Recently I wrote about a proposed compromise by David Blankenhorn, who opposes gay marriage, and Jonathan Rauch, who supports it.
On the Blankenhorn/Rauch proposal, the federal government would recognize individual states' same-sex marriages or civil unions (under the name "civil unions") and grant them benefits, but only in states that provided religious-conscience exemptions, allowing religious organizations to deny married-student housing to gay spouses at a religious college, for example, or to refuse to rent out church property for gay-related family events.
The Blankenhorn/Rauch proposal has prompted much discussion, including a counter-proposal from Ryan Anderson and Sherif Girgis at the conservative website thepublicdiscourse.com.
Anderson and Girgis-who unlike Rauch and Blankenhorn, come from the same side of the debate-reject the original proposal as granting "too much to revisionists and too little to traditionalists." As they see it, traditionalists don't merely seek to secure their own personal religious liberty, but to promote what they see as "a healthy culture of marriage understood as a public good."
They believe that the Blankenhorn/Rauch proposal undermines that public good, because
"it treats same-sex unions (in fact, if not in name) as if they were marriages by making their legal recognition depend on the presumption that these relationships are or may be sexual. It thus enshrines a substantive, controversial principle that traditionalists could not endorse: namely, that there is no moral difference between the sexual communion of husband and wife and homosexual activity-or, therefore, between the relationships built on them."
Anderson and Girgis instead propose the following: "revisionists would agree to oppose the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), thus ensuring that federal law retains the traditional definition of marriage as the union of husband and wife â¦In return, traditionalists would agree to support federal civil unions offering most or all marital benefits." But these unions "would be available to any two adults who commit to sharing domestic responsibilities, whether or not their relationship is sexual," provided that they are "otherwise ineligible to marry each other."
In other words, there would be federal civil unions for gays-but also for other domestic pairs: elderly widowed sisters, for example, or bachelor roommates.
At first glance, their claim that Rauch and Blankenhorn base their proposal on "the presumption that these relationships are or may be sexual" seems strange. After all, Rauch and Blankenhorn never mention sex, and the state neither knows nor cares (nor checks) whether people are having sex once they're married or "civilly united."
On the other hand, people generally assume (with good reason) that marriages and civil unions are sexual, or more broadly romantic. Romantic pair-bonding seems to be a fundamental human desire-for straights and gays-and part of what marriage does is to acknowledge pair-bonds. It does so not because the government is sentimental about such things, but because it recognizes the important role such bonds have in the lives of individuals and the community.
Anderson and Girgis are correct that there are other important bonds in society, and we may well want to extend more legal recognition to them. There is no reason that two cohabitating spinsters shouldn't be granted mutual hospital visitation rights if they want them.
But the question remains whether we want to extend "most or all" federal marital benefits to any cohabitating couple otherwise ineligible to marry, as Anderson and Girgis propose.
And this question prompts additional ones: why limit such recognition to couples? Mutually interdependent relationships don't only come in twos. Oddly, Anderson and Girgis seem to have more in common with radicals who seek to move "beyond marriage" than they do with anyone in the mainstream marriage debate.
Also, why limit such recognition to couples "otherwise ineligible to marry"? Can't an unrelated man and woman have an interdependent relationship that's not sexual/romantic?
Anderson and Girgis write that, "Our proposal would still meet the needs of same-sex partners-based not on sex (which is irrelevant to their relationship's social value), but on shared domestic responsibilities, which really can ground mutual obligations."
And there's the crux: Anderson and Girgis assume that sex has social value only when open to procreation. But that's just false, and most Americans know it. We acknowledge sexual/romantic relationships not merely because they might result in children, but also because of their special depth. Sex doesn't merely make babies; it creates intimacy-for gays and straights alike.
The problem is that Anderson and Girgis divide couplings into two crude categories: (1) married (or marriageable) heterosexuals, and (2) everyone else: committed gay couples, elderly sisters, cohabiting fly-fishing buddies, what have you. They then implausibly suggest that those in column two are all of equal social value.
As David Link writes at the Independent Gay Forum, "The authors of this proposal are quite honest that they find it impossible to view same-sex couples in the category of marriage. But if these are the two categories offered: aging sisters or married couples, I'm betting more Americans who don't already have an opinion, would view same-sex couples as more like the married couples than the sisters. With apologies to the traditionalists, the days when a majority of Americans simply closed their eyes to the loving-and sexual-relationships of same-sex couples are coming to an end."
As they should.
6 Comments for “Strange Bedfellows”
posted by TS on
See what I mean? Any proposal that would make it into the NYT would be considered worthless by these folks, just like we consider their efforts worthless. I am beginning to believe we just need to bring back segregation- not racial or socioeconomic but ideological. If they stay on their side and us on ours, we don’t have to encounter each others’ odious ideologies. The only challenge left would be to keep us from declaring war on each other.
posted by TS on
And actually, John has done a really good job showing just how little these two understand their own litmus tests. “two crude categories: (1) married (or marriageable) heterosexuals, and (2) everyone else: committed gay couples, elderly sisters, cohabiting fly-fishing buddies, what have you. They then implausibly suggest that those in column two are all of equal social value.”
I fail to see an obvious set of criterion for assigning social value to these things at all. It’s all so arbitrary… what are we fighting for, again? I think I’m going to throw in my lot against John Howard and say if I could, I would bioengineer a better sentient species for which the way to satisfaction and achievement is clear, and government is impossible.
posted by Clay on
I reiterate, as I did on John’s previous post on this topic, that the battle is not to change of the minds of conservative extremists, which would be a waste of time. The one thing that’s a bigger waste of time is talking about how useless it is to try to convince and because we can’t we’re screwed or because we can’t we should abandon compromise.
The battle is for the public opinion of the bulk of people in the middle ground. It’s all about the center, the Center, the CENTER, not the Fringe. Our willingness to at least discuss reasonable compromises in good faith (provided this is accompanied by some good political sense) and the unwillingness of the opposition to do the same can work in our favor with the Center, and in so doing can advance the cause of marriage equality. Or we can waste our time decrying the fact that our opponents don’t like us.
posted by BW in TX on
What the traditionalists don’t comprehend is that limiting marriage only to heterosexual couples and providing civil unions for every other type of relationship will serve to weaken marriage and further erode the percentage of married couples. France is a perfect example, where their civil union structure is now preferred over traditional marriage.
Until our state and federal governments can separate marriage benefits and laws from the religious notion of marriage, religious bigots will continue to control the language, content, and direction of the marriage debate. The only real answer is to get the State out of Religion, so that we can finally get Religion out of the State.
posted by esurience on
BW in TX,
On the topic of the intersection of religion and law with regard to marriage, Andrew Sullivan linked to an interesting poll a bit ago: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/03/life-as-a-stati.html
It shows:
While only 29 percent of those polled said they would support same-sex marriage, those numbers shot up 14 percent if assurances were made that by law ?no church or congregation would be required to perform marriages for gay couples.? Never mind that no church at this very moment is required to marry anyone, gay or straight; that simple assurance means that 43 percent of all adults and 60 percent of younger adults would suddenly support same-sex marriage.
Opponents of marriage for gays and lesbians have managed to convince 14% of the population that the 1st amendment and free exercise of religion doesn’t exist (or that it would be insufficient protection when weighed against anti-discrimination laws). People need to understand that marriage is both a secular and religious institution, and entrance into one need not confer the other. Once they do, that 14% is ripe for the taking, which brings us very close to majority support (and overwhelming support among young people).
So, the reality of the state’s interaction with religion and vice-versa doesn’t need to change at all, only the perception of it (with 14% of the population) does.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
The alternative is suggesting on it’s face that gay couple’s relationship isn’t even equivalent to the others that would be covered by civil unions.
It’s still an undeniable standard that doesn’t give the weight or importance of marriage to gay couples.
At what point in these bachelor fishing buddies and sisters who live together relationships are we talking about?
It’s highly unlikely that they are young and in the first years of their living situation.
We can assume that they have intentions to marry at some point in their young lives and NOT live with each other. The front end of one’s life won’t dictate the needs at the back end when it comes to the necessity of these other relationships to be recognized in civil unions for those pairs.
Marriage is assumed to be at the front end of one’s lifelong relationship.
So therefore are we talking about retired elderly people whose living arrangement is strictly for companionship and economic purpose?
And what has that got to to with being gay?
Once again, the issue of homosexuality is conflated with issues that aren’t exclusive to gay people.
The relationship of people who live together as roommates and friends is and can have the freedom to change, rearrange and the state isn’t, nor are the pair involved, determined to THAT responsible necessarily for their friend.
In lieu of spouses or any other close familial situation, their bond IS respected by hospitals and so on for what it is. Especially in an emergency and that is the ONLY close relationship in evidence.
The marriage issue for gay people is and much part, out of necessity for the spiteful and frightening challenges to OTHER fundamental rights that straight people have whether they are married or not.
Such as confiscation of or separation from children and property and influence in an emergency.
Such actions against gay people are because they ARE gay and regardless of how long, what dependent children they’ve had, NO ONE wants to respect THAT relationship for exactly what it is.
Bringing up OTHER creative reasons for civil unions that can include ALL kinds of other relationships dilutes what gay couples are.