On Monday around noon, I was lucky enough to catch the debate being held for Civic Awareness Week. I hadn’t been aware of the debate beforehand, I just happened to be getting lunch at the time, and thought I’d check it out. I’m really glad I did, because it was one of the best debates I’ve seen in a long time. There was a representative from College Democrats, Republicans, Libertarions, and suprisingly, the GLBTA services. I was a bit confused when I saw that at first. They have their own party now? Is is possible to vote straight-ticket gay? How ironic would that be? But, as I learned later, it was not meant to be a solely political debate. There was supposed to be another group represented, but the GLBTA just happened to be the only other group who showed besides the political ones.
The ASUSU people had a list of questions for the panel of representatives. The topics included the war in Iraq, health care reform, gay marriage, etc. The usual list of questions you would expect. For the most part, everyone’s answers were very rational and well thought out. All the speakers made sure to distinguish their personal opinions from their groups opinions, which I thought was fantastic. Even the Republican was sounding level headed and reasonable. (Sorry guys, you usually kind of annoy me. It’s the truth.) Until, of course, it got to gay marriage.
“I am for civil unions, but I believe that gay marriage undermines the sanctity of marriage. It is a religious institution.” Now, I’m paraphrasing here, but it doesn’t really matter. This is the same general response you will here from anyone who opposes gay marriage, no matter what their political party. Not only did hearing this irk me as a decent human being, it irked me on another level as an atheist. I knew I needed to speak up.
When Spencer Lee handed me the mic, I was a little nervous about what I was planning to say, but I took a deep breathe and began. “My question is for the Republican. If marriage is a religious institution, why can I get married as an atheist?” He looked a bit taken aback. “Are you an atheist?” he asked. Moment of truth: “Yes, I am,” I said, throwing as much confidence into my words as possible.
There was a collective “Oh, snap!” from the audience. The Republican wiggled a bit, and said something about it not mattering, as long as I was marrying a man. (While he was saying this, I made a point of holding Anna’s hand.)
I don’t tell you all this just to blow my own horn. I certainly wasn’t the only one asking great questions and pointing out the fallicy of the idea of “the sanctity of marriage”. The thing I want to point out is that I was given a chance to use my atheism for a good cause. Speaking up like I did that day goes against my general view towards debates: I don’t care, because it isn’t worth fighting about. I try to avoid debates about religion because they are a waste of time. No one will be conviced on either side, and everyone just gets upset. But in this case where standing up did make a difference. I have the same rights a Christian does to marry. Homosexual couples don’t. I had an opportunity to use my atheism to point out hypocrisy, and let me tell you, it felt great.
I still don’t think you’ve provided a justification for your claim that marriage is natural, or follows from some sort of natural law or formal system. If I understand your argument, it seems to be that there is a “default standard” for marriage recognized by all humans, and it’s purpose is to promote stable environments for children. You didn’t actually say “all humans”, but I’m inferring that by the “natural needs / natural law” statements you make.
If this is your argument, it is not supported by anthropology and comparisons of different cultures. Anthropologist Edmund Leach thought that no one definition of marriage can apply to all societies. Some societies do not recognize marriage. I remember reading about a native South American society (one of the Quechua peoples?) that do not marry at all, and in fact it is normal for women to have multiple sexual partners, especially while pregnant. Because of their beliefs about reproduction, each of these men is considered a partial father, and the true biological father is unknown and socially irrelevant.
Other societies have (or have had) arranged marriages for economic reasons, dowries, establishing business partnerships, etc. Some societies were or are polygamous. My point is this: The fact that there are differing forms of marriage, different accepted goals or reasons for marriage, or a lack of formal marriage entirely seem to suggest that there is no one form of marriage that is “natural” in the same way that language, say, is. Unless you’re willing to argue that some societies have “regressed” in some way to an unnatural form of marriage, which I think would be anthropologically untenable.
Marriage is a social construct that differs from society to society, just as other kinship relationships do. What gay marriage advocates are trying to do is to change the agreed-upon form of marriage that is socially accepted (which can be synonymous with legally recognized) within the United States–or even just specific states. Other types of relationships do not need really need new forms of legal protection. Siblings are next-of-kin and already have a large set of legal rights regarding each other. Roommates can form a partnership or incorporate an LLC within which to gain some forms of legal protection (granted this can be kind of hard). Existing marriage laws can be extended by the small change of the legal wording to “two persons”.
Hopefully you can glean from between the lines that my position is more nuanced than just “marriage is a legal contract only.” It is that. But it is also a societal framework that different meanings can be attached to. As social creatures, most humans find it important to make these sorts of symbolic statements in a more or less public way. In the recent history of most Western societies, marriage has come to symbolize a love and commitment between two people to care for, support, and protect each other. We would have this and still be getting married, whether it came with any legal recognition or not. The social recognition is arguably more important. Given that, it makes absolutely no sense to deny this to an entire class of people.
The more I read these discussions the more I entertain the idea that the government shouldn’t be involved in marriage, although I’m not sure what repercussions that would have on our current societal structure.
Kleiner asks why the government shouldn’t stamp all kinds of relationships. If marriage is still between two people, and is intended to be lifelong, then I think two friends who don’t have sex should be allowed to marry. They are choosing to use their one “marriage token” on each other. Many people probably think this destroys the sanctity of marriage, but if you choose one and only one person who you want to live your life with, then I’m not too picky on who you choose. I do realize however that this would allow “marriage” (in this new sense) between relatives.
I’ll grant, for the sake of argument, that marriage has historically had an important tie to procreation, and even to some sort of metaphysics that has, as a consequence, the law that heterosexual unions are more natural than homosexual ones. My question is whether today we are still obliged to respect those old (even ancient) roots of marriage. That’s why I brought up marriage between the races — there was an old metaphysics which claimed that homoracial marriages were more natural, but we feel no longer obliged to respect that metaphysics. At any rate, we don’t want to see it enshrined in our legal system.
The thing is, apart from its roots, marriage does have an important societal role for us today. To my mind, it is a commitment to a long-term relationship, long enough and loving enough for the couple to provide a good home to children, if they so wish. That’s what is essential to it in the eyes of a secular society. And that’s why it should be available to anyone who thinks they can make that commitment. Gov’t would be well-advised to steer clear of the whole issue, I think, except when it comes to crucial issues like inheritance, power of attorney, responsibilities to children, visitation rights, and so on.
I continue to reject the claim that the rejection of interracial marriage was at all like the rejection of gay marriage. Interracial marriage bans were based on racism against accidental properties and they had nothing AT ALL to do with the natural meaning/purposes of marriage as I have expressed it. This can be see from the fact that when we lifted those bans it required no substantial change in the meaning of marriage. These laws were overturned, in fact, precisely because they frustrated the natural purposes of marriage. The ban against gay marriage would require that we substantially change the meaning of marriage. Both Huenemann (by graciously allowing, for the sake of argument, my metaphysically rooted definition of natural marriage) and James have admitted as much.
The question, then, is no longer ‘does allowing gay marriage change the meaning of marriage’?’ but is instead a prudential question: Why should we continue to feel ourselves obliged to respect this natural meaning of marriage? What would be the harm in changing it?
Since we’ve never had gay marriage, we don’t know how it might impact the social institution of marriage and so we are left to speculate. This is, to my mind, clearly the weakest part of the argument against gay marriage (because you are not making a pretty solid metaphysics of nature argument, you are speculating about unknown social effects). And, to tell you the truth, I am not sure I buy all of the doomsday scenarios. (Though many said that about the predictions in Humanae Vitae regarding contraception, but if you are willing to actually read Humanae Vitae I think you would agree that nearly all of its predictions about a contracepted world came true).
But the argument would go something like this: thanks to contraception and no fault divorce, marriage is already on the rocks. This is a social and cultural crisis since marriage is a social good. The prudent thing to do in such a crisis is to protect marriage (its original meaning and its natural and public purposes). (A conservative argument, to be sure, since prudence is thought to be closely linked to conserving).
The argument to upend traditional marriage while the social institution of marriage is on the rocks would be more persuasive if keeping marriage traditionally defined was some kind of grave injustice. But the facts just don’t bear that out. According to the most recent census, just .5 percent of households are same-sex households. And, as I understand it, it is ALREADY possible for same-sex partners to have the legal rights Huenemann identified (inheritance, hospital visitation, etc). Just sign power of attorney papers giving your partner legal authority over your decisions in the event of an emergency. I guess it is a bit more paperwork (my wife does not need to sign those papers, the marriage license travels with those legal powers), but it is not the case (as is popularly believed) that same-sex partners can have NO rights.
Are people being denied health insurance from their partners? Yes (though companies are free to offer them of their own volition, and many companies already do). But how widespread of a problem would this be? Well at GM only one one-hundreth of one percent of workers claimed benefits for a same sex partner. This hardly looks like the kind of widespread “injustice” that gets trumped up around this debate. Is it prudent to upend the basic public and natural purpose of a social institution to satisfy the desire of so few to have a govt stamp of approval on their relationship?
In anticipation of a possible objection:
Some might say (rightly) that the number of people affected has nothing to do with it. Even if there is only 1 person affected by a law, if that person’s rights are being violated then that is wrong.
But I think we need to be careful about our “rights talk” here (we rarely are). I do not think we have the “right” to have our relationships endorsed by the govt in the same way we have the right to free expression. I would be entirely against any law that aimed to prevent gay couples from living together, having sex with each other, signing power of attorney over to each other, etc etc. But you don’t have a “right” to have your relationship endorsed and incentivized by the govt, any more than I have the “right” to have my philosophy club recognized as a not-for-profit. Traditional marriage is recognized (and encouraged) by govt not because hetero couples have a “right” to the recognition, but because is serves social ends to recognize and encourage hetero marriages (the govt has a “compelling interest”). My argument above is that there is no compelling interest with respect to gay marriages.
Dr. Sherlock and some other LDS scholars started an online (but peer-reviewed) journal a year ago, called “Square Two”. As I understand it, it is meant to be an Mormon version of “First Things” (the widely read journal of Catholicism and the public square). The founded the journal after recognizing the need for Mormons to better articulate their “public square views” in a more persuasive and less sectarian way.
I just got an email that the latest edition is out. You can link to it here.
http://squaretwo.org/squaretwoarchives.html#fall2009
The edition includes includes “the Sorensen Essay Contest Winners where LDS young adults defend heterosexual marriage without invoking LDS religious scripture so that they may express their views more openly and persuasively in the public square” along with some other articles.
I have not read any of the articles, so I cannot comment on them yet. But I thought some of you might be interested in checking it out. I think the Square Two journal is an important development for Mormons – up to this point they have not developed a non-sectarian language and argument (as Catholics largely have) to engage the public square. I think that this, in part, explains why the Prop 8 reaction against Mormons was angrier than it was with Catholics (though there are other reasons why I think the Mormons bore the brunt of the anger).
“my METAPHYSICALLY rooted definition of natural marriage”
Well Dr.Kleiner theres your problem
Aaron, you have a nature as well as a “face”. Accept it, my man!
I need some kind of “soft metaphysics” to start you on, something like a “gateway drug”. You’ll be high on distinguishing between substances and accidents and spending late nights worrying about the problem of universals before you know it!
Well done! I couldn’t agree more.