The case against same-sex marriage?
Aug. 8th, 2010 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gaudiorSo, I was talking to Ada and Lauren this morning about how frustrated I've been not to find more convincing arguments against same-sex marriage. Because in the past, whenever I've looked hard at the views of people different from mine, I've found really interesting gaps in my own beliefs, and been able to come to a much more complex, interesting, nuanced view of the issue. I've done this with my views on capitalism (thanks, Ayn Rand!), war/pacifism, Christianity, environmentalism, and general social duties and roles. It's been very useful.
But when I look at same-sex marriage, I just have trouble finding good arguments. Everything has much more convincing counter-arguments.
The arguments I have found, in order from most- to least-convincing, are:
1) It's a good idea to make major social changes slowly, and we haven't yet seen the long-term results of same-sex marriage; it might make more sense to legalize it in some places and wait a generation to see how that goes. There might be unexpected factors that we don't yet know about.
2) Although same-sex marriage stimulates the economy by people taking part in the wedding-industrial complex (and spending scads and scads of money), people being married costs the state and employers in terms of tax benefits, insurance, etc. It's worth noting that this is an argument against anybody getting tax benefits and insurance because of their marriage; our society has agreed that marriage is worth supporting and protecting, that's why those benefits are there in the first place.
3) There's no real difference between calling it "marriage" and calling it a "civil union"-- the former makes gay people (and their allies) feel better, the latter makes anti-same-sex-marriage people feel better, so the real question is whom you want to please. It's not hurting gay people not to be able to be legally married, so why rock the boat? Judge Walker ruled that this was discrimination against a specific group simply due to their membership in the group. And it certainly does hurt us-- financially, legally, and emotionally. It doesn't necessarily kill anyone, but "it doesn't do that much harm, really" is not, to me, a convincing argument to keep something in place unless there are other very good reasons for it.
4) Some research suggests that there is a high correlation between children not living with two biological parents of opposite sexes and poverty, drug use, crime, and mental illness. This research fails to consider the confound of divorce, which is strongly correlated with all those things. It also fails to consider that many poor people have a high rate of early pregnancies to unmarried people, which are kept rather than aborted, and that poverty correlates strongly with drug use, crime, and mental illness. It ignores the research specifically on children of same-sex couples, which shows that these children do very well, and on average better than the overall population of children (because most of the children of same-sex couples are wanted and planned for-- when compared with other children who were wanted and planned for rather than the general population, it's about the same).
5) The purpose of marriage is the protection and raising of children, and same-sex couples don't have children. There are an estimated six to fourteen million children in the U.S. with at least one queer parent. That's about a seventh of all the kids in the U.S. on the 2000 census.
Also, while providing a stable and protected environment for children is one of the purposes of marriage, another major one is to take the burden of providing for old and infirm people off the state by designating another individual who takes on the practical and financial burdens there. Also, marriage is strongly correlated with better physical and mental health for many people. That has nothing to do with children, and everything to do with keeping people happy and healthy in a way they would choose.
6) You can get all the benefits of marriage by signing legal documents. Except that a) no, you can't, and b) this penalizes a group by causing them to pay significantly more than other groups.
7) The slippery slope argument: if you change something as fundamental as marriage laws, then they could be open to all kinds of changes, from bestiality to polygamy to necrophilia... It does, indeed, open the door to possible multiple marriages. I'm fine with that. But there is a very, very significant difference between a contract openly entered into by consenting adults and one involving the exploitation of children, animals, or dead people. The former conveys considerable benefits as stated above, both to the couple and to society. The latter does not.
8) Homosexuality is morally wrong. Says you. And your Bible. Which is not mine.
9) This is interfering with traditional marriage, which is traditionally male-and-female, and it is good to preserve traditions like this independent of any specific purpose the tradition may serve.. Marriage has changed markedly over all of human history, and is not the same now as it was a hundred years ago either legally or socially. We make changes in it (most recently Loving v Virginia) when the traditional way is causing more harm than can be justified by the value of the tradition.
10) Marriage must remain heterosexual because otherwise women will get raped and abused, and these things never happen except from a male perpetrator to an unmarried female victim. ...UM.
11) Gays are icky. That is not a valid constitutional reason.
But there must be more. What haven't I thought of?
ETA: Well-- there's one which kind of resonates with me, I think. It is: Marriage is hard. Being married to someone-- living with them, learning to trust them, arguing with them, staying with them even when they're driving you up the wall, taking care of them when they're sick, taking care of them when they're sad or scared... all those things are a lot of work. It's expensive, it's time-consuming, it takes your energy... it's not easy. I think anyone who's been married has had times when that marriage vow was the only thing between them and walking out the door. And I think a great majority of people who have had that experience has later been very, very grateful for that vow, because we would have regretted intensely leaving.
So it makes sense to me that people wouldn't want anything to happen that would weaken that vow. That vow is sometimes the only thing that stands between you and the catastrophic loss of one of the foundations of your life. And so it raises the question-- what does that vow mean? Is it between you and God? you and your community? you and your honor? Because we can say that that vow is between you and your spouse, but when your spouse has just said the one thing most likely to make you explode and run screaming from the room, that could use something else to back it up.
For me, it is between me and my honor. I would not respect myself if I broke my word. I would not be the person I want to be if I did that.
But if you're someone for whom it has been based more on a vow sworn before God... then I could see it being very, very unnerving for people to come along and say, "Well, marriage isn't really about religion, anyway! So it doesn't matter that your God disapproves of me and my relationship-- marriage is about civil structures and long-term benefits to society!" I do not think that many people decide not to walk out the door because of long-term benefits to society. I am just saying.
So... I guess that does make sense to me.
But I still want to be married to my wife.
--R
ETA August 15th: Found a comment which articulates the point clearly (if not articulately). From an August 13th article in the Los Angeles Times.
PhatMhat at 10:50 PM August 13, 2010
marriage doesnt mean crap anymore. let anyone get married. why do we care?
kids dont care who raises them. let anyone have them and adopt them. better yet, if youre not ready to raise one, just wear a condom or take a pill before or after or if you messed up, just kill the kid before its born so you can live your life and not mess up his or hers.
oh but wait, it wouldnt matter if you raised the kid because remember, it doesnt matter if your 15 and raising a kid with your parents and the government and your teachers' help. youre giving that kid just as good a chance as any other kid coming from any other family.
are you guys pickin up my point? its seriously gotten to the point where it just doesnt matter anymore. why the heck raise any sorta of standard or try to hold to any sort of standard? doesnt matter if your 15. doesnt matter if your gay. doesnt matter if youre on death row. doesnt matter if youve gotta 60 percent chance of getting divorced.
if this stuff doesnt matter then why do we even care if groups get married? seriously what is the problem with that? if ppl want to commit to each other and love ea other and raise children they adopt together, why should anyone care?
why not just marry your pet?
marriage and family don't mean crap anymore.
Similarly, from a comment in an article in the Washingon Times, August 15th:
Why would somebody want a Gay-"marriage"? Only to make the term marriage meaningless, to rip out all spiritual content of something essentially holy. Thereby the family would lose its meaning and, down the road, the individual stripped of his God-given rights and dignity (as there is no use of God and his order when none of his laws is valid anymore). The homosexuals themselves would be prime victims of such a developement.
But when I look at same-sex marriage, I just have trouble finding good arguments. Everything has much more convincing counter-arguments.
The arguments I have found, in order from most- to least-convincing, are:
1) It's a good idea to make major social changes slowly, and we haven't yet seen the long-term results of same-sex marriage; it might make more sense to legalize it in some places and wait a generation to see how that goes. There might be unexpected factors that we don't yet know about.
2) Although same-sex marriage stimulates the economy by people taking part in the wedding-industrial complex (and spending scads and scads of money), people being married costs the state and employers in terms of tax benefits, insurance, etc. It's worth noting that this is an argument against anybody getting tax benefits and insurance because of their marriage; our society has agreed that marriage is worth supporting and protecting, that's why those benefits are there in the first place.
3) There's no real difference between calling it "marriage" and calling it a "civil union"-- the former makes gay people (and their allies) feel better, the latter makes anti-same-sex-marriage people feel better, so the real question is whom you want to please. It's not hurting gay people not to be able to be legally married, so why rock the boat? Judge Walker ruled that this was discrimination against a specific group simply due to their membership in the group. And it certainly does hurt us-- financially, legally, and emotionally. It doesn't necessarily kill anyone, but "it doesn't do that much harm, really" is not, to me, a convincing argument to keep something in place unless there are other very good reasons for it.
4) Some research suggests that there is a high correlation between children not living with two biological parents of opposite sexes and poverty, drug use, crime, and mental illness. This research fails to consider the confound of divorce, which is strongly correlated with all those things. It also fails to consider that many poor people have a high rate of early pregnancies to unmarried people, which are kept rather than aborted, and that poverty correlates strongly with drug use, crime, and mental illness. It ignores the research specifically on children of same-sex couples, which shows that these children do very well, and on average better than the overall population of children (because most of the children of same-sex couples are wanted and planned for-- when compared with other children who were wanted and planned for rather than the general population, it's about the same).
5) The purpose of marriage is the protection and raising of children, and same-sex couples don't have children. There are an estimated six to fourteen million children in the U.S. with at least one queer parent. That's about a seventh of all the kids in the U.S. on the 2000 census.
Also, while providing a stable and protected environment for children is one of the purposes of marriage, another major one is to take the burden of providing for old and infirm people off the state by designating another individual who takes on the practical and financial burdens there. Also, marriage is strongly correlated with better physical and mental health for many people. That has nothing to do with children, and everything to do with keeping people happy and healthy in a way they would choose.
6) You can get all the benefits of marriage by signing legal documents. Except that a) no, you can't, and b) this penalizes a group by causing them to pay significantly more than other groups.
7) The slippery slope argument: if you change something as fundamental as marriage laws, then they could be open to all kinds of changes, from bestiality to polygamy to necrophilia... It does, indeed, open the door to possible multiple marriages. I'm fine with that. But there is a very, very significant difference between a contract openly entered into by consenting adults and one involving the exploitation of children, animals, or dead people. The former conveys considerable benefits as stated above, both to the couple and to society. The latter does not.
8) Homosexuality is morally wrong. Says you. And your Bible. Which is not mine.
9) This is interfering with traditional marriage, which is traditionally male-and-female, and it is good to preserve traditions like this independent of any specific purpose the tradition may serve.. Marriage has changed markedly over all of human history, and is not the same now as it was a hundred years ago either legally or socially. We make changes in it (most recently Loving v Virginia) when the traditional way is causing more harm than can be justified by the value of the tradition.
10) Marriage must remain heterosexual because otherwise women will get raped and abused, and these things never happen except from a male perpetrator to an unmarried female victim. ...UM.
11) Gays are icky. That is not a valid constitutional reason.
But there must be more. What haven't I thought of?
ETA: Well-- there's one which kind of resonates with me, I think. It is: Marriage is hard. Being married to someone-- living with them, learning to trust them, arguing with them, staying with them even when they're driving you up the wall, taking care of them when they're sick, taking care of them when they're sad or scared... all those things are a lot of work. It's expensive, it's time-consuming, it takes your energy... it's not easy. I think anyone who's been married has had times when that marriage vow was the only thing between them and walking out the door. And I think a great majority of people who have had that experience has later been very, very grateful for that vow, because we would have regretted intensely leaving.
So it makes sense to me that people wouldn't want anything to happen that would weaken that vow. That vow is sometimes the only thing that stands between you and the catastrophic loss of one of the foundations of your life. And so it raises the question-- what does that vow mean? Is it between you and God? you and your community? you and your honor? Because we can say that that vow is between you and your spouse, but when your spouse has just said the one thing most likely to make you explode and run screaming from the room, that could use something else to back it up.
For me, it is between me and my honor. I would not respect myself if I broke my word. I would not be the person I want to be if I did that.
But if you're someone for whom it has been based more on a vow sworn before God... then I could see it being very, very unnerving for people to come along and say, "Well, marriage isn't really about religion, anyway! So it doesn't matter that your God disapproves of me and my relationship-- marriage is about civil structures and long-term benefits to society!" I do not think that many people decide not to walk out the door because of long-term benefits to society. I am just saying.
So... I guess that does make sense to me.
But I still want to be married to my wife.
--R
ETA August 15th: Found a comment which articulates the point clearly (if not articulately). From an August 13th article in the Los Angeles Times.
PhatMhat at 10:50 PM August 13, 2010
marriage doesnt mean crap anymore. let anyone get married. why do we care?
kids dont care who raises them. let anyone have them and adopt them. better yet, if youre not ready to raise one, just wear a condom or take a pill before or after or if you messed up, just kill the kid before its born so you can live your life and not mess up his or hers.
oh but wait, it wouldnt matter if you raised the kid because remember, it doesnt matter if your 15 and raising a kid with your parents and the government and your teachers' help. youre giving that kid just as good a chance as any other kid coming from any other family.
are you guys pickin up my point? its seriously gotten to the point where it just doesnt matter anymore. why the heck raise any sorta of standard or try to hold to any sort of standard? doesnt matter if your 15. doesnt matter if your gay. doesnt matter if youre on death row. doesnt matter if youve gotta 60 percent chance of getting divorced.
if this stuff doesnt matter then why do we even care if groups get married? seriously what is the problem with that? if ppl want to commit to each other and love ea other and raise children they adopt together, why should anyone care?
why not just marry your pet?
marriage and family don't mean crap anymore.
Similarly, from a comment in an article in the Washingon Times, August 15th:
Why would somebody want a Gay-"marriage"? Only to make the term marriage meaningless, to rip out all spiritual content of something essentially holy. Thereby the family would lose its meaning and, down the road, the individual stripped of his God-given rights and dignity (as there is no use of God and his order when none of his laws is valid anymore). The homosexuals themselves would be prime victims of such a developement.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-11 12:56 am (UTC)However, I ALSO think it would be ridiculous applied going forward, because the concept of "marriage" as separate from "civil union" would still need to be a concept maintained in law (so pre-cutover married people would still be able to get divorced, for instance).
I believe that as long as the legal idea of "marriage" must remain distinctly separated from the legal idea of "civil union," people are going to have a basis for believing that those two concepts are different. And as long as people believe that those concepts are different, some of them are going to believe that one of them is better, if for no other reason than one of them was around for a longer time.
In the case of a cut-off date switchover, the concept of "marriage" as being different from civil unions would not die until either the last officially "married" person died off (or got divorced and then had a civil union). Also, the historical/legal record would still have to show evidence of those two concepts having being different.
Obviously we have *already* enshrined these concepts of "civil union" and "marriage" as different in law, with one being viewed as better and one being viewed as lesser, and I think that it makes more sense to fight for the concept already enshrined as "better" than it does to fight to change the definition of which one is "better" and which one is "lesser."
Let me put it another way: Sally has a china doll, and Jo has a rag doll. This would not be a problem--the dolls are available to buy in shops--except for the fact that there is a law that no one named Jo may own a china doll.
Jo, having saved up enough money, has decided that this law is unfair, and additionally is unwilling to change her name in order to get a doll (even though that is what most people suggest, and is what many girls named Jo actually do).
Jo has to convince Sally that the china doll law is unfair.
Is it more effective for Jo to do that by telling Sally that china dolls are no better than rag dolls? As long as Jo is relegated to rag dolls, many people like Sally are going to believe that exclusivity is exactly what makes china dolls, and anyone who owns one, better and more special than rag dolls and anyone who owns one. Besides, if Jo went around saying that china dolls were no better than rag dolls, everyone would "know" it was just because Jo wanted a china doll herself.
Or would it be more effective for Jo to tell Sally the reasons that she should be able to buy her own china doll? Everyone already "knows" china dolls are better than rag dolls, so Jo's desire and motivation to own one is entirely understandable to the other children. Now all she has to do is convince them that it is as much her right as theirs to buy what it is that she actually wants and already has the money for, and it's not that hard a sell--if Sally can see that Jo is miserable without the doll, Sally may eventually want to change the law for her own reason--because she cares about her friend.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-11 03:52 am (UTC)