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.
Kimi says,
“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.”
I think Kimi is right, a lot of people make this kind of “religious argument”. But Kimi is wrong when she says that this is the “same general response” you get from “anyone who opposes gay marriage”. I have posted on gay marriage on this blog and the arguments that I put forth made no mention of religion at all. Rather, they argued that marriage is a NATURAL institution (not a religious one per se), and that gay marriage would undermine the NATURAL meaning of marriage. Most serious philosophical argument on this (see Maggie Ghallager and others) make non-religious arguments. It is a disservice to the discussion to pretend that the only argument against gay marriage is an appeal to religion/revelation. (The same disservice occurs all the time with the abortion debate, serious pro-life arguments make no reference to revelation but argue from principles of justice available to natural reason).
If you are interested in seeing some arguments, here is Maggie Ghallager’s page: http://www.marriagedebate.com/mgbio.php
And to see what I posted earlier on this blog, link here and scroll down:
http://usu-shaft.com/2009/is-mormon-the-new-black/#comments
That’s a really good point. Why should atheists be able to marry if they might mess about with the sanctity of marriage? I’ve joined the ranks of those who think the State/Gov should not be involved in marriages (only religions should be declaring people married) and that anyone and everyone should be able to get a civil union from the State/Gov, but that’s me.
If marriage is nothing more than a contract between two people, an expression of deep feelings that they share for one another, then I quite agree that govt has no business being involved in marriage at all (promoting it, giving incentives for it, etc etc).
Here is a relevant passage, though, from Ghallager’s best know article:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/939pxiqa.asp?pg=1
” …
IN ORDERING GAY MARRIAGE on June 10, 2003, the highest court in Ontario, Canada, explicitly endorsed a brand new vision of marriage along the lines Wolfson suggests: “Marriage is, without dispute, one of the most significant forms of personal relationships. . . . Through the institution of marriage, individuals can publicly express their love and commitment to each other. Through this institution, society publicly recognizes expressions of love and commitment between individuals, granting them respect and legitimacy as a couple.”
The Ontario court views marriage as a kind of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval that government stamps on certain registered intimacies because, well, for no particular reason the court can articulate except that society likes to recognize expressions of love and commitment. In this view, endorsement of gay marriage is a no-brainer, for nothing really important rides on whether anyone gets married or stays married. Marriage is merely individual expressive conduct, and there is no obvious reason why some individuals’ expression of gay love should hurt other individuals’ expressions of non-gay love.
There is, however, a different view–indeed, a view that is radically opposed to this: Marriage is the fundamental, cross-cultural institution for bridging the male-female divide so that children have loving, committed mothers and fathers. Marriage is inherently normative: It is about holding out a certain kind of relationship as a social ideal, especially when there are children involved.
Marriage is not simply an artifact of law; neither is it a mere delivery mechanism for a set of legal benefits that might as well be shared more broadly. The laws of marriage do not create marriage, but in societies ruled by law they help trace the boundaries and sustain the public meanings of marriage.
In other words, while individuals freely choose to enter marriage, society upholds the marriage option, formalizes its definition, and surrounds it with norms and reinforcements, so we can raise boys and girls who aspire to become the kind of men and women who can make successful marriages. Without this shared, public aspect, perpetuated generation after generation, marriage becomes what its critics say it is: a mere contract, a vessel with no particular content, one of a menu of sexual lifestyles, of no fundamental importance to anyone outside a given relationship.
The marriage idea is that children need mothers and fathers, that societies need babies, and that adults have an obligation to shape their sexual behavior so as to give their children stable families in which to grow up.
… “
“(WebMD) Children growing up in same-sex parental households do not necessarily have differences in self-esteem, gender identity, or emotional problems from children growing up in heterosexual parent homes.
“There are a lot of children with at least one gay or lesbian parent,” says Ellen C. Perrin, MD, professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. She revealed the findings at the American Academy of Pediatrics Conference and Exhibition.
Between one million and six million children in the U.S. are being reared by committed lesbian or gay couples, she says. Children being raised by same-sex parents were either born to a heterosexual couple, adopted, or conceived through artificial insemination.
“The vast consensus of all the studies shows that children of same-sex parents do as well as children whose parents are heterosexual in every way,” she tells WebMD. “In some ways children of same-sex parents actually may have advantages over other family structures…”"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/12/health/webmd/main938234.shtml
Thanks for the input, but(and maybe I’m misunderstanding) why can’t we view civil unions the way be do marriage today with out the religious connotations? If everyone has a civil union, and some choose to back that up with a religious institutions seal-of-approval (marriage) while others do not have both, why can’t civil unions be seen as a “cross-cultural institution for bridging the male-female divide so that children have loving, committed mothers and fathers.”
@ caitlin
Its because the word marriage has some sort of significance, to the people who don’t want to share it with homosexuals. I am sure we have all heard someone say “i am for gay rights just don’t call it marriage”. As far as I am concerned the words marriage and civil union are synonyms.
They are pretty much synonymous, but they are viewed differently in people’s minds. A civil union is “below” a marriage. One is legal, the other is romantic. When I get married, it intend on calling it a marriage, even though the ceremony will have no religion at all. I have the right to call it whatever I want. Having a distinction between a marriage and a civil union is like saying the ideas are “separate but equal”. We tried that, once before, and it didn’t work too well.
I am skeptical of the research that Steve cites. Much of this is “advocacy research”. (I am relying on others with what I am about to say, I am not a statistician). There really have been no methodologically sound studies on gay-raised children. None of them meet all of the usual criteria (sample size, random sampling, longitudinal follow-up). There has actually been quite a bit published on this in academic journals, and not just by religious sources (the article I read a few years back came out of USC, though I am blanking on the article and its authors).
Denying that mothers and fathers are important as parents is intuitively wrong-headed – since it requires that we treat people and parents as essentially androgynous. But sexual difference is a real and irreducible part of the human condition. Can there be much doubt that fathers play a different role than mothers, and that children benefit from exposure to both the male and the female human parent?
As a matter of prudence, I would not be surprised if a child would do better in a 2 parent same-sex home rather than a single parent home. This is a hard case. But hard cases make for bad public policy.
Why can’t we just see civil unions as the “cross cultural institution”? Well, because at that point you have gutted the institution of its natural meaning and its natural foundation. You have ripped the institution from its natural context and turned it into something that has no discernable social good. At that point, why should the govt be involved at all? (Again, gay couples can already have medical and estate decision making rights, they just need to sign power of attorney documents).
I rather doubt that my arguments will persuade many on this blog (though it is worth reminding people that being an atheist does not require that one be a liberal – for instance Christopher Hitchens is to the right of George W Bush on the war against terror). That there is so much agreement on politics on the SHAFT page makes me wonder if there is much “free thinking” going on or if there are hidden dogmas here. Anyway, I think I have performatively demonstrated the point I wished to make: it is NOT the case that the only arguments against same-sex marriage are religious arguments. You may not be persuaded by them, but don’t pretend that the opponent of same-sex marriage relies solely on religion (I have made all arguments from reason, and have not mentioned God or religion once).
Truthfully, I am undecided on this issue. I am in a heterosexual marriage with children and I do recognize, at least anecdotally, the different roles of father and mother in the lives of children. I have not read enough of the research regarding same-sex parents, but I hesitate to dismiss it wholesale. The American Psychological Association’s research summary and resulting policy statement seem pretty sound: http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/policy/parents.html. What is most important to me, as a member of society, is that which is in the best interest of the children. I hear a lot of platitudes about same-sex marriage being harmful to children, but I don’t see the evidence.
“There is, however, a different view–indeed, a view that is radically opposed to this: Marriage is the fundamental, cross-cultural institution for bridging the male-female divide so that children have loving, committed mothers and fathers. Marriage is inherently normative: It is about holding out a certain kind of relationship as a social ideal, especially when there are children involved.”
A survey of historical as well as extant cultures show that this is not the case. Marriage–as we understand it–is not a universal trait of all cultures. Admittedly those cultures without a marriage concept are in the minority, but that’s all it takes to show that it is not a universal concept. And historical societies, as well as many today, have arranged marriages that are really more like business transactions and have nothing to do with “loving parents”.
And the idea that marriage is about holding a certain kind of relationship up as “ideal” inherently means that other (presumably homosexual) relationships do not measure up to that ideal and are, at least in some way, inferior. This is exactly the uphill battle gay rights activists face.
“The marriage idea is that children need mothers and fathers, that societies need babies, and that adults have an obligation to shape their sexual behavior so as to give their children stable families in which to grow up.”
Again, this is really not the case in practice. Infertile couples or those who choose not to have children are still allowed to marry, so marriage must be something more than just a structure within which to raise kids. What if gay couples sign some sort of document promising not to have or adopt kids? While still inherently discriminatory, that should get around the issue if marriage is about guaranteeing that kids will be raised by a mother and father.
But then what about divorce?
Kleiner, you’ll be happy to know that you’ve persuaded me. I’ve gone from being “FOR” gay marriage, to simply being “for” it.
The majority of previous arguments I’ve heard against gay marriage have been because being gay is a sin, and we can’t support it. You’ve scattered several fairly reasonable posts around the SHAFT site on this topic, but I’m still not convinced.
You mentioned elsewhere that, “People that raise the objection about infertility and childless hetero marriages are very impressed with those objections, even though the objections are really not that impressive. Of course the govt does not do fertility checks or force marrying couples to promise they will have children. But by incentivizing hetero marriage they are incentivizing the KIND of relationship that could lead to social benefits (ie state interests). That some marriages do not actually result in that benefit does not undermine the traditional meaning of marriage, as gay marriage would.”
I think homosexual marriages would still lead to state interests. Married partners would be more likely to stimulate the enconomy by buying houses, etc. And BECAUSE of the fact that they can’t have children, they can adopt and take children out of orphanages/foster care, without the risk of creating more children for them.
You say that, “As a matter of prudence, I would not be surprised if a child would do better in a 2 parent same-sex home rather than a single parent home. This is a hard case. But hard cases make for bad public policy.”
Since gay couples obviously aren’t going to go around stealing children from healthy straight marriages, isn’t the better question “would a child do better with gay parents or no parents?”
At least currently, there is not a “surplus” of children looking for homes. In fact, it is very difficult to adopt (the number of families seeking to adopt far outstrips the number of children who need to be adopted).
David reposted my past comments on childless hetero marriages which responds to James’ post.
Regarding divorce: I think the development of “no fault” divorce laws has been one of the most socially destructive things in recent memory.
Well done, Kimi! What you did takes guts, and smarts, and you clearly have both. You rock!!
To Kleiner’s earlier point: yes, marriage is indeed only a kind of contract between two people, and the gov’t has no right to demand that the people involved be white, black, heterosexual, republican, materialist, or whatever. If there are private religious entities that want to invent ‘extra-special-marriage,’ which may only be entered into by two people who are , that is well and good, but there should be no civil rights such people get that do not accrue to the plain old ‘married’ people. ‘Marriage,’ precisely because of the important status it has held in our culture for such a long time, must be available to people attracted to other people of the same or different sexes, religions, races, heights, and philosophical dispositions.
That claim about extra-special-marriage should read: “… by two people who are (fill in the blank)…”
Two quick thoughts:
1) The notion that the list of differences you list (white, black, hetero, republican, gay, etc) are all basically the same fails to take seriously the argument about the meaning of marriage. Past laws against interracial marriage were totally unjustifiable. But they had nothing to do with the natural meaning of marriage, they had everything to do with racism. Removing those laws required in no way that we vacate marriage of its natural meaning. For this reason, the prohibition against gay marriage is NOT AT ALL like past (unjustified) prohibitions against interracial marriage.
The argument that these are the same assumes, almost invariably without argument, that marriage is only a contract between two persons. I have actually made an argument (a natural needs / natural law argument) for my definition of marriage. If marriage is not merely a religious institution (I think we’d both agree on that) and it is not based in nature (I think it is, you deny that it is), then what the hell is it and what is it for? It becomes, to quote Ghallager, “a kind of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval that government stamps on certain registered intimacies because, well, for no particular reason the court can articulate except that society likes to recognize expressions of love and commitment.”
This leads to my next point:
2) IF all that marriage is “only a contract between two people” (and I reject that claim) then why is govt involved in it at all? Far from legalizing gay marriage, we should just wipe from the books any laws and govt involvement (tax codes, etc) that concern marriage of any kind. Absent doing that, I would like the govt to officially recognize with their “good housekeeping seal” my friendship with you. College roomates might want some kind of official status, perhaps with some tax benefits. Maybe provide a seal of govt approval concerning how much I love my dog. etc etc. Point is, absent a more substantial definition of marriage (ideally paired with an actual argument) the matter of why the govt should be involved in it at all quickly becomes absurd, as we enter into all sorts of contractual relationships between two people (many of which might even have social benefits) without thinking the govt should be involved in those. Marriage is something special, and I have an account for why and you do not appear to.
Kleiner: Relating to your second point(and I’m not able to cite any one article in particular because it’s late and I’m lazy) but don’t married people act differently in society than singles? I’m talking about when a married individual votes, buys something, etc. They have different needs/wants than an individual who is single and is not (typically) accounting for another needs/wants in many of the things they do. Buying a house is going to be approached differently, as are any number of other things as a single person has a different outlook on the world than a married one. Then you throw kids into the thing and suddenly those with children have different priorities, needs, and wants(single w/kinds and married w/kids again are going to have different outlooks). Government is inevitably going to want to encourage or discourage some of the resulting behaviors. If you legally recognize a commitment between two people you not only are saying “oh look how nice this commitment is” but you can move along towards political/economic/whatever goals for the country by attaching higher or lower taxes to things according to the commitment status of a person. Any marriage contract isn’t about the love two people share to society at large, it’s also about what kind of mortgagee you can get on a house and what your credit rating is. It’s socio-economic, not just social.
So should the government get involved in giving a seal of approval to each each set of commitments and non-commitments along with developing incentives and disincentives for the good/bad behaviors for each set of commitments and non-commitments?
It is not obvious to me that the social good of a gay married couple is all that much different than the social good of two sisters (or two friends) who never marry, make a sincere commitment to each other to be companions, and buy a house together and live as roommates. In both cases, the commitments probably lead to certain social goods (more consistent and productive workers, people that are more committed to their neighborhood and community, perhaps more charitable work, etc etc).
One sees this problem with corporate (and university) policies that extend health benefits to “partners”. How is “partner” defined? Do you need to be having sex with your “partner”? How often? Does simply being a “companion” suffice? How about being lifelong friends and roommates?
Once you vacate marriage of its natural meaning and its natural connection to the creation of children and make it this nebulous matter of “commitment level”, how is this measured and verified? Why restrict it to sexual relationships (once the sex has been divorced from one of the natural purposes of sex – creating children)? Why restrict it to relationships (sexual or otherwise) between two people, instead of 3 or 4?
Long story short: I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that once you cut away the natural foundation of marriage you simultaneously cut away the capacity to really make a discernment between all sorts of different arrangements and commitments. So my view is that you either maintain the traditional meaning of marriage or you just get govt the hell out of it.
By the way, I think everyone has raised very good points. I don’t often enough validate the good points raised before I respond. It is good to see people making arguments, trying to sort out the ‘why’ of this issue. I am more than happy to play the foil (even it means being the “evil foil”, being the one who defends the backward, naive, fanatical, and utterly indefensible for intelligent people view that gay marriage is not good public policy).
Ok, I suppose I see your point about government and marriage. I suspect those economic and political pulls are strong enough to make gov do all sorts of things, whether it’s logical or not, just because they can get something out of it, but so it goes.
I don’t think you’ve argued anything in a way that is particularly backward, naive, or fanatical. I may disagree(obstinately) with your end result, but it’s very good all around for us to have dissenting views aired, so thanks for that.