Gay Marriage Is Bad — But We Can’t Say Why
The National Review Online has an odious editorial up called “The Future of Marriage.” The editorial makes three main points:
- Contrary to what many people think, same-sex marriage is not becoming “markedly” more accepted, and in states that make it easy for residents to amend their constitution to define marriage as exclusively heterosexual, they will do so.
- Those states that have recognized same-sex marriage the “democratic” way — through legislative action — are making a big mistake.
- The purpose of marriage is to provide a societally approved mechanism for a heterosexual couple to raise children.
In other words, the same old garbage, expressed with a particularly glaring disrespect for facts, reality, and just plain old common-sense:
Both as a social institution and as a public policy, marriage exists to foster connections between heterosexual sex and the rearing of children within stable households. [Says who? Where is this written or substantively demonstrated?] It is a non-coercive way to channel (heterosexual) desire into civilized patterns of living. [Again, according to whom? What are "civilized patterns of living"? Why is heterosexual marriage more "civilized" than same-sex marriage? For that matter, why is heterosexual sex within marriage more civilized than heterosexual sex outside of marriage, or raising children outside of marriage?] State recognition of the marital relationship does not imply devaluation of any other type of relationship, whether friendship or brotherhood. [Same-sex unions are not "friendship" or "brotherhood." They are physically and emotionally intimate romantic unions, exactly the same as heterosexual unions. If two consenting adults love each other and want to marry, but by law cannot do so, that is devaluation of their relationship. Yes it is.] State recognition of those other types of relationships is unnecessary. [And no one argues otherwise. Friendship and brotherhood are not marriage.] So too is the governmental recognition of same-sex sexual relationships, committed or otherwise, in a deep sense pointless. [Why?]
No, we do not expect marriage rates to plummet and illegitimacy rates to skyrocket in these jurisdictions over the next decade. But to the extent same-sex marriage is normalized here, it will be harder for American culture and law to connect marriage and parenthood. [Why? Same-sex marriage and parenthood are not mutually exclusive -- and heterosexual marriage and parenthood are not always or necessarily connected.] That it has already gotten harder over the last few decades is no answer to this concern. [Because you don't want it to be.] In foisting same-sex marriage on Iowa, the state’s supreme court opined in a footnote that the idea that it is best for children to have mothers and fathers married to each other is merely based on “stereotype.” [Well, it's certainly not based on science, demonstrated fact, or common sense.]
All of the above arguments are circular. They argue for the legitimacy of a prejudice in terms of the prejudice. And they are no different in kind from this:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
How is this any different from “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”?
More commentary from Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com, John Holbo at Crooked Timber, The Anonymous Liberal, and Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution. The latter makes a point that is not made nearly often enough:
I have a simple hypothesis about the cross-sectional econometrics. If you take the heterosexual couples who engage in the practice which is sometimes “associated” with male gay marriage, I predict those couples will favor legal gay marriage to an astonishingly high degree. Their marriage is already “affiliated” with that practice, and so the notion of legally married gay men (and the practices which go along with that) does not constitute an extra and unwanted affiliation for their marriage ideal.
Now, if you are a rational heterosexual Bayesian and neither engage in that associated practice nor favor legal gay marriage, and then you learn about these cross-sectional econometrics, what should you infer about the correctness of your point of view?
Which is more or less the retort I had in mind (but felt too weary to make) in response to James Joyner’s thoughts on the sexual preferences of the Framers of the Constitution:
I’m hard pressed to believe that the Framers or any of the amenders meant to institutionalize buggery, given that it was anathema to most of them.
See, I didn’t know that — but then again, I have not read the Federalist Papers as closely as I might have done.
10 Responses to “Gay Marriage Is Bad — But We Can’t Say Why”
“I’m hard pressed to believe that the Framers or any of the amenders meant to institutionalize buggery, given that it was anathema to most of them.”
Ah — the argument of personal incredulity. It's kind of like “I just can't bring myself to believe that the awesomeness of humankind wasn't designed by God”. One of my favorite bits of non-logic. Sometimes I can't believe that so many presumably heterosexual Christian dudes have such a morbid obsession with butt-sex, but obviously my incredulity has nothing to do with the reality of that, either.
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We have said why. In spades. In detail. And with studies to back it up. And even a display of anti-polygamy sentiments amongst the gay “pro human rights” crowd amongst “consenting adults…like the hypocrisy cherry on top of the specifics-sundae.
This article is misleading.
Silhouette, you at least offered a theory that if we let gays marry, more kids will turn out gay. It may not have much empirical support, but it's at least a claimed reason. That's more than the article managed.
Your polygamy argument is a dead end, not only because you keep misrepresenting other people's positions on it, but because it's a different issue. If you managed to prove in court that gays are insufficiently supportive of polygamy, that still wouldn't prove gay marriage is a bad idea.
Sil, whatever anti-nonsense drugs you were taking this morning have worn off. You need to follow the doctor's orders and take them when you're suppose to. The comments I read from you this morning were lucid, made sense and showed insight. I have no idea what you're saying now. Or perhaps you're a different person…. either that or you've been drinking. Have those kids of yours finally driven you to the drink? From some of your previous comments they sound like a handful. This isn't the first time we've seen such polar opposite posts from you.
Even taking the anti-gay marriage people's arguments and dissecting it doesn't help them.
I will only consider their argument (maybe) that marriage is meant for two heterosexual people of the opposite sex if they had laws to ensure that. If that's what they want then why do they allow all these other variants? What about the following whihch are commonplace and yet falls outside the argument that the purpose of marriage is procreation and raising children:
* Once a child is raised and the woman can no longer have kids then the couple should no longer be married.
* If a woman gives birth outside of marriage, then she and the father should be thrown in jail (they “procreated” outside of marriage).
* If a couple is unable to procreate then they should no longer be married.
* A couple can not divorce until the kids are grown up and on their own.
If the anti-gay marriage folks claim that it is not realistic to do this, then they are admitting that other human experiences are legitimate. Their claims that marriage should only be for heterosexual procreation (as if there's another kind of procreation) and the raising of children are simply not legitimate given the wide range of human experience in this world and their (the anti-gay marriage folks) own acceptance of other heterosexuals with these experiences. And their acceptance of other heterosexuals include themselves since most of them will have children who grow up and leave home.
Instead these people prefer to meddle in others' lives (and taking away rights) instead of actually supporting laws (or even leading by example) that which they preach.
By their own definition of marriage, a large percentage of them should not be married and sooner or later they would all become “unmarried” (once the kids are grown). How can they honestly say that the purpose of marriage is to raise children when they continue to remain married once those children are raised?
There are many gay couples who have been married longer than many straights and these gay couples are raising children. Maybe not their own children, and in some cases children that their “straight” parents did not want.
As a straight long time Iowan living in a fairly conservative Cedar Rapids, the reaction around here has been Yawn! Much shouting and grinding teeth from the Sioux City Republicans, but life continues, sun still coming up!
Iowans have long been known for their cool heads. It's the rest of the neocon element I'm worried about. Once gays and polygamists (yes, they will get the right too) have rights to marry in their state…God help us.
It really will be armageddon. When someone unstable feels backed against a wall, “reason” is out the window and bullets are substituted. Civil unions were fine, but no…no…the left has to flex now that it is in the cockpit. At any other time it woudn't matter as much but civil unrest is lapping at the top of the levee like the waves in Hurricane Katrina. One more surge in the wrong place and it's curtains.
Besides the social-contagion factor cited in this article: http://www-psychology.concordia.ca/fac/pfaus/Pf… and the fact that gays are mysteriously against human rights when it comes to granting them to polygamists (who stand next in line for their day in Court) and the fact that our human behaviorlists are erring on the side of political-correctness instead of actual correctness when it comes to ciphering where sexual preference originates and how malleable it actually is… we have the timing issue. The timing of this campaign couldn't be worse.
And yes, I've heard in many circles that the real thrust behind the gay marriage thing is the adoption issue and their having easier access to children. Most of them probably for benevolent reasons I assume..
You know what I haven't seen discussed as to influence on childrearing, speaking of the real reason gays want marriage…
It's how in every gay couple I've seen, and living where I do I've seen SCORES of them day in and day out interacting…it's that there's always a “man” one and “fem” one in either gay male partners or lesbians. Now, think of this from a child's perspective trying to form its idea of the world. You have males acting like males and females acting like females and you have males acting like females and females acting like males. .
There's a hidden (more than one I suspect) psychological aspect to childrearing in gay couples that has the potential to be crazymaking. I mean you should see them if you havent' already. If you have, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. The butch one acts all gruff, macho and tough, fairly unemotional, masculine features moreso than the other. The fem one acts all bitchy, fussy, whiney, superficial, prone to emotional fits moreso than the masculine one.
Imagine how confusing this must be to a child not only just to witness, but to have to deal with on a day to day basis. One could even call it “crazy-making”. Just what kids need, another weird adult issue that they need to sort out that is confusing and doesn't make much sense.
“Mommy, how come if you're not attracted to men, why does Connie have short hair like a man, a deep voice like a man and wear clothes like a man and acts a lot like Jimmy's dad?” I thought you didn't like being with men?
And so on…ponder..
I've noticed that many gay women veer masculine, many gay men feminine. I'm not sure what to make of that. It can't indicate a real underlying neurological phenomenon, because physiological explanations of homosexuality are just propaganda spread by the gaystapo, right? Perhaps your bull study or your orgasm-association model explains it?
Your fears that children cannot cope with issues like these are quite timely. Certainly demographics show the younger generation far less equipped to handle homosexuals in their midst than those older and wiser, so you're right that we're heading for a crisis. Honestly, public safety and *the mental health of our children* demand we round up all the homosexuals and stone them. The Bible said as much 2500 years ago, and we should have listened.
On the other hand, perhaps the thing that needs pondering is how you can live among scores of gay couples and still write like you're on planet Sneerius.