In his
reply to my post, for
which I thank him, Robert George fairly notes that many of the
family radicals who signed "Beyond Marriage" favor SSM.
Of course they do. But so do nearly all left-wing and queer-theory
academics and activists, which is what these folks are. (With the
exception of Chai Feldblum and a few others, they have not played
prominent roles in the same-sex marriage fight. I mean, Cornel
West? Gimme a break.) The important distinction is that SSM is only
part of what these folks favor, and the rest is what they really
care about. As the title of their manifesto proclaims, they are
looking beyond same-sex marriage: they favor SSM, not as
an end in itself, but as a way-station toward a post-marriage
society in which all concepts of family enjoy equal status and
marriage is irrelevant.
There's no denying that they speak for a prominent element of
the gay-rights movement (not the gay marriage movement;
there's a difference). I worry about their influence, as I do about
that of socialized-medicine advocates and anti-globalists and
gender-abolishers and other members of the ultra-egalitarian left,
but I don't think they'll prevail, even within the gay universe,
most of which is neither radical nor "queer."
There's a legitimate argument here about whether the culture
will interpret gay marriage as "anything goes" or as
"marriage goes." Actually, some of both may happen, but I
expect the dominant vector to be reaffirmation of marriage's
privileged status as the family structure of choice. Parents asking
their gay kids, "So, you guys going to get married?", plus the
longstanding social preference for the unique commitment of
marriage (as expressed, for example, in corporate benefits reserved
for married couples), plus the fact that most marrying gay couples
marry precisely because they see marriage as a unique commitment -
all these, I expect, will lead the culture to read SSM as a return
to the values of marriage, not a further flight from them. The wind
brings positive straws from Massachusetts, where a number of
employers are revoking domestic-partner benefits now that SSM is
legal.
In any case, it's hardly fair to saddle homosexuals with the
burden of exclusion from marriage in hopes of preventing
heterosexual folly. If straights insist on trashing marriage, it's
not gays' job to stop them. Question: how many American
heterosexuals would give up their own marriages to (maybe) forfend
polygamy? Who would even consider asking them to do so? I'm often
saddened by otherwise compassionate conservatives' willingness to
think of gay people, in the SSM debate, as pawns to be manipulated
for some larger social good. They must forgive us for declining to
think of ourselves that way.
Regarding polygamy...OK, let me see if I get this. Polygamy
destabilizes societies, is inconsistent with liberal democracy,
shows pronounced inegalitarian and misogynistic tendencies, is
frivolous by comparison to SSM, has no logical connection to SSM,
and indeed is logically antithetical to the principle of SSM
properly understood (everyone should have the opportunity to
marry)...these are not principled arguments? Whereas "one man plus
one woman makes baby" is not just a principled barrier to polygamy,
it is the only principled barrier?
The problem, which is immediately obvious, is that "one man plus
one woman makes baby" is no kind of barrier to polygamy, either
logical or practical. Logically, man-plus-woman-makes-baby is a
biological fact, but one-plus-one-makes-marriage in no way follows
from it. Men are perfectly happy to marry all the women they can
make babies with, as they have been wont to do since the dawn of
history. Given that most human cultures have been polygamous (and
quite a few still are), and that presumably all of these cultures
have been well aware that heterosexual couples make babies, it
seems self-evident that the man-woman-baby argument has little or
no deterrent effect on polygamy.
A point of honest disagreement with George is this: in my
opinion, the reasons to oppose polygamy are instrumental, not
metaphysical, and all the stronger for that. And they are the same
reasons for favoring gay marriage. Society and (generally)
individuals are better off when everyone can marry and most people
do.
That disagreement aside, I wish George would reconsider his
strategy of pooh-poohing all the arguments against polygamy (and
polyamory) that don't also militate against SSM - which is to say,
virtually all the arguments against polygamy. Surely we could agree
that this strategy does monogamy no favors. As SSM and gay
partnerships gain acceptance, conservatives will be stuck with
their own arguments that any change to the boundaries of marriage
entails every change. It will be harder for the public, sensible
though it is, to hold the line with conservatives insisting there
is no line to hold. Sometimes I wonder if, like Col. Nicholson in
"Bridge on the River Kwai," slippery-slope conservatives are
forgetting what they're supposed to be defending. (Hint: not
polygamy.)
As for polyamory, if by that George means group marriage, it
might be different in some ways from polygamy, but it's
analytically similar: frivolous, logically antithetical to SSM,
and, to judge by the last several thousand years of experience,
likely to devolve in the vast majority cases into polygamy. As for
fending off formal recognition of non-marital polyamory (e.g.,
group cohabitation benefits), gay marriage is the surest method of
preventing that.
In any case, it's well to remember that all this
polygamy/polyamory talk amounts to changing the subject. Gay people
are asking only for what straight people currently have: the
opportunity to marry someone we choose (not anyone or everyone we
choose). When straights get the right to marry two people, their
mother, a dog, or a toaster, gay people will want the same
opportunity. But not before.
