Opponents of gay marriage often warn that gays want to destroy
marriage. This is preposterous and alarmist. However, in a recent
Washington Blade column, openly gay law professor Nancy
Polikoff indeed argues for "abolishing the legal status of marriage
for everyone." There are multiple problems with her radical
proposal, which boil down to: it shouldn't happen, it ain't gonna
happen, and it needlessly fuels the opposition to gay marriage.
Since the 1970s there's been an undercurrent of opposition to
marriage on the gay left. Lesbian feminists have criticized its
sexist roots, including long-discarded laws subordinating wives to
husbands. Gay male sexual liberationists have seen it as
stultifying, directing people into dreary traditional patterns of
living.
When the idea of gay marriage caught on in the early 1990s,
thanks in part to gay conservatives like Andrew Sullivan, these
critics initially dismissed it as "assimilationist." We're not
"just like straights," they like to say, and we don't want to
be.
The argument for gay marriage depends, however, on the idea that
gays are "just like straights" in every important respect. Gay
couples are just as capable of love, commitment, mutual caretaking,
and raising children.
Polikoff acknowledges that marriage confers important advantages
to married couples in everything from health benefits to taxation.
Gay couples, she agrees, should get these benefits.
But, Polikoff argues, everyone else should get them too. "A
legal system that gives benefits to married couples but withholds
those benefits from other types of relationships that help people
flourish and fulfill critical social functions harms many people,
both straight and gay," she writes. A man caring for his sick
mother should be able to have her covered on his health insurance,
for example. A woman should not lose her home to pay estate taxes
when her cohabiting sister dies.
The main problem, according to Polikoff and other critics, is
that marriage privileges some relationships over others. If gay
marriage is allowed it will still favor married couples over
unmarried couples and other relationships. Indeed, under Polikoff's
argument, it's hard to see why legal recognition should be limited
to couples. Why not recognize relationships of 3, 4, or more
people?
There are good reasons to reject Polikoff's idea. The
institution of marriage represents an enormous social investment,
both in the couple and in the children they often raise. Every
single one of the more than 1,000 marital benefits granted at the
state and federal level costs us money, whether it's in the form of
a Social Security death benefit or tax breaks on transfers of
wealth between spouses.
There are many reasons we make that huge investment in marriage
but not in other relationships. Marriage adds to social stability,
including by curbing promiscuity. It furnishes caretakers to
individuals who would otherwise rely on the state. Married people
are healthier and wealthier than single people or unmarried
cohabitants. Marriage affords a secure environment for children,
who do better in married households. Even with today's high divorce
rates, marital relationships are also more enduring, which makes
our investment in them all the wiser.
Why do they last longer? Partly because of the benefits they
get. But mostly, I think, because of the tremendous social support
they receive. This support comes out of our history and tradition,
not mere laws. The powerful social expectation of marriage becomes
equally powerful encouragement and assistance from family and
friends for the couple to stay together.
Marriage is important for the social affirmation it offers gay
relationships, not just for the legal benefits. Contrary to what
Polikoff suggests, not even a landmark Supreme Court decision like
Lawrence v. Texas can offer that deep affirmation. No
"civil union" or "domestic partnership" can offer it either.
By marrying, couples signal to society in a culturally and
historically unique way the strength of their commitment. No other
relationship can quite replicate that signal. Society
understandably rewards the married couple's public commitment, but
cannot be as confident about the durability or depth of other
arrangements.
There is nothing inherently wrong with extending some benefits
to other caring relationships. Maybe a son should be able to secure
health benefits for his ailing mother. But every extension of
benefits entails financial costs. Each of these proposed benefits
should be weighed on its own merits, applied to those relationships
that seem more than transient.
Polikoff probably assumes that abolishing marriage means
everyone would get its goodies. At last, health care for all! Don't
bet on it. The more likely outcome is that standard marital
benefits would be eliminated or reduced to help pay for benefits
accorded the newly recognized relationships. The social investment
in former marriages would decrease, diminishing the return we all
get from that bygone institution.
Marriage, with its culturally and historically rich meaning, and
its critical role in children's upbringing, deserves its privileged
position. There's just too much at stake to abolish it.
Because of its special place in our culture, and because of its
reach far back into our history, marriage isn't going anywhere any
time soon. So proposals to end marriage are a nice parlor game for
academics, but nothing more.
In this case, though, the game has political consequences.
Already a leading opponent of gay marriage, Stanley Kurtz, has
cited Polikoff's and others' work as proof that gays are out to
destroy marriage.
Polikoff and Kurtz are wrong. We aren't fighting for the right
to marry only to see our marriages abolished.