Christianity Today "Same Sex, Different Marriage" (May 2010)
By Mollie Ziegler Hemingway
Many of those who want marriage equality do not want fidelity.
Same-sex marriage advocates frequently ask, "How would gay marriage affect your marriage?" The question is posed rhetorically, as if marriage is a private institution with no social consequences.
But The New York Times, of all papers, argues that gay unions could significantly alter marriage norms. A new study of gay couples in San Francisco shows that half are "open," meaning that partners consent to each other having sex with other people. The Times says that the prevalence of such relationships could "rewrite the traditional rules of matrimony" by showing straight couples that monogamy need not be a "central feature" of marriage and that sexually open relationships might "point the way for the survival of the institution."
In the gay community, open relationships are neither news nor controversial. Many of my partnered, gay male friends are in open relationships, some of which have lasted for decades. But the Times reporter, Scott James, who is himself gay, notes that nobody in an open relationship agreed to give their full name for the story, worrying that "discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage."
Indeed, some gay activists were upset with the Times. Gay political commentator Andrew Sullivan derided the piece and pointed to several critiques of the study. However, Sullivan himself has made the same argument, saying that gay male unions could "help strengthen and inform" traditional marriages.
"Among gay male relationships, the openness of the contract makes it more likely to survive than many heterosexual bonds …. There is more likely to be a greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman," he wrote in his book Virtually Normal.
Other same-sex marriage advocates say a legal change would transform the institution. New York University professor Judith Stacey, testifying before Congress against the Defense of Marriage Act, said changing the law to allow same-sex partners to marry would help "supplant the destructive sanctity of the family" and help it assume "varied, creative, and adaptive contours," including "small group marriages."
Activist Michelangelo Signorile wrote that gays should "demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution."
To be sure, some advocates of same-sex marriage hope that heterosexual marital norms of monogamy and fidelity would be transferred to same-sex unions. But since these norms are based on the ideal that marriage is the union of a man and woman making a permanent and exclusive commitment for the purpose of bearing and rearing children, it would be irrational to expect same-sex partners—whose sexual relations bear no risk of procreation—to share the same norms.
Whether or not marriage law should change, the fact is that changing it to include same-sex partnerships would teach people that marriage is fundamentally about the emotional union of adults and not primarily about the bodily union of man and wife (let alone the children who result from such a union). The norms of permanence, monogamy, and fidelity would make less sense under such a change.
Consider changes in divorce laws. The spread of no-fault divorce in the 1970s didn't just make it easier for men and women to get out of troubled marriages. It also changed people's ideas about the permanence of the institution and the responsibility parents have to their children.
It had other unintended consequences as well. Studies showed that after divorce laws were changed, spouses tended to invest less in their marriages. Economists found that spouses in states that had passed no-fault divorce laws were 10 percent less likely to put the spouse through college or graduate school and 6 percent less likely to have a child together.
Marriage rates fell and cohabitation rates increased as men and women lost confidence in the institution. Some 20 percent of children are now born to cohabiting couples, the majority of whom will see their parents split up by the time they reach adolescence.
Legal changes have consequences. But no matter how marriage laws may change, we can, paradoxically, find more freedom in chastity—which calls for abstinence when unmarried and sexual fidelity when married—than in any form of open marriage.
As Catholic author Christopher West says, "Chastity is first and foremost a great yes to the true meaning of sex, to the goodness of being created as male and female in the image of God. Chastity isn't repressive. It's totally liberating. It frees us from the tendency to use others for selfish gratification and enables us to love others as Christ loves us."
I think it’s important to remember that the same-sex marriage debate has nothing to do with whether or not homosexuality is intrinsically wrong or sinful. It is, however, about the question of whether the union of husband and wife should reasonably be given state sanction in a way that same-sex unions are not. First, sex between a man and a woman can result in children while sex between same-sex couples cannot. Second, the government has an interest in children being cared for by those who made them to the greatest extent possible. At the most basic level, this is why governments have in the past and should continue to sanction unions of husband and wife in ways that they do not other types of couples.
ReplyDeleteSome say that domestic partner benefits related to health insurance benefits, hospital visitation rights, death benefits, etc., have nothing to do with children and should be given to same-sex couples who want to join their lives before the state. I agree, but why should these benefits be limited only to relationships that involve sex? What about two widows who are extremely close friends and have shared living space and resources for years, should they not also be extended these partner benefits if same-sex couples are.
Christians should care that our government promotes responsible care for children and setting apart and privileging marriage in contrast to other relationships is one way to do it. Christians should also be open to considering the extension of certain benefits to non-marital couples if these benefits are relevant to those relationships and do not raise certain non-marital relationships above others simply because they involve sexual activity.
The article focuses on a third important aspect of this debate, which includes concerns about how changes in law often spur significant cultural and institutional shifts over time. This the vein of the debate that addresses the usually rhetorical question of how state sanction of same-sex marriage could possibly affect heterosexual marriage. The central argument of the article is the following: “Whether or not marriage law should change, the fact is that changing it to include same-sex partnerships would teach people that marriage is fundamentally about the emotional union of adults and not primarily about the bodily union of man and wife (let alone the children who result from such a union). The norms of permanence, monogamy, and fidelity would make less sense under such a change.” I think this aspect of the argument is compelling.
As long as this debate is couched in civil rights language, Christians who make the above arguments will regularly be charged with bigotry (unfortunately, many Christians do a poor job of making the above arguments and some are bigots). Unless the debate can be reframed, it’s over before it began. Civil rights should rightly prevail and have consistently been expanded in scope through American history. The problem is, same-sex marriage is not a civil rights matter.
Some interesting points in regards to the percentage of monogamy in same-sex relationships and how the institution of heterosexual couples is more of an emotional and bodily union vs just emotional. I feel that if this law would extend to homosexual couples that it rightfully should be expanded to the "widowed" couple that you spoke of. However, I think that this will bring the sanctification level of marriage to a place I may not be willing to see it go. It could lead to destruction of the heterosexual marriage and family as change did to it in the 1970's.
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting.
ReplyDeleteI used the scenario of the "widow" roommates to try to say that if we would not consider their relationship eligible for marriage, even though they share many things that married couples do, by the same logic we ought not redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. Your discomfort with the scenario of the "widowed" couple being eligible for marriage is definitely legitimate. The point you gleaned from my post is really the key of what I was trying to say. Heterosexual unions of husband and wife are emotional but also bodily in a way that same-sex unions simply cannot be, merely as a matter of physicality. Because again, the complimentary physicality of male-female sexual union can result in children. The social consequences, therefore, of irresponsible male-female sexual activity are rightly of concern to the government, hence its regulation of marriage in the first place.
I heard Maggie Gallagher, who writes about this a lot, ask fellow panelists who favor same-sex marriage during an online debate, "would either of you be willing to say that it is best for children if they are cared for by their mother and father in the same household?" Both refused to say that. This is NOT to minimize step-families, adoptions, foster care, etc. These can each be profoundly wonderful family forms. But to not even be willing to say that it is best for children to be raised by their biological mother and father is very disturbing. I think for Gallagher, she thinks its important for a society to be able to say this, and our laws are one way that we do it. She feels that undoing the marriage legal structure would make it much more difficult over time to declare this vital and fundamental social reality. I'm inclined to agree.
I don't have discomfort with the widowed couples...I think that is cute and much needed, but the discomfort comes when the will be categorized with the homosexual couples.
ReplyDelete