First published by Scripps Howard News Service, August 5, 2004. Reprinted by permission of the author courtesy of Scripps Howard News Service.
Missouri voters last Tuesday decided, 70 percent to 30, to ban same-sex marriage in the Show Me state. This, and similar initiatives on 10 state ballots through Nov. 2, will bolster traditional marriage about as effectively as a landlord who battles termites by refusing to rent apartments to gay tenants.
Traditional marriage is being gnawed on by a culture that too often regards "I do" as a punchline. While divorce nibbles away at nuptials, Fox-TV airs "Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy," a show that swaps husbands and wives like baseball cards. The 205,000-member AshleyMadison.com - whose slogan is "When Monogamy Becomes Monotony" - helps people cheat on their spouses. Philanderers.com, one of many more Internet adultery sites, helpfully advises that toothpaste removes lipstick stains.
Padlocking every gay bar from Provincetown to West Hollywood would not slow such outrages, nor would restricting each marriage to one man and one woman make heterosexuals stop behaving badly.
Something as vital as marriage should be out of public hands. Government should exit the marriage business and quit issuing marriage licenses. If you want to get married, get married. Why beg City Hall's permission?
That said, if America must license marriage, there are methods beyond discriminatory constitutional amendments that would preserve traditional marriage and protect children. After all, these are what gay-marriage opponents claim as their real objectives. If so, social conservatives should embrace any of the following reforms to advance their goals:
- Ban divorce. Yes, this would be a drastic measure, but with roughly half of first marriages ending in divorce, it may be time for drastic action. This is the most powerful weapon to defend marriage: Simply make it illegal to break marital bonds. What part of "Till death do us part" do divorcees find unclear?
- Limit marriage licenses to one per person. Everybody gets one chance to get it right. No trial matrimonies, Britney Spears stunts, or Elizabeth Taylor serial husbandry. People might be more careful about pairing for life if they knew they had only one shot at marriage. A common-sense exception could be made to let widows and widowers re-marry.
- Introduce probationary marriage licenses for
heterosexuals. Gay-marriage foes say their efforts are
"all about the children," as seems to be the case with everything
these days. (Homer Simpson last season crisply summarized my
opinion of kids: "Children are our future - unless we stop them
now!") Each couple would have five years to bear at least one baby
of its own or adopt at least one child. This would advance the
species, give lots of new kids moms and dads, and also move boys
and girls from orphanages into homes.
The marriage license of each childless couple would lapse on their fifth anniversary. This would limit the number of child-free husbands and wives, such as Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Buchanan, who, presumably, remain married to share their love with each other as adults, not to rear children. Straight marriage advocates argue that the institution does not exist to keep adults emotionally satisfied and mutually devoted. Instead, as National Review Online's Stanley Kurtz has written, "the core purpose of marriage is to bind children to their mothers and fathers." The Buchanans and couples like them are entitled to find that sentiment breathtakingly presumptuous. - The flip side of this notion: provisional marriage licenses for gay couples. They could stay married as long as they remained childless. The moment a gay couple either adopted a child or managed to deliver one naturally through surrogate parenting, artificial insemination, etc., their marriage license would become null and void, and they simply would become two people living together under one roof. This would provide the socially desirable benefits of curbing gay promiscuity while promoting gay monogamy. And who can argue with that? This simultaneously would reduce the odds that gay people would raise children, what with all the challenges this presents. If social conservatives are sincere, they should applaud this compromise.
Any or all of these modest proposals should satisfy socio-cons and the religious right. Why not defend marriage through one or more of these concepts, rather than the irrelevant misstep Missouri voters just showed us?