I will be interested to see how Damon Linker responds to Rod Dreher, whose post yesterday offers substantive, thoughtful and non-theological arguments against same-sex marriage. As a gay man who's worked on this issue for a quarter century now, I am fascinated to watch the debate move fully into the heterosexual world, since they are the 97% of voters who will be charged, in our democracy, with deciding the legal rules that will apply to lesbians and gay men.
I'd expressed concern that Dreher was avoiding the central issue of defending his position and focusing, instead, on peripheral issues and perceived slights and insults. But in this post, he gets to the heart of his case.
First, he is concerned that gay marriage is a sign of "autonomous individualism" which is antithetical to a tolerably decent and stable civilization. Second, he believes that same-sex marriage "tells a lie about human nature, and the nature and purpose of sex and sexuality," and that we should not teach our children that marriage means whatever we want it to mean. He also expresses concerns about encroachment on religious freedom, which Jon Rauch's proposed compromise would address, though Dreher does not seem aware that it has been offered. Finally he quotes at length from Jane Galt's libertarian essay about same-sex marriage, which seem to boil down to this: "By changing the explicitly gendered nature of marriage we might be accidentally cutting away something that turns out to be a crucial underpinning." Her point is not that same-sex marriage should be banned, but that we can't always imagine fully what the consequences of social change are -- a fair statement.
These are arguments that can be addressed without resort to the Bible, and for that I'm grateful. While Linker will, I'm sure, have his own thoughts, I think it is important for someone who is actually gay to provide some perspective here.
For example, it's easier for a gay person to see the paradox of arguing against both same-sex marriage and concerns about autonomous individualism. In fact, for someone who is gay, the policy of prohibiting same-sex couples from forming committed, legally binding relationships for themselves and their children is what leads to the perception that gay sexuality is unchecked. Isn't it the lack of such relationships that demonstrates gay men (in particular) are autonomous individualists, and actually seems to prefer that state for us - or at least offer us no alternative?
That relates to Dreher's second point about the nature and purpose of sex and sexuality, and I think that lies at the heart of my differences with him. If the nature and purpose of sex and sexuality is procreation and only procreation, then his objection is not to same-sex marriage, but to homosexuality itself. Whether or not gays get married, their uncloseted existence in the society is a challenge to that notion of sex. But procreative sexuality has a much bigger antagonist than the 3 percent or so of us who are gay. It was not gays, but the U.S. Supreme Court who told heterosexual married couples in 1965 that the constitution guaranteed no state could prohibit them from using birth control, and followed up a few years later to clarify that this protected single heterosexuals as well. Some people really do seem to find it problematic that heterosexuals (particularly younger ones) enjoy sex so much, but I'll be damned if I'll take the rap for that. It is, perhaps, a bit harder to get heterosexuals to give up their constitutional right to nonprocreative sexual pleasure than to place the blame for sexual libertinism on a group of people who are asking, not for the legal right to have sex, but the legal right to have their relationships acknowledged.
That leads into Galt's issue about any change to the "explicitly gendered nature of marriage." Again, it's not marriage that's the issue, it's homosexuality in general. But that anxiety doesn't just arise because we're out of the closet. Heterosexual drag queens, metrosexuals, women in positions of authority and any number of other things are also constantly irritating ages-old gender roles.
As Camille Paglia has made clear for decades, though, none of this is new or surprising to anyone who's paid any attention to history, literature or the real world. Shakespeare practically cornered the market on women dressing up as men back in the 16th Century; you can't throw a rock through the 17th Century without hitting a dandy or a fop; and if the women's suffrage movement did anything, it cemented our modern idea of women as men's equals in the culture -- though the cement is still drying.
It is unfair that homosexuals are being held, somehow, accountable for the tensions that sexual roles are subject to today. It's not in our power to wipe out the memory of Sex and the City and Will & Grace. We live in a civil society right alongside heterosexuals, and that's not going to change. If we can't have equal marriage rights, what can we have without transgressing Dreher's concerns about gender roles in marriage? That isn't clear to me in Dreher's posts. Should we be allowed to enter legally recognized civil unions identical to marriage? Be allowed some of the same legal rights as married couples but not others? Have our relationships ignored in the law, as they have been for centuries? I do not think Dreher would believe we should simply disappear, so unless he thinks that we are somehow not really homosexual at all, and are just being perverse in not choosing to marry someone of the opposite sex, it is fair to ask him how he thinks the law should treat our relationships.
That, ultimately, is the question. Marriage is the simplest and most obvious answer, but if it isn't the right one, we need to know what is.
20 Comments for “More Dreher, Better Dreher”
posted by John Howard on
The right one is state Civil Unions that are defined as “marriage minus conception rights”, because those are distinct from marriage in a principled way that preserves the essence of marriage and therefore allows Congress to ensure constituents that they are indeed protecting and preserving marriage and not just creating “stepping stones” to marriage. The fact that it would roll back marriage and “all the rights” CU’s in every state is essential in making it politically win-win.
And the only thing anyone gives up is the right to attempt same-sex conception, which no one has demanded, and which can’t be done anyway and might never be possible anyway.
So it’s hard to see why anyone would object to the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise. We could have federal recognition tomorrow, and a blueprint to enact marriage-friendly CU’s in all 50 states by the Summer.
Marriage is unacceptable because it either means allowing same-sex conception or it means equating a hetero marriage’s conception rights to a same-sex couples, thereby eliminating everyone’s conception rights. SSM also is useless when most states don’t recognize them and the federal gov’t doesn’t recognize them either.
posted by Jorge on
This blog post is very fascinating and I will remember the point that gays are not responsible for the sexual liberation movement and that we are not going to tolerate being scapegoats.
posted by Pat on
So it’s hard to see why anyone would object to the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise.
It’s actually very easy.
1. They are two different issues, and should be treated as such.
2. Throwing prohibition into a Civil Union/marriage compromise will not help civil unions, or hasten it.
3. Even the most rabid homophobes don’t point to this as a reason to opposing civil unions or marriage.
posted by John Howard on
Pat, 1) That would mean that marriages did not necessarily give the couple the right to attempt to conceive children together, which would affect hetero marriages and make them all vulnerable to being told by the state that they may not attempt to conceive together. Also, why go through it all again when we get to the conception rights issue, why not just get the equal protections part taken care of now, and if people want to demand conception rights when it is safe, they can argue for that part then.
2)A clear principled distinction will totally help CU’s and hasten them. It would help them by making them constitutional, since as CA and MA courts have clearly stated, having two names for the same bundle of rights is unconsitutional. And it would hasten them by overcoming most people’s objection to CU’s which is that they are “marriage in all but name” and will become marriage by court order in a few years. Rolling back marriage in Massachusetts and other states, and accepting a ban on same-sex conception, would be the visible proof that your side has compromised and isn’t so unreasonable, leading to greater acceptance and trust and willingness to provide equal protections.
3) Right, the most rabid homophobes are opposed to homosexuality in general, and just want to hand out little “Jesus Died For You” pamphlets. They aren’t really who Congress is worried about, they aren’t the big block of voters who approve of CU’s but not SSM and wonder why we can’t come up with a logical and constitutional distinction that makes it possible. Well, I have come up with such a distinction, and now we should get it to Congress for them to enact it ASAP.
posted by Pat on
John,
1) No, it would not mean that marriages did not necessarily give the couple the right to have children. But, today, marriage does not necessarily mean the couple has to have children. Again, you can make your argument without tying it to same sex marriage or civil unions. And despite your continued insistence otherwise, it simply is unnecessary to do so.
2) I guess we totally disagree here. The reason that it won’t hasten civil unions or same sex marriage, because as far as I know, you are the only one who is making such an argument about it. There is nary a peep from the opposition regarding same sex conception. None whatsoever.
3) Yes, I realize that you think your idea of tying the two issues together is clever. Unfortunately, it seems like you’re a party of one on that.
posted by anonymout on
would you please pay a visit to a sensible survey on closeted homosexuality?
just type “anonymout, send a touching testimony” on Google, and find the site of the survey on the first answer page. Thanks
posted by John Howard on
1) There’d be marriages that would be prohibited from having children with their own genes. Ergo, marriage would not give the couple the right to have children with their own genes. It would be the first time in human history that a marriage didn’t have a right to procreate together. Show me a marriage that does not have a right to procreate together today. All you might come up with are incarcerated felons who are denied conjugal visits (they’re not because they might be pardoned or paroled some day or escape, at which point they could exercise their marriage rights to procreate) and China’s One Child policy that is a draconian oppression on people’s basic civil rights and which still allows them to have one child anyway. All marriages should be allowed to attempt to conceive children together using their own genes. It’s very scary that lots of people don’t agree, but hopefully such eugenic and supremacist beliefs are in the minority.
2) I’m the only one making the argument now, but if other people joined me in supporting the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise, I wouldn’t be. If Jonathan Rauch and Andrew Sullivan and people like that wrote a couple posts saying they were willing to give up marriage and conception rights in exchange for federal recognition of state CU’s that were “marriage minus conception rights” and a chance at uniform CU’s in all 50 states, then I think we’d see some movement on the other side too.
Sure, there would still be some people opposed to homosexuality in general and concerned for your souls, but they’re not the majority that is opposed to SSM.
posted by grendel on
“It would be the first time in human history that a marriage didn’t have a right to procreate together.”
I don’t know about that. I think in China, if both spouses have already had a child from a previous marriage, if they remarry they cannot have any more children. So isn’t that marriage without the right to procreate?
posted by John Howard on
Interesting, okay, if that’s true, then marriages of people who have already had children in China would count as the first time in human history a marriage was not allowed to have children together, you got me. I’ll have to change that line in my stump speeches. If same-sex conception were banned but SSM allowed in this country, it would be the second time when a country prohibited married couples from procreating. Thanks.
The Chinese policy results in forced abortions and forced contraception, and of course, they also refuse to help the couple conceive together once they’ve had a child. That’s where our policy would start here, with labs having to refuse to join same-sex couples even though they’re married and even though it might work, but once we accept that a married couple can be prohibited from conceiving together, and has equal rights to the same-sex couple, then a eugenic law could be written that requires genetic modification and screening and prohibits a married hetero couple from using their own genes, with the same measures used in China for couples that have already conceived. Perhaps the forced abortions would even follow after that too.
posted by Jorge on
WTF? First we got people talking about sperm and egg gay marriage, now SPAM advertising? Go away!
posted by Pat on
Okay John, I’ve read your arguments, and you still have not come up with a good argument why modified gametes should be tied to marriage. At this point, it doesn’t look like we’re going to agree. In fact, I don’t think I’ll ever understand the obsession with your conception issue, so I’ll just leave it there.
posted by John Howard on
Where do you disagree? Do you think we should allow same-sex conception? Or do you think we can have SSM and call them equal marriages without allowing them to conceive children together without effecting the rights of all marriages? Or do you not think that using conception rights as a bargaining chip to achieve uniform CU’s in all 50 states and federal recognition is worth it, or would work?
posted by Pat on
John, one last time. 1) The issues shouldn’t be tied together. 2) It’s a useless bargaining chip, to put it as kindly as I can. You obviously disagree. This will be my last response to this issue. Thanks.
posted by John Howard on
I’m trying to SEPARATE the issues. I think we should address same-sex conception later, after we have established CU’s that do not protect conception rights. See? You want to tie the issues together and get “equal marriage” right now, including “all the rights of marriage” in one fell swoop. I think that is holding up the process of achieving equal protections, and that offering to pull back from that demand and separating out the conception rights question til later would be a good bargaining chip.
Too bad you couldn’t say where you disagreed. I asked some pretty simple questions. I think we can assume you don’t want to admit that you demand same-sex conception, which is very silly of you, it can’t even be done, and meanwhile thousands of same-sex couples don’t have any form of relationship recognition or protection at all, and none have federal recognition, so you’re not being very nice, you are harming families, with real physical and emotional harm.
posted by Pat on
I’ll probably regret breaking my promise, so here goes.
I’m trying to SEPARATE the issues.
Well, I see you’re having a really tough time with that, because in the next sentence, you brought the issues together again. Try a little harder next time.
You want to tie the issues together
Okay, let’s see. My position is that the issue of same sex marriage and/or civil unions should not be tied to the issue of same sex conception. And the issue of same-sex conception should not be tied to same sex marriage and/or civil unions. They are two different issues and they should be decided on their own separate merits.
Too bad you couldn’t say where you disagreed. I asked some pretty simple questions.
I’ve stated my disagreements above. Reread the posts if necessary.
I think we can assume you don’t want to admit that you demand same-sex conception, which is very silly of you, it can’t even be done
Um, you would assume wrong. Let’s try this. I agree that the sky is blue. Despite this, I don’t think this issue should be tied to same sex marriage.
and meanwhile thousands of same-sex couples don’t have any form of relationship recognition or protection at all, and none have federal recognition, so you’re not being very nice, you are harming families, with real physical and emotional harm.
Let’s even consider the possibility that, somehow, your opinion is correct here, but I cannot see it. I’ll admit that this wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong on an issue. Like most people, I come by my opinions based on what I think the facts are, the truth is, moral considerations, etc. Since I believe your opinion is wrong and your strategy is ineffective at best, I wouldn’t be “nice” if I tried to convince others of your opinion. In other words, I’m more comfortable following my standards on what being nice is, and not yours. Thank you.
I’ve mentioned that tying this issue will have zero positive effect in the cause for federal recognition. But I’m going to assume (and correct me if I’m wrong) that you have taken your position because you really believe it will be more effective in attaining same sex marriage, and you think that will benefit same sex couples. I suppose I could also be arrogant and claim that “you’re not being very nice, you are harming families, with real physical and emotional harm.”
Anyway, apologies to the blogmasters for my role in derailing this thread on an irrelevant topic.
posted by John Howard on
because you really believe it will be more effective in attaining same sex marriage
?? Not same-sex marriage, I’m trying to achieve equal protections via CU’s, which would have all the rights except conception rights which are separated out by definition of these CU’s. (They would be defined as “marriage minus conception rights”).
I can’t tell from your previous comments your position on same-sex conception, other than you want to consider it separately from marriage. We never do that for other marriages, Pat, the only time a marriage doesn’t have conception rights is in China if both spouses already have children, or if a spouse is incarcerated and denied conjugal visits. But a regular non-incarcerated free married couple living in a non-totalitarian free society always has conception rights, so we can’t have a same-sex marriage, or a CU with “all the rights of marriage”, or just give same-sex couples “equal rights” in general, without giving same-sex couples conception rights or stripping conception rights from everybody.
So please separate the issues like you say you want to and stop trying to achieve equal rights and marriage, and go instead for CU’s without conception rights. Obviously it will be easier to achieve than marriage, and actual real families will thank you for thinking of their needs rather than a mistaken quest for absolute equality that includes equal conception rights.
And I don’t think we’ve sidetracked the thread, David was asking what the right plan was, and this is it.
posted by Pat on
John, you’re still completely missing the point. I’ve separated the issues, you keep tying them together. I suppose, in your opinion, I’m missing your point. Any more dialogue on this will be a complete waste of time (and probably was a few posts ago).
And yes, we have sidetracked this thread.
posted by John Howard on
You’ve separated them for me, all right, which implies you think I don’t automatically get conception rights with a woman I can marry. I don’t accept that. I demand conception rights with my own sperm with any woman I can marry.
But you refuse to separate them for you, you refuse to consider relinquishing same-sex conception rights, you refuse to say that you don’t necessarily have conception rights with a man. Civil Unions can be defined so as to separate the issues, so that we can give all the rights and benefits of marriage except – separated – conception rights. Marriage can be redefined like that, but that would be a redefinition that, again, implies that not all marriages have conception rights. I will not let my rights be swept away like that, I demand to be allowed to conceive with my own genes with my spouse, using my spouses own genes. I won’t accept my rights being compared to yours to do that with a man (though you certainly have the equal right to conceive with a woman).
So this isn’t some little we-can-agree-to-disagree impasse we are at, this is you trying to take away my rights, as well as you holding back life-and-death protections and benefits to thousands of same-sex couples that would come from federal recognition and CU’s in possibly all 50 states. All because you refuse to separate your useless demand for same-sex conception from your other demands – demands which society is totally ready to meet. You’re simply making a big mistake and your next comment should reflect some more honest and less selfish and stubborn thinking.
posted by Pat on
your next comment should reflect some more honest and less selfish and stubborn thinking.
Honest? Sorry, John. Now you’re just making sh&t up. I don’t know about selfish, but I am stubborn when it comes to that. Later.
posted by Mark on
Is John being intentionally obtuse here, or has he just gotten so close to his pet solution to the SSM debate that he’s lost all sense of certain realities? Here’s a clue, John: you “demand to be allowed to conceive with my own genes with my spouse.” Please note that you have this right to conceive independent of your marriage to your spouse. Marrying your spouse no more gives you rights to conceive with her than marrying would give you free speech rights to speak your mind to her. As Pat has patiently tried to explain, these rights have already been decoupled in law and in culture for decades. Your attempt to “separate” the issues, assumes the issues are currently conjoined. Pat starts from the more correct assumption that the issues are not currently conjoined.
And to those who aren’t familiar with John and his constant harping on same-sex conception, you should be aware that despite his rhetoric about same-sex conception as something “which can’t be done anyway and might never be possible anyway” and would thus make a great “bargaining chip” so as to provide those poor gay couples with much needed rights (at least until same-sex conception can be done “safely”), you should know that his posts on less gay friendly sites reveal that his overriding concern is that same-sex conception will one day certainly be possible and that we cannot ever allow it to happen as it would be “unethical.” It’s actually a bit funny to see him cast himself as a gay rights avenger on this thread.