Writing in the Sunday New York Times Book Review, William Saletan, chief political correspondent for Slate, looks at new books on same-sex marriage by gay activist and organizer Evan Wolfson and gay historian George Chauncey. Says Saletan, too often advocates of marriage equality fail to address the fear that drives opposition to gay marriage. As he puts it:
Every movement that seeks to change society faces two great tasks. The first is to discredit the old order. The second is to offer a new one. Without the assurance of a new order, the debate becomes a choice between order and chaos, and order wins. ...
This larger menace -- the abolition of moral discrimination -- is what frightens reasonable people into joining the antigay resistance. They worry that marriage is losing its meaning and being supplanted by less stable relationships. Wolfson and Chauncey vindicate their fears. Chauncey welcomes the spread of domestic partnership benefits.... Wolfson praises California for extending "family protections" to unmarried heterosexuals. ... Neither author asks why couples who can marry but choose not to do so deserve such protections.
In contrast, Saletan notes that gay marriage advocates such as Jonathan Rauch and Andrew Sullivan understand "marriage as a way to mainstream gay culture," not just a series of government benefits that ought to be available to anyone who shacks up. Concludes Saletan:
We can absorb gay marriage into our society not because it's gay but because it's marriage. It's compatible with the moral distinctions we already understand and treasure. We don't have to honor every lifestyle we tolerate or treat cohabitation like marriage. It's the enemies of gay marriage who want to make this debate an all-or-nothing, order-or-chaos proposition. Let's not help them.
My two cents: Time and again, gay activists dismiss anyone
opposed to the profound socio-cultural changes the movement for gay
legal equality represents as a "bigot" or "hater." Well, some may
be, but most are work-a-day folks who fear the breakdown of the
norms they believe knit society together. Addressing their fears
and not stoking them (as some "queer liberationists" delight in
doing) is a vital step too often ignored.