Steven Taylor and Andrew Sullivan are confused about President Bush’s latest pronouncements on gay marriage. Steven was confused first, but Sully has been posting on the topic much more vociferously. Steven is catching up, however, with three posts already today.
Washington Times has yet another news-editorial on the front of their website on this topic. (See here for the previous one.) What I especially love is the use of “quotes” in this piece:
For years, the issue of same-sex “marriage” in America has surfaced only occasionally, a topic of arcane conversation, and promptly slips away.
No longer. High court decisions in Canada and the United States and a pending lawsuit in Massachusetts will finally force “gay marriage” to the top of the nation’s legal and cultural agenda.
While I think “marriage” is a topic for “legislatures” and should be in the “public debate” rather than the “courts,” it seems silly to approach it as if it were some fantastic “creation.”
Query to readers of the print edition: Are these on the front page and/or news section of the paper, too? Or is this just a function of the way web pages are arranged?
Stephen Green takes Stanley Kurtz to task for his opposition to gay marriage on the grounds that it undermines the culture.
While I support gay marriage, largely for the reasons Stephen and his first commenter Seth lays out, I don’t have a major problem with Kurtz’ argument.
It’s one thing for society to say that homosexuals have a right to, well, be homosexual. It’s another for it to place its imprimatur on the relationship and say, “We endorse this and put it on par with heterosexual marriage.” Marriage, especially with the current easy divorce laws, is really nothing more than a social stamp on a union. It also conveys certain advantages in terms of taxation (although not always), property rights, and the like. But we grant those priviledges because we as a society have decided that we want to promote the institution. The main rational basis for which is the protection of children. Given that the vast majority–although a shrinking one–of society believes homosexual relations are repugnant, I don’t think they have to give it a ringing endorsement.
So, why do I support it? While I’m not enthusiastic about the idea, I think the argument for homosexual marriage is ultimately the same as for heterosexual marriage: monogamy is better than promiscuity. Not that monogamy isn’t possible without marriage or guaranteed by it. But it does seem more likely. While homosexuals, presumably, aren’t going to have a spate of out-of-wedlock pregnancies from their promiscuity, they are spreading disease. (Also true of promiscuous heterosexuals, although not at the same rate–and heterosexuals can get married under current law.)
So, on libertarian and practical grounds, I think government should get out of the way and legislate on a rational basis. But the conservative argument here isn’t just outdated nonsense, either.
I’m getting ready to shoot of my mouth before looking for stats to back up my point, but I’m doing it anyway.
I don’t think that promiscuous homosexuals are spreading disease more than promiscuous heterosexuals. I heard recently that hetero STD rates are climbing again as a new generation of kids exploring sex are not using condoms.
Also there are insidious diseases that heteros pass on to each other that never manifest to icky symptoms but still cause irreparable damage – mostly PID (pelvic inflammatory disease, I think) in women, which causes infertility and has no outward symptoms. As a matter of fact, most women don’t realize they have it until they try to conceive and when unsuccessful go to their doctor who will then check for it.
I could go on. But I won’t for now.
I am always wondering where you find statistics for any of this. Unless there are scientific controls, most statistics come from surveys and polls. I equate such to eye-witness testimony. People see and believe what they want to see and believe or say what they want you to believe.
As a good libertarian, government needs to keep their noses out of adult’s private affairs. Monogamy is monogamy. Homosexuality is one of the surest forms of birth control that can be combined with sexual activity among more than one individual. If they went to a sales tax instead of the oppressive income taxation, people would be taxed on the the basis of their spending and we could dispense with all these stupid credits and crap, and those at the bottom of the rung might actually be able to pay rent and buy food.
Tiger,
While I’m with you on sales vs. income tax, the people at the bottom of the rung currently MAKE money off the tax code, especially if they have kids.
And marriage is BY DEFINITION the government putting its imprimatur on a union. Unless you just want to privatize marriage, which would be fine by me, but it would lose whatever little meaning it has now.
The big benefit of gay marriage is that it may help to reduce health insurance costs. The tendency to extend health benefits to unmarried partners opens the door for lots of mischief. With a legal contract — marriage — binding the two people together, they are less likely to engage in insurance fraud.
“fraud” may have been too strong of word above…rather it should be that marriage reduces incentives to “game the system.” It will also reduce monitoring costs for insurance benefits.
I realize you’re talking about the legalities here, but there’s a rather large segment of our society who get married because it’s the right thing to do from a moral perspective. They’re not thinking of the law, taxes, credits, etc. They are two people who have decided to commit their lives together in HOLY matrimony. It’s a sacrament, a covenant, not just a contract.
*steps on the soapbox*
And I knew you were primarily referring to AIDS, but people (kids especially) have somehow forgotten that there are many other STDs that are equally dangerous. Sure there are medications to be had for most of them and people don’t die from them anymore. But they are rarely completely cured, they can still be transmitted even when being treated, and they can be deadly if left untreated. Then as I said above, the sterility factor – no one’s asking why there are so many more infertile couples these days. I think (and I’m not a doctor or scientist) it can be directly correlated to the Sexual Revolution, The Pill, and a-symptomatic STDs.
*steps off the soapbox*
People will get “married” to get the insurance benefits, but given the legal commitment of a marriage contract and the financial difficulties in getting a divorce, will help to reduce some of the nonsense that goes on with the current “partner”-based insurance. One thing I find interesting about economics is how marginally small changes in an individual’s cost can have a large impact on social costs in the aggregate.
Jen,
I’m just discussing the utilitarian argument from the standpoint of trying to figure out a logical reason for banning/not banning gay marriage. In one sense, marriage is a religious exercise moreseo than a secular one, but it does confer secular benefits because the state recognizes it.
James, I knew that, just had to throw it in the “clinical” mix of the discussion. When marriage is reduced to the legalities it bothers me because it’s more than just a legal contract. It’s also a recognition of “traditional” morality. Gay marriage is not legal (yet) because of that traditional view of the marriage relationship – which is based primarily on Biblical standards.
There’s a reason why gay relationships have never been “mainstream” before now – for many millenia homosexuality was considered wrong, immoral. It’s only been in the last 30-40 years that society has become “enlightened” to tolerate what many still believe to be immoral.
And I know I’ve taken another tangential road. But no one’s bringing this up and it’s at the heart of why gay marriage laws haven’t been passed.
Jen,
Yep–I agree with all that and, further, would say it’s really only been the last 10 years or so that homosexuality has been widely accepted. Indeed, I made a lot of those arguments when the Santorum thing broke.
Ellen says: i believe that God gives us all a box for His proctection and anytime you leave the box of a man and woman in a married relationship He no longer offers safety; whether its a man having an affair, a woman and woman together, or two kids in the backseat of a car, there are consequences for the way one acts and sin is all the same. No one is born homosexual, they give into unnatural desires that they cannot supress. I do not hate people who have alternative lifestyles because I have no right to, in fact I love them even more. I have always been taught by Christ that you should hate the sin, love the sinner, and no matter what I do He will take me back when I repent. Its just something to think about.
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Andrew Sullivan asks an interesting question in today’s blog: “If Larry King and Elizabeth Taylor can get married ad infinitum, why can’t gays get married even once?” He has a valid point of course, in that there is no obvious moral argument that would elevate serial divorce among heterosexuals above homosexual monogamy. From most religious standards that I’m aware of, both are sinful. From the standpoint of utilitarianism, homosexual marriage, and thus theoretical monogamy, seems obviously preferable to homosexual philandering. So…why do we allow serial marriage among heterosexuals and no marriage among homosexuals? Well, marriage serves to confer public legitimacy to a union. The vast majority of the American public (the ones concentrated in the “red” areas of the familiar electoral maps) still finds homosexuality disturbing and immoral. Thus, to have the state give their blessing to a union they find morally objectionable would be something people those people naturally oppose. Most people also find divorce, especially multiple divorce and divorce involving couples with children, troubling–although not as troubling as homosexual union or as even troubling as they once found divorce. Once the institutions of heterosexual marriage and divorce-at-will are created, however, it becomes virtually impossible to preclude those people from re-marrying. That answers Sullivan’s question of why, at least partly. To the implied question–Is this distinction a good public policy? –I’d say no. While the state is inherently an instrument for enforcing the morality of its culture, it strikes me as dangerous to give it the power to decide which consenting adults can marry. While this opens a Pandora’s box of What Ifs, the least disturbing of which is polygamy, these each have to be dealt with independently. In what demonstrable way would the US be worse off by permitting homosexuals to marry? I honestly can’t think of one.
Pretty offensive. I loved your response.
I sympathize with the point of view of those who want to see marriage retain its man-woman quality, but . . . Sheesh. Give it a rest: how would the hard-line old-style conservatives feel if we lived in a Muslim society and had to abide by their notions of a woman’s place, the appropriateness of public alcohol consumption, and the like?
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