I obviously disagree with Ross Douthat’s conclusion that homosexuals should not be allowed to marry one another. He is responding to Andrew Sullivan on this point, and unfortunately published the first part of his argument while Andrew is incommunicado, on a spousally-imposed break from blogging. Gay marriage really does have some of the same downsides as straight marriage . . . .
But Andrew will certainly be back, and in the interim I want to make a non-obvious point. Twenty-five years ago when I first began working on the rights of same-sex couples, it was virtually impossible to find a heterosexual – and particularly a heterosexual male – who would so much as engage the conversation, much less take the time to write thoughtfully and publicly about it. There were a few (mostly very liberal) politicians who would uncomfortably express support, maybe shake my hand, and then hurry off to attend to some other very important matter. Trying to get conservatives to exchange views was pretty much impossible.
Today, Douthat is only one of the many conservatives who are now quite comfortable giving their time and attention to this issue – one of the thousands of issues available for writers to address – and sharing his thinking.
It’s easy for those of us who have been working on this issue nonstop for decades (i.e., lesbians and gay men, to whom it is of enormous if not transcendent importance) to find obvious flaws in the reasoning of people who are only recently coming to the discussion. Douthat proposes a long-discredited approach to recognizing same-sex couples, which requires not recognizing them as homosexual couples – we would be entitled to relationship rights by categorizing us with elderly sisters and good friends and anyone else who can’t get married but wants some government benefit or another.
Over the years, both Andrew and Jonathan Rauch have explained the serious problems to marriage that this kind of “marriage lite” causes. Dale Carpenter, John Corvino, David Boaz and hundreds of other gay writers, academics and backseat drivers like myself have also had a thought or two to contribute over time. This supposedly non-discriminatory status is not a new idea. I’m sure Douthat does not mean to be condescending to same-sex couples in offering it, but it is a condescending notion all the same.
Still, he is wrestling with the issue of equality openly and in good faith. I would like to see if he believes his position stands up to the existing criticisms of it, and perhaps he will engage that debate. If he has new responses to Rauch and others, that would be welcome.
In the end, though, I think it is Peter Suderman among conservatives who has it right. What underlies opposition to same-sex marriage is an intuition, and ultimately nothing more. It is a powerful intuition, but in America, our laws have to be based on something more tangible. Suderman looked behind the intuition, tested it against the arguments offered against it, and concluded that the arguments for equality were more persuasive than the intimations and fears against it.
I hope that is where Douthat is able to come to some day as well. I think, in the end, it is the right, just and moral conclusion. But wherever Douthat winds up, he deserves our thanks for trying, with an open mind (I believe) to understand what it is we are saying.
19 Comments for “Straight Men Are Trying”
posted by Amicus on
The best reason to worry about a change in how the state defines marriage was the fear of unintended consequences, of long-term ripple effects that could subtly but surely reshape society. But what might those consequences be? No one knows, or indeed if there will be any at all. Reduced to its essence, that fear is just another way to express one’s gnawing anxiety at the prospect of social change. It is an intuition about what marriage should and shouldn’t be, …
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Sadly, anyone who cannot carefully articulate the threats to civil society from ‘sexual relations’, gay or nongay, isn’t worth their salt, as much as I welcome the open mindedness and willingness to examine the unexamined belief.
posted by Amicus on
“But if we just accept this shift, we’re giving up on one of the great ideas of Western civilization: the celebration of lifelong heterosexual monogamy as a unique and indispensable estate. That ideal is still worth honoring, and still worth striving to preserve.”
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This is the paucity of Douthat’s intuition, in a nutshell. He sees an either/or, perhaps led on by the Robert P. George’s of the world.
But, it is not a new institution, irretrievably “redefined”, if ‘gay marriages’ were to be blessed. It is the same institution, made complete with God’s full purpose, like putting another shelf into the bookcase (it’s still a bookcase).
And, indeed, we ought to raise the bar on him, this way (a Burkean way, afterall?):
Isn’t the greater risk to marriage as a social touchstone that, in inappropriately reserving it, it becomes the cornerstone for a plainly unjust society, rather than the bedrock Douthat images it might be?
posted by Throbert McGee on
Wow, shame on Ross Douthat for taking gay-marriage advocates in good faith when they said this whole struggle was about fair access to the [all together, now!] “one-thousand, mumble-hundred, and eleventy-seven federal rights and responsibilities” that same-sex couples are cruelly denied, and was NOT a hamfisted attempt to make homosexuality respectable by government fiat.
posted by Throbert McGee on
Oh, by the way, me likey the gravatar-support on the new site!
posted by Throbert McGee on
Oops — I meant to say “the gravatar support”.
That’s why I have a little tutti-frutti pachyderm next to my name instead of a white-on-gray silhouette. And that “Globally Recognized Avatar” also shows up when I post at Volokh Conspiracy, for example — it’s associated with my registered email address at any site that has “gravatar support.”
posted by debrahdiva on
Well, Throbert.
I signed up.
Let’s see if it works.
posted by Jimmy on
Western Civilization’s great accomplishment is the way it came to honor the emotion of love. Romantic love was given such importance that the custom of arranged marriages died away. Because of the power of love, a power strong enough to cause two people to devote their lives to one another, was also powerful enough to change the way marriage has come to be perceived as something other than a business arrangement or tribal/klannish preordainment.
This is what conservatives like Suderman understand. It is about the LOVE that it takes to move us to a deep commitment. It’s about what our civilization has come to value.
posted by Bobby on
I sick of gay marriage advocates, bunch of liars they are. This week I was supposed to get a date with a cute HIV+ man (I wasn’t planning to screw him, just to meet him and see if we get along). Then he tells me that something came up on Friday, so maybe he would be free Sunday evening. Then Sunday comes and he’s also busy. Yeah, welcome to the gay community, where even positive guys are picky. As far as I’m concerned, this website dedicates too much time to marriage, we might as well be discussing whether alien abductions are real, because as far as I’m concerned, I’d rather believe in alien abductions or in the theory of evolution than same-sex marriage.
posted by Doug on
That’s right Bobby stereotype the entire gay community based on your experience with one man. How classy.
posted by John Howard on
categorizing us with elderly sisters and good friends and anyone else who can’t get married
The Civil Unions I propose, which would all be uniformly defined by states as “marriage minus conception rights”, could in theory be given to siblings and other couples prohibited from having sex or conceiving together, though there might be good reasons to not allow them to get CU’d, if it was being done for tax evasion and survivor benefits, but then, why not just allow a few siblings and mother/son couples to have the tax benefits? It’d be very rare. But we could also limit CU’s to unrelated same-sex couples, if we think there might be other public policy benefits from doing so.
posted by Bobby on
“That’s right Bobby stereotype the entire gay community based on your experience with one man. How classy.”
—It’s ALWAYS the same experience with almost every man. So don’t give me this bullshit of gay couples in love, maybe they exist but they are the EXCEPTION. Besides, your beautiful gay community is nothing more than a stereotype. Have you ever seen the nasty comments the assholes at advocate.com make? Yeah, try being a gay republican, try having your own opinions, try being a little different from the gay twink Abercrombie & Fitch look and let’s see how accepting your beautiful gay community is.
Same-sex marriage is nothing but a big joke. Now take the straight community, I knew a beautiful girl, smart, with an MBA. And who did she marry? Some big fatass that looks like he’s the son of the Hindenburg. And why did she do that? Not because he had money (although he does), not because he has connection, not because she’s a whore. No, she did it out of love. That pretty girl fell in love with a man that was physically and visually repellent, a man who’s not a 5 out of 10 but a 0 out of 10, actually, he’s so ugly we’d have to use negative numbers to describe him.
But, because he’s a breeder he was able to use his breeder charms on a girl and because she’s a girl she was able to appreciate something other than how big his dick is.
Now, I don’t look like the Hindenburg, from 1 t o10 I consider myself a 5. So, how come some fatass heterosexhul gets to marry a girl who is a 7 and I can’t get a fucking HIV+ queen with a receding hairline to date me once? Seriously, same-sex marriage, what a laugh. I’d rather get a dog, at least dogs are LOYAL!
posted by Debrah on
Bobby–
That’s a hilarious story.
Was the guy really that unattractive?
I agree there are many things other than the physical that attract people to each other, but it would be most unusual to have such a contrast.
Although, think about Dennis Kucinich.
His wife is no great beauty, but she’s much more attractive, taller, and younger than he.
Love is a hurting thing.
LOL!
posted by Jorge on
Bah. You just need to pick up some game, Bobby. At least you’re far enough that you can get a date.
posted by Bobby on
Hey Debrah,
“Was the guy really that unattractive?”
—Even seen Beauty and the Beast? The Beast was pretty compared to that guy. Not only he was really fat, like big 9 month pregnant man belly, but he had an ugly face. I know we’re all made in God’s image, but God must have been pretty wasted the night He created him.
“I agree there are many things other than the physical that attract people to each other, but it would be most unusual to have such a contrast.”
—I’m convinced it was a personality thing, my girl friend is a nice person, but it takes a special man to enjoy her company. Still, if she had been a gay man she would have never married him, I have never seen such pairings in the gay community.
“Although, think about Dennis Kucinich.
His wife is no great beauty, but she’s much more attractive, taller, and younger than he.”
—I haven’t seen his wife, but I don’t think Dennis is ugly, I mean, for someone in his 40s he looks pretty good. He’s skinny and I love skinny.
“Bah. You just need to pick up some game, Bobby.”
—-The only game I’m picking up is Fallout IV when it comes out. 😉
posted by Debrah on
Bobby–
Apparently Kucinich is 64 and his wife is 33.
I can understand that if the guy is handsome. You know, someone who was hot and then as he gets older, develops a very sexy distinguished look.
But Kucinich?
Here’s a photo from a few years ago.
I agree that he’s not grotesque like the guy your friend is with, but he looks like an elf.
He’s kind of creepy.
You wouldn’t care for his wife.
She’s described as a “hippie chick” with a “pierced tongue”.
LIS!
posted by Bobby on
Hey Deb, Kucinich has an ugly face, like the guy from Mad Magazine, Alfred E. Newman, BUT, I judge my men from the neck down, so if I was in my 60s, I would find Mr. K hot.
posted by Jorge on
The only game I’m picking up is Fallout IV when it comes out.
Oh! That. Was. Cold.
I agree that he’s not grotesque like the guy your friend is with, but he looks like an elf.
He’s kind of creepy.
http://gregorylevey.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/kuclep.jpg
(Was trying to find the one from the Giuliani Girl video, close enough)
posted by John D on
Yes they are. Very trying.
posted by Kevin on
I read the discussion between Sullivan and Douthat and, I must say, I appreciate the intelligent discourse between the two on the subject. Watching the Fox News coverage of the Prop. 8 decree was like watching two drunk girls from rivaling sororities duke it out. I disagree with the author’s view that Douthat’s suggestions are condescending. No doubt I don’t agree with them and I certainly am a proponent of same-sex marriage. But I think many SSM proponents tend to gloss over the point that the lack of procreative potential between homosexual spouses is a distinction that deserves attention in this debate, even beyond the generic rebuttals of infertile heterosexuals and aging childless yuppies (this may be due to the fact that I studied this particular issue in a conservative Catholic school). That fact that women and men create kids and naturally create this “microcosmic”-whatever is a big part of marriage. Of course, today we don’t reel our heads back when we learn that a married couple is childless, it’s not such an integral part that we think childless couples are weird. But the norm that men and women get married and have kids is a strong, recurring theme in Western society. I think Sullivan well struck a resounding chord by making the argument that religious based beliefs on marriage have evolved and are not a majority. It struck me as quite novel, his statements on how the Catholic Church has long abandoned many of its marital standards. It’s not that the Christian view on SSM is condescending or bigoted, etc.. It’s that it’s not actually the norm, even in the religions upholding it as the norm. I realize that what I am arguing against is not the point of the writing, but I thought it would be an interesting distinction to point out, which Sullivan did very well.