance, and moods; and that person can make a claim on your income forever. Anyone who is eager to vow, in the eyes of the law, to love, honor, and cherish another in sickness and until death, has got to have a screw loose. Unless one is in love. When heterosexual men are truly smitten, they become desperate to capture their prey before she gets away. But this wouldn't apply to gay marriages, because gay men never fall in love. All they care about is partying and sex, unlike heterosexual men, who mature as they move on in life. You will notice that I haven't said anything about lesbians. That's because, being a heterosexual man, I'm convinced that lesbians don't really exist except in a kind of purgatory until a real man turns them around. So few of us and so little time. So how do I explain all those gay men and lesbian women lining up to get married as soon as the opportunity presents itself? Even the recent semiofficial ceremony presided over by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown brought out dozens of gay couples, most of whom claimed to have been cohabiting happily for a long time. The answer is that they want to taunt us heterosexuals with the subversive notion that gays can be stable and happy. It's a plot to undermine our time-honored national values and the Constitution. The Founding Fathers did not provide for gay marriages, even though surely some were gay. Conservatively speaking, at least 3% of the signers of the Constitution must have been gay, since that's the low estimate for any population sample. It was probably higher, given that they were a pretty talented bunch and wore wigs. They also never declared gays to be three-fifths of a person, which indicates a certain self-interested tolerance, if you get my drift. Clearly, the Founding Fathers were as comfortable with hypocrisy as most politicians are today. But they forgot to write a "Don't ask, don't tell" clause into the Constitution. They also left marriage matters up to the states. Darn, and then the Supreme Court of Hawaii had to go and find that their state's Constitution may protect gay marriages. What if that ruling sticks and it turns out that thousands of gays achieve happiness in marriage? Dole is right; it could rock the very "foundation of marriage." Worse yet, gay couples would be eligible to purchase family insurance, share health benefits, file joint tax returns, and have the right to visit a sick spouse in the hospital. The republic could fall.
The Case for Gay (and Straight) MarriageThe New Republic Magazine, May 8, 1996 EditorJonathan Rauch Whatever else marriage may or may not be, it is certainly falling apart. Half of today's marriages end in divorce, and, far more costly, many never begin -- leaving mothers poor, children fatherless and neighborhoods chaotic. With timing worthy of Neville Chamberlain, homosexuals have chosen this moment to press for the right to marry. What's more, Hawaii's courts are moving toward letting them do so. I'll believe in gay marriage in America when I see it, but if Hawaii legalizes it, even temporarily, the uproar over this final insult to a besieged institution will be deafening. Whether gay marriage makes sense -- and whether straight marriage makes sense -- depends on what marriage is actually for. Current secular thinking on this question is shockingly sketchy. Gay activists say: marriage is for love, and we love each other, therefore we should be able to marry. Traditionalists say: marriage is for children, and homosexuals do not (or should not) have children, therefore you should not be able to marry. That, unfortunately, pretty well covers the spectrum. I say "unfortunately" because both views are wrong. They misunderstand and impoverish the social meaning of marriage. So what is marriage for? Modern marriage is, of course, based upon traditions that religion helped to codify and enforce. But religious doctrine has no special standing in the world of secular law and policy (the "Christian nation" crowd notwithstanding). If we want to know what and whom marriage is for in modern America, we need a sensible secular doctrine. At one point, marriage in secular society was largely a matter of business: cementing family ties, providing social status for men and economic support for women, conferring dowries, and so on. Marriages were typically arranged, and "love" in the modern sense was no prerequisite. In Japan, remnants of this system remain, and it works surprisingly well. Couples stay together because they view their marriage as a partnership: an investment in social stability for themselves and their children. Because Japanese couples don't expect as much emotional fulfillment as we do, they are less inclined to break up. They also take a somewhat more relaxed attitude toward adultery. What's a little extracurricular love provided that each partner is fulfilling his or her many other marital duties? In the West, of course, love is a defining element. The notion of lifelong love is charming, if ambitious, and certainly love is a desirable element of marriage. In society's eyes, however, it cannot be the defining element. You may or may not love your husband, but the two of you are just as married either way. You may love your mistress, but that certainly doesn't make her your spouse. Love helps make sense of marriage emotionally, but it is not terribly important in making sense of marriage from the point of view of social policy. If love does not define the purpose of secular marriage, what does? Neither the law nor secular thinking provides a clear answer. Today marriage is almost entirely a voluntary arrangement whose contents are up to the people making the deal. There are few if any behaviors that automatically end a marriage. If a man beats his wife, which is about the worst thing he can do to her, he may be convicted of assault, but his marriage is not automatically dissolved. Couples can be adulterous ("open") yet remain married. They can be celibate, too; consummation is not required. All in all, it is an impressive and also rather astonishing victory for modern individualism that so important an institution should be so bereft of formal social instruction as to what should go on inside of it. Secular society tells us only a few things about marriage. First, marriage depends on the consent of the parties. Second, the parties are not children. Third, the number of parties is two. Fourth, one is a man and the other a woman. Within those rules a marriage is whatever anyone says it is. Perhaps it is enough simply to say that marriage is as it is and should not be tampered with. This sounds like a crudely reactionary position. In fact, however, of all the arguments against reforming marriage, it is probably the most powerful. Call it a Hayekian argument, after the great libertarian economist F.A. Hayek, who developed this line of thinking in his book The Fatal Conceit. In a market system, the prices generated by impersonal forces may not make sense from any one person's point of view, but they encode far more information than even the cleverest person could ever gather. In a similar fashion, human societies evolve rich and complicated webs of nonlegal rules in the form of customs, traditions and institutions. Like prices, they may seem irrational or arbitrary. But the very fact that they are the customs that have evolved implies that they embody a practical logic that may not be apparent to even a sophisticated analyst. And the web of custom cannot be torn apart and reordered at will because once its internal logic is violated it falls apart. Intellectuals, such as Marxists or feminists, who seek to deconstruct and rationally rebuild social traditions, will produce not better order but chaos. So the Hayekian view argues strongly against gay marriage. It says that the current rules may not be best and may even be unfair. But they are all we have, and, once you say that marriage need not be male-female, soon marriage will stop being anything at all. You can't mess with the formula without causing unforeseen consequences, possibly including the implosion of the institution of marriage itself. However, there are problems with the Hayekian position. It is untenable in its extreme form and unhelpful in its milder version. In its extreme form, it implies that no social reforms should ever be undertaken. Indeed, no laws should be passed, because they interfere with the natural evolution of social mores. How could Hayekians abolish slavery? They would probably note that slavery violates fundamental moral principles. But in so doing they would establish a moral platform from which to judge social rules, and thus acknowledge that abstracting social debate from moral concerns is not possible. If the ban on gay marriage were only mildly unfair, and if the costs of changing it were certain to be enormous, then the ban could stand on Hayekian grounds. But, if there is any social policy today that has a fair claim to be scaldingly inhumane, it is the ban on gay marriage. As conservatives tirelessly and rightly point out, marriage is society's most fundamental institution. To bar any class of people from marrying as they choose is an extraordinary deprivation. When not so long ago it was illegal in parts of America for blacks to marry whites, no one could claim that this was a trivial disenfranchisement. Granted, gay marriage raises issues that interracial marriage does not; but no one can argue that the deprivation is a minor one. To outweigh such a serious claim it is not enough to say that gay marriage might lead to bad things. Bad things happened as a result of legalizing contraception, but that did not make it the wrong thing to do. Besides, it seems doubtful that extending marriage to, say, another 3 or 5 percent of the population would have anything like the effects that no-fault divorce has had, to say nothing of contraception. By now, the "traditional" understanding of marriage has been sullied in all kinds of ways. It is hard to think of a bigger affront to tradition, for instance, than allowing married women to own property independently of their husbands or allowing them to charge their husbands with rape. Surely it is unfair to say that marriage may be reformed for the sake of anyone and everyone except homosexuals, who must respect the dictates of tradition. Faced with these problems, the milder version of the Hayekian argument says not that social traditions shouldn't be tampered with at all, but that they shouldn't be tampered with lightly. Fine. In this case, no one is talking about casual messing around; both sides have marshaled their arguments with deadly seriousness. Hayekians surely have to recognize that appeals to blind tradition and to the risks inherent in social change do not, a priori, settle anything in this instance. They merely warn against frivolous change. So we turn to what has become the standard view of marriage's purpose. Its proponents would probably like to call it a child-centered view, but it is actually an anti-gay view, as will become clear. Whatever you call it, it is the view of marriage that is heard most often, and in the context of the debate over gay marriage it is heard almost exclusively. In its most straightforward form it goes as follows (I quote from James Q. Wilson's fine book The Moral Sense): A family is not an association of independent people; it is a human commitment designed to make possible the rearing of moral and healthy children. Governments care -- or ought to care -- about families for this reason, and scarcely for any other. Wilson speaks about "family" rather than "marriage" as such, but one may, I think, read him as speaking of marriage without doing any injustice to his meaning. The resulting proposition -- government ought to care about marriage almost entirely because of children -- seems reasonable. But there are problems. The first, obviously, is that gay couples may have children, whether through adoption, prior marriage or (for lesbians) artificial insemination. Leaving aside the thorny issue of gay adoption, the point is that if the mere presence of children is the test, then homosexual relationships can certainly pass it. You might note, correctly, that heterosexual marriages are more likely to produce children than homosexual ones. When granting marriage licenses to heterosexuals, however, we do not ask how likely the couple is to have children. We assume that they are entitled to get married whether or not they end up with children. Understanding this, conservatives often make an interesting move. In seeking to justify the state's interest in marriage, they shift from the actual presence of children to the anatomical possibility of making them. Hadley Arkes, a political science professor and prominent opponent of homosexual marriage, makes the case this way: The traditional understanding of marriage is grounded in the "natural teleology of the body" -- in the inescapable fact that only a man and a woman, and only two people, not three, can generate a child. Once marriage is detached from that natural teleology of the body, what ground of principle would thereafter confine marriage to two people rather than some larger grouping? That is, on what ground of principle would the law reject the claim of a gay couple that their love is not confined to a coupling of two, but that they are woven into a larger ensemble with yet another person or two? What he seems to be saying is that, where the possibility of natural children is nil, the meaning of marriage is nil. If marriage is allowed between members of the same sex, then the concept of marriage has been emptied of content except to ask whether the parties love each other. Then anything goes, including polygamy. This reasoning presumably is what those opposed to gay marriage have in mind when they claim that, once gay marriage is legal, marriage to pets will follow close behind. But Arkes and his sympathizers make two mistakes. To see them, break down the claim into two components: (1) Two-person marriage derives its special status from the anatomical possibility that the partners can create natural children; and (2) Apart from (1), two-person marriage has no purpose sufficiently strong to justify its special status. That is, absent justification (1), anything goes. The first proposition is wholly at odds with the way society actually views marriage. Leave aside the insistence that natural, as opposed to adopted, children define the importance of marriage. The deeper problem, apparent right away, is the issue of sterile heterosexual couples. Here the "anatomical possibility" crowd has a problem, for a homosexual union is, anatomically speaking, nothing but one variety of sterile union and no different even in principle: a woman without a uterus has no more potential for giving birth than a man without a vagina. It may sound like carping to stress the case of barren heterosexual marriage: the vast majority of newlywed heterosexual couples, after all, can have children and probably will. But the point here is fundamental. There are far more sterile heterosexual unions in America than homosexual ones. The "anatomical possibility" crowd cannot have it both ways. If the possibility of children is what gives meaning to marriage, then a post-menopausal woman who applies for a marriage license should be turned away at the courthouse door. What's more, she should be hooted at and condemned for stretching the meaning of marriage beyond its natural basis and so reducing the institution to frivolity. People at the Family Research Council or Concerned Women for America should point at her and say, "If she can marry, why not polygamy?" Obviously, the "anatomical" conservatives do not say this, because they are sane. They instead flail around, saying that sterile men and women were at least born with the right-shaped parts for making children, and so on. Their position is really a nonposition. It says that the "natural children" rationale defines marriage when homosexuals are involved but not when heterosexuals are involved. When the parties to union are sterile heterosexuals, the justification for marriage must be something else. But what? Now arises the oddest part of the "anatomical" argument. Look at proposition (2) above. It says that, absent the anatomical justification for marriage, anything goes. In other words, it dismisses the idea that there might be other good reasons for society to sanctify marriage above other kinds of relationships. Why would anybody make this move? I'll hazard a guess: to exclude homosexuals. Any rationale that justifies sterile heterosexual marriages can also apply to homosexual ones. For instance, marriage makes women more financially secure. Very nice, say the conservatives. But that rationale could be applied to lesbians, so it's definitely out. The end result of this stratagem is perverse to the point of being funny. The attempt to ground marriage in children (or the anatomical possibility thereof) falls flat. But, having lost that reason for marriage, the anti-gay people can offer no other. In their fixation on excluding homosexuals, they leave themselves no consistent justification for the privileged status of heterosexual marriage. They thus tear away any coherent foundation that secular marriage might have, which is precisely the opposite of what they claim they want to do. If they have to undercut marriage to save it from homosexuals, so be it! For the record, I would be the last to deny that children are one central reason for the privileged status of marriage. When men and women get together, children are a likely outcome; and, as we are learning in ever more unpleasant ways, when children grow up without two parents, trouble ensues. Children are not a trivial reason for marriage; they just cannot be the only reason. What are the others? It seems to me that the two strongest candidates are these: domesticating men and providing reliable caregivers. Both purposes are critical to the functioning of a humane and stable society, and both are much better served by marriage -- that is, by one-to-one lifelong commitment -- than by any other institution. Civilizing young males is one of any society's biggest problems. Wherever unattached males gather in packs, you see no end of trouble: wildings in Central Park, gangs in Los Angeles, soccer hooligans in Britain, skinheads in Germany, fraternity hazings in universities, grope-lines in the military and, in a different but ultimately no less tragic way, the bathhouses and wanton sex of gay San Francisco or New York in the 1970s. For taming men, marriage is unmatched. "Of all the institutions through which men may pass -- schools, factories, the military -- marriage has the largest effect," Wilson writes in The Moral Sense. (A token of the casualness of current thinking about marriage is that the man who wrote those words could, later in the very same book, say that government should care about fostering families for "scarcely any other" reason than children.) If marriage -- that is, the binding of men into couples -- did nothing else, its power to settle men, to keep them at home and out of trouble, would be ample justification for its special status. Of course, women and older men don't generally travel in marauding or orgiastic packs. But in their case the second rationale comes into play. A second enormous problem for society is what to do when someone is beset by some sort of burdensome contingency. It could be cancer, a broken back, unemployment or depression; it could be exhaustion from work or stress under pressure. If marriage has any meaning at all, it is that, when you collapse from a stroke, there will be at least one other person whose "job" is to drop everything and come to your aid; or that when you come home after being fired by the postal service there will be someone to persuade you not to kill the supervisor. Obviously, both rationales -- the need to settle males and the need to have people looked after -- apply to sterile people as well as fertile ones, and apply to childless couples as well as to ones with children. The first explains why everybody feels relieved when the town delinquent gets married, and the second explains why everybody feels happy when an aging widow takes a second husband. From a social point of view, it seems to me, both rationales are far more compelling as justifications of marriage's special status than, say, love. And both of them apply to homosexuals as well as to heterosexuals. Take the matter of settling men. It is probably true that women and children, more than just the fact of marriage, help civilize men. But that hardly means that the settling effect of marriage on homosexual men is negligible. To the contrary, being tied to a committed relationship plainly helps stabilize gay men. Even without marriage, coupled gay men have steady sex partners and relationships that they value and therefore tend to be less wanton. Add marriage, and you bring a further array of stabilizing influences. One of the main benefits of publicly recognized marriage is that it binds couples together not only in their own eyes but also in the eyes of society at large. Around the partners is woven a web of expectations that they will spend nights together, go to parties together, take out mortgages together, buy furniture at Ikea together, and so on -- all of which helps tie them together and keep them off the streets and at home. Surely that is a very good thing, especially as compared to the closet-gay culture of furtive sex with innumerable partners in parks and bathhouses. The other benefit of marriage -- caretaking -- clearly applies to homosexuals. One of the first things many people worry about when coming to terms with their homosexuality is: Who will take care of me when I'm ailing or old? Society needs to care about this, too, as the aids crisis has made horribly clear. If that crisis has shown anything, it is that homosexuals can and will take care of each other, sometimes with breathtaking devotion -- and that no institution can begin to match the care of a devoted partner. Legally speaking, marriage creates kin. Surely society's interest in kin-creation is strongest of all for people who are unlikely to be supported by children in old age and who may well be rejected by their own parents in youth. Gay marriage, then, is far from being a mere exercise in political point-making or rights-mongering. On the contrary, it serves two of the three social purposes that make marriage so indispensable and irreplaceable for heterosexuals. Two out of three may not be the whole ball of wax, but it is more than enough to give society a compelling interest in marrying off homosexuals. There is no substitute. Marriage is the only institution that adequately serves these purposes. The power of marriage is not just legal but social. It seals its promise with the smiles and tears of family, friends and neighbors. It shrewdly exploits ceremony (big, public weddings) and money (expensive gifts, dowries) to deter casual commitment and to make bailing out embarrassing. Stag parties and bridal showers signal that what is beginning is not just a legal arrangement but a whole new stage of life. "Domestic partner" laws do none of these things. I'll go further: far from being a substitute for the real thing, marriage-lite may undermine it. Marriage is a deal between a couple and society, not just between two people: society recognizes the sanctity and autonomy of the pair-bond, and in exchange each spouse commits to being the other's nurse, social worker and policeman of first resort. Each marriage is its own little society within society. Any step that weakens the deal by granting the legal benefits of marriage without also requiring the public commitment is begging for trouble. So gay marriage makes sense for several of the same reasons that straight marriage makes sense. That would seem a natural place to stop. But the logic of the argument compels one to go a twist further. If it is good for society to have people attached, then it is not enough just to make marriage available. Marriage should also be expected. This, too, is just as true for homosexuals as for heterosexuals. So, if homosexuals are justified in expecting access to marriage, society is equally justified in expecting them to use it. I'm not saying that out-of-wedlock sex should be scandalous or that people should be coerced into marrying. The mechanisms of expectation are more subtle. When grandma cluck-clucks over a still-unmarried young man, or when mom says she wishes her little girl would settle down, she is expressing a strong and well-justified preference: one that is quietly echoed in a thousand ways throughout society and that produces subtle but important pressure to form and sustain unions. This is a good and necessary thing, and it will be as necessary for homosexuals as heterosexuals. If gay marriage is recognized, single gay people over a certain age should not be surprised when they are disapproved of or pitied. That is a vital part of what makes marriage work. It's stigma as social policy. If marriage is to work it cannot be merely a "lifestyle option." It must be privileged. That is, it must be understood to be better, on average, than other ways of living. Not mandatory, not good where everything else is bad, but better: a general norm, rather than a personal taste. The biggest worry about gay marriage, I think, is that homosexuals might get it but then mostly not use it. Gay neglect of marriage wouldn't greatly erode the bonding power of heterosexual marriage (remember, homosexuals are only a tiny fraction of the population) -- but it would certainly not help. And heterosexual society would rightly feel betrayed if, after legalization, homosexuals treated marriage as a minority taste rather than as a core institution of life. It is not enough, I think, for gay people to say we want the right to marry. If we do not use it, shame on us. Jonathan Rauch is the author of Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer of American Government (Random House).
the unmarrying kindJill Smolowe, Time Magazine, April 29, 1996Unlike the 200 gay and lesbian couples whose mass "wedding" ceremony last month made a loud political statement in San Francisco, Gerry Crane planned his commitment ceremony to be a private and discreet affair. On a misty day last October, 80 of Crane's closest friends gathered at a botanical garden in Grand Rapids, Michigan. With a Presbyterian minister presiding, Crane, 31, a high school music director, and his lover of four years, Randy Block, 36, affirmed their love and exchanged gold rings. Almost immediately the religious right directed its ire at Crane with the pinpoint accuracy of a laser-guided missile. Crane is the object of a tactic that is proving increasingly effective -- going after local targets just below the national media radar. Even while the Christian right's media-savvy national leaders are downplaying antigay initiatives, its local soldiers are working to raise the issue that America's young people are being exposed to gay alternatives too early in life. By pitching the attack closer to home, where parental fears are more easily aroused, conservatives are extending their influence while escaping the tough scrutiny that has greeted their more visible campaign in statehouses to ban same-sex marriages. At the local level, the accent is on keeping homosexuality out of the curriculum and the classroom and on blocking ordinances that protect gays and lesbians from discrimination. Such campaigns trickle up: grass-roots fears of "homosexual recruitment" led the Utah legislature last week to ban clubs in high schools. The religious right is escalating the battle with tactics that have the sting of an all-out assault. "They use the gay issues to whip up hysteria among their own ranks, which helps them raise money, rally troops at the local level, build infrastructure and effectively challenge issues at a federal level," says Elliot Mincberg of People for the American Way, a liberal watchdog group. "In many respects, it's a national witch-hunt." In fact, most of the action is local rather than national, but it can wreak havoc, as in Crane's case. After word of his gay "marriage" leaked back to the school in rural Byron Center (pop. 6,500), where Crane has been teaching for three years, outraged parents demanded his ouster. There were no grounds for firing him, especially since he had shaped up the once moribund school band to win a regional award. Instead, the school board proclaimed that "individuals who espouse homosexuality do not constitute proper role models" and promised to "monitor" Crane. Soon flyers appeared on windshields in church parking lots denouncing the "Sodomite music teacher." Next the parents of Crane's 140 students were mailed packages that bore no return address and contained an antigay video called "Gay Rights-Special Rights," produced by the California-based Traditional Values Coalition; a 100-page antigay treatise titled "Setting the Record Straight" by the Colorado-based Focus on the Family; and a letter exhorting parents to "perceive the grave dangers that your child is facing." National religious right groups deny involvement. "Their point," says a skeptical Crane, "is to flood people with misinformation so it will incite a community." The mailing had its intended effect. Since October, 26 students have dropped out of Crane's classes. One student told the teacher that her parents and church pressured her to quit and were concerned that her boyfriend would become gay if he remained in the school choir. Crane explained that her boyfriend would not become a homosexual, and asked if her church had applied pressure. As a result, Crane was reprimanded for ignoring a school edict not to discuss homosexuality, and received a warning for violating school policy against religious harassment. Crane sought to have the demerits expunged from his record. Last month, after 20 minutes of deliberation, the board turned him down. "I don't feel safe at all," he says. "There is an incredible aura of mistrust within the school." That feeling now permeates the schools of Merrimack, New Hampshire. Last August a five-member school board adopted Policy 6540, which states that the school district "shall neither implement nor carry out any program or activity that has either the purpose or effect of encouraging or supporting homosexuality as a positive lifestyle alternative." The language was lifted verbatim from a failed amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1994 championed by North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms and New Hampshire Senator Robert C. Smith. "Nothing officially has been eliminated," says Susan Ruggieri, president of the Merrimack Teachers' Association, "but teachers are very, very vigilant in censoring themselves." Thus far, vigilance has led to the dropping of a video on Walt Whitman from 11th-grade English classes because the tape mentions the poet's homosexuality. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night has also been dropped from a class (the play has a character who cross-dresses). Social-problems-and-family-relations classes no longer brook mention of homosexuality. "Part of the problem," says Ruggieri, "is that you don't know where a discussion is going to go." Merrimack has made news before. Last year the school board briefly flirted with the idea of introducing creationism into the classroom, then backed away. That effort was engineered by a local clergyman. This time around, the local populace had outside help. Before the August vote, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, head of the Traditional Values Coalition, advised local Christian groups. "We walked them through the whole process - philosophically, legally and morally - so they could be grounded in the information that would make them sound far more credible on radio or television," he says. "That's the way we do it." In February a handful of parents and teachers filed suit in federal court, charging that 6540 violates the First and 14th amendments. "This is a violation of freedom of speech and is discriminatory," says Richard Walker, the lead plaintiff and the high school's guidance counselor. "I don't see this as a homosexual issue." Walker says his ability to do his job is now severely restricted. He steers clear of any discussion of sexuality with students, though he knows that in cases of potential teen suicide, it may be a key issue. "We cannot refer kids to gay or lesbian youth groups," he adds. "But what about a clinical psychologist who is gay, through an HMO? I don't know." Most national conservative groups disavow a direct role but say they monitor and advise local battles through members at the grass roots. Some, however, don't. In Salt Lake City the Utah chapter of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum spearheaded a school-board vote to ban all after-school clubs for the specific purpose of keeping a local high school from being host of an after-school club for gay teens. Last week the legislature passed a bill banning gay clubs in high schools statewide, mandating that local school boards "deny access to any student organization or club whose activity is to encourage criminal or delinquent conduct, promote bigotry or involve human sexuality." G.O.P. Govemor Michael Leavitt is expected to sign the bill into law. The grass-roots sentiments help propel the religious right's top priority for this year: to stomp out the possibility of civil marriages for gays. The furor was touched off in 1993 when the Hawaii supreme court ruled that denying marriage licenses to three gay couples appeared to violate the equal-protection clause of the state constitution. The case was remanded to a lower court, and is not expected to be thoroughly settled before 1998. But the religious right has been galvanized by fears that a gay marriage in Hawaii might, under the U.S. Constitution, have to be recognized in other states. "It will be the most important issue our country will face in this decade and perhaps for all time," says Jim Woodall, a leader of Concerned Women for America, "because it could redefine the family." To date, 31 states have taken up the same-sex-marriage issue, with mixed results: five states-Georgia, Kansas, Idaho, South Dakota and Utah-have enacted bans, and 13 others have rejected them. Gay activists are leaning on historical precedent to quash other efforts. "In our lifetime it was illegal to marry someone of the 'wrong race,"' says Evan Wolfson, who directs the Marriage Project for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York. "Our opponents talk about marriage like it's been the same for 6,000 years." Count on the religious right's taking the issue to the G.O.P. Convention in San Diego and trying to force into the platform a plank banning same-sex marriages.
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Other Sites: Want to see a "real" gay marriage? Visit Sandy and Molly's Holy Union Site for a look at a great holy union service for two of my dearest friends. |
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