First published on January 7, 2004, in the Chicago Free Press. This version has been slightly revised.
Have you noticed how seldom the defenders of marriage as an exclusive heterosexual privilege talk about love as a reason for marrying?
They give a number of reasons why only heterosexuals should be allowed to marry: the procreation of children, the preservation of social stability, the purported "fit" of the male and female genitalia. But they never seem to mention that men and women might love each other and want to spend their lives together.
This is odd if you think about it. Of all the motivations heterosexuals might have for marrying, love would seem to be first and foremost. Is it really likely that a man might say to a women, "I notice that our genitals would fit together well. Would you marry me?" or "Our nation needs to generate more children. Please be my wife."
But the defenders of exclusionary heterosexual marriage dare not mention love because they know that if they admit for one moment that one primary reason people marry is love, then gays and lesbians - who have as much capacity for love as heterosexuals - would have just as much claim to marriage as heterosexuals. And they know most Americans would realize that.
Not that they came to this point willingly. During much of the 1990s, religious right groups such as the Traditional Values Coalition tried to deny the existence of same-sex love. They characterized committed gay and lesbian couples as "sex partners" or "just friends who have sex."
Apparently that was not broadly persuasive. Perhaps the slowly growing visibility of gay couples was a factor, or awareness of the 600,000 same-sex couples acknowledged in the 2000 census. In any case, that tactic was largely abandoned.
So gay marriage opponents have been forced to retreat to curiously strained or insubstantial reasons based on human physiology ("natural fit") or so-called "social policy" (e.g., the need for babies, two parents families, etc.).
Consider the argument that we need heterosexual-only marriage in order to be sure the nation and/or the human race will survive. In fact, heterosexuals are creating babies at a high rate. In 1950, the U.S. population was 150 million. By 2000, the U.S. population was 280 million.
So the problem is not one of inducing heterosexuals to marry so there will be more children. They are having plenty of children. The problem is that heterosexuals are having children without marriage. In 1990, 26.6 percent of babies were born to unmarried women. By 2000, 33.2 percent were born to unmarried women. So the task is inducing heterosexuals who have children to marry.
Religious right advocates say allowing gay marriage would separate the concepts of marriage and child-rearing. You can be sure that if gay couples had been able to marry during the 1990s, religious right polemicists would have blamed the rising birthrates among single women on gay marriage. But it is clear that many heterosexuals already separate marriage and child-rearing.
So the religious right argument amounts to this: Because heterosexuals are producing children without marrying, therefore homosexuals should not be permitted to marry. Another way to put that is: Because many heterosexuals who produce children do not love each other enough to marry, therefore we should not permit same-sex couples who love each other to marry.
The core question then is: What does prohibiting loving gay couples from marrying do to increase the likelihood that unmarried heterosexual procreators will feel enough love for each other so they will want to marry? How exactly might that work?
But if gay marriage opponents fall back on illogical arguments against gay marriage, they also conspicuously avoid mention of ways in which gay married couples can be a social good and help solve the very problems they claim to be concerned about.
Single parents, usually women, face real challenges. Researchers have found substantial social problems associated with single parenting: Higher crime rates, drug abuse, lower educational attainments, chronic poverty. Many single mothers are unwilling or unable to care for their children, so the children are put up for adoption or foster care.
But if the problem is heterosexual procreators who do not marry, one obvious solution is adoption by married gay and lesbian couples. In most states gays can already adopt and provide foster care for children. By marrying, gay couples would be able to provide evidence of their love for each other, their commitment to the concept of family, and greater assurance of a stable and loving home life for children than unmarried parents can.
Because the arguments against gay marriage are so poor but advanced so fervently, we might wonder if gay marriage opponents are arguing in good faith. That is, are they using arguments they find convincing, or ones they may not themselves believe but hope will convince others. If the latter, then they must be reluctant to submit their actual reasons for opposing gay marriage to public scrutiny.