Over on marriagedebate.com, Maggie is disagreeing with Andrew Sullivan over whether or not David Blankenhorn – and, by implication, the entire anti-same-sex-marriage wing of the marriage movement – has shifted their views on marriage since the same-sex marriage debate became prominent. Maggie writes:
No-one who knows anything about David’s work could possibly imagine he invented an emphasis on the importance of fathers and marriage because he suddenly wanted to be mean to gay people: Maggie, I think you’ve misunderstood what Andrew’s saying. No one denies that David – and you – have been saying fathers and marriage are important. Obviously, you’ve both been saying that for many years. But David, like you, nowadays argues that the only thing that justifies the state’s interest in recognizing marriage is marriage’s generative capacity. That’s simply not compatible with the marriage movement’s “statement of principles”, which you drafted in 2000: Marriage is a personal bond. Marriage is the ultimate avowal of caring, committed, and collaborative love. Marriage incorporates our desire to know and be known by another human being; it represents our dearest hopes that love is not a temporary condition, that we are not condemned to drift in and out of shifting relationships forever. Five years ago, you and David advocated this; today, both you and David routinely dismiss statements along these lines as adult-centered. Five years ago, you wrote that the state has an interest in supporting marriage because – among other reasons – “Marriage is a unique generator of social and human capital, as important as education in building the wealth of individuals and communities.” Let’s put the particulars of that statement aside. What’s relevant to our discussion is that five years ago, you admitted that the state has multiple reasons to want couples to get and stay married, some of which were not exclusively about heterosexual reproduction. What the anti-SSM movement says today – that the only legitimate state interest in supporting marriage is its generative capacity – is incompatible with the marriage movement’s “statement of principles” circa 2000. I know that you, David and others have written about the connections between generative capacity and marriage for years. But that’s not the only thing you wrote about. And the implicit admission made, in 2000, that marriage has dimensions in addition to generative capacity, and that there are legitimate state interests in marriage in addition to generative capacity, shows your position has changed over the last five years. And that’s a shame, because your 2000 understanding of marriage was far more nuanced and realistic than the simplistic “generative or nothing” view you take today. As Andrew says, you folks were right in the first place. P.S. And as for the question of if David wants to be “mean to gay people,” who cares? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure David’s a nice guy – but what matters are his policy positions. What David personally thinks of gays is none of my business.
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“Condemned”? It is certainly possible to intentionally move from one relationship to another (rather than “drifting”). And all living relationships are “shifting.”
Why would a conservative believe the government should regulate something merely because that thing is a “generator of social and human capital”? So is art. So is exercise. And, if you need an example of something involving multiple consenting adults, so is live theatre or a university education; I wouldn’t want the government deciding who can participate in any of those activities.
The government should stay out of the marriage issue entirely. That’s the consistent position, but not one the right wants to take because the right needs to use government to control who can marry.
Hate to hijack this, but the new Supreme Court nominee is Samuel Alito.
In regards to the post, well . . . what Amp said.
Isn’t there a difference between the reasons the state wants couples to get and stay married and the moral justification for the state sanctioning of marriage? The state may be interested in promoting marriage on the basis of reducing the tax burden, but it may not be ethically sound to use financial grounds to justify policy.
One of the dimensions is that “marriage is a sacred promise”. It’s great that people have the opportunity to make sacred promises, but this isn’t sufficient grounds to justify government involvement – the state doesn’t get involved in baptisms or confirmations, for example. Many of the “statement of principles” may be perfectly nice, but you can’t use them to provide an ethical basis for government action.
You keep expecting some sort of moral consistency from people like Maggie, and you’re going to be constantly disappointed.
There are solid economic reasons for favoring marriage. Marriage enables the diversification of risk; it makes those involved less likely to become wards of the state in the event of certain kinds of catastrophes. For this reason the state has an interet in promoting marriage or at least domestic partnership.
Nobody really believes that marriage is only about procreation. The most you can probably say is that marriage is optimal for family arrangements that include children, or that it is usually optimal where the vast majority of family relationships in society are “nuclear” in character, whereas, there are other configurations that might make more sense if people don’t actually plan to have children. However, unless Gallagher wants to extend the logic of her argument by denying marriage to those who are (at the very least) unable to procreate, whether or not marriage is “about” procreation is a non sequitur. In the legal landscape, a marriage license is not contingent on the willingness or ability to reproduce.
You’re imagining contradiction where there is none.
Yes, the state has many motives for promoting marriage. But in a country of limited government like the USA, only ONE of those motives could reasonably justify maintaining an institution that establishes a separate kind of status for citizens who pair up.
The only reason that justifies an institution like marriage, is protecting the interests of potential children, and maximizing the proportion of children raised by a father and a mother.
The other reasons for marriage are just gravy. If you add them all up, they still would not justify an institution like marriage. Not in a country like the US, where status is suspect.
11/1/2005 — DISCRIMINATION ACTION ALERT!!!
Today the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to try to advance the “Marriage Protection Amendment” out of committee.
According to HRC we have a sympathetic ear in the Chairman, Arlen Specter. He is opposed, and has the power to keep this faith-based amendment from seeing the Senate floor.
They are urging us to call his DC office and encourage his opposition to the “Marriage Protection Amendment.”
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We have a small, but URGENT window of opportunity here. Please call him!
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Christian: The only reason that justifies an institution like marriage, is protecting the interests of potential children, and maximizing the proportion of children raised by a father and a mother.
Ah: protecting the interests of potential children.
Not real live actual children, running around and eating and making messes and wanting cuddles and questions answered and help with homework and needing to know how to make gingerbread cookies and stuff: just potential children.
So it’s all for the sake of the potential children…
It’s odd how often the anti-marriage crowd drift into justifying things in terms of “potential”, or “illusion”, or “ostensible”, and how seldom they can justify themselves by pointing to real data.
That’s right, Jesurgislac, because unlike you, we’re talking about *actual* marriage.
Think about it. If a woman has children already, from previous relationships, and gets married, her marriage has no LEGAL effect on her children already born. It affects her potential future children.
Just like a safety net protects acrobats from potential falls. Setting up a safety net is useless to acrobats who have already hit the ground from a fall.
You may cry that I’m being callous, but that’s reality for you.
I’m not saying that we should not do something for existent children. But that’s another program.
If you want real data on what marriage does, then read the links off the first page of Maggie’s site. As I see it, anyone who denies something as obvious as a child’s need for a mother and a father, isn’t going to pay attention to the data anyway.
… her marriage has no LEGAL effect on her children already born.
Are you sure about that? Maybe you should check into that and come back and correct your statement. (Hint: her new husband does become a legal guardian of her “children already born.” So, there’s is one legal effect that you didn’t know about.)
Christian: It affects her potential future children.
Okay, so that’s what you meant. Not that I disagree with Jake Squid’s assessment that children also benefit by the marriage of parent and step-parent: I don’t.
But, going by your distinction that marriage is of no benefit to children unless a couple are married when the child is born, it follows that the state is “protecting the interests of potential children” if it supports the marriage of lesbian couples, since children can be (and are) born to either woman in a same-sex relationship.
And, since I (along with all adoption agencies) think that marriage is also useful in protecting the interests of adopted children, it follows that the state should actually support the marriage of all same-sex couples, thus avoiding the charge of gender discrimination, and also providing for the interests of children adopted or fostered, by same-sex and mixed-sex couples.
Remind me again, was that supposed to be an argument against same-sex marriage?
Even if marriage is “mostly” about protecting children, Christian does not explain why marriage is open to those who manifestly can’t and won’t have children. And why aren’t the benefits of marriage limited to those that are linked to procreation and the advancement of childrearing? Why are spouses automatically assumed to be each other’s legal guardian? What does that have to do with childrearing, particularly once the children are all grown up?
Procration and childrearing may be advanced in convenience by marriage, but most of the benefits of marriage relate to to the simple proposition that the implicit intent of married persons is to in effect “become one.” Since the law is intended at its best to fairly carry out the intentions of people, clearly, marriage as a legal institution advances what is assumed to be the default intentions of most married people. Default rules are intended to avoid every married person having to go to the trouble of making explicit what they thought was already sufficiently manifest by the act of getting married. Hence, it is assumed that a spouse is in the best position to know the intentions of another spouse who has become incapacitated, and this is true no matter how little time the couple has been married, and whether or not they have children or have announced their intentions to never have children, and no matter, for instance, if one of the spouses is Wiccan and the other Catholic. It is assumed that the spouses intended to “marry” their assets, hence a spouse without a will laves the other spouse his or her exclusive heir, again, no matter how long the spouses have been married and even if there are a bevy of children from a previous marriage who need the money a lot more. So even if no person seeking SSM intends to raise children (a ridiculous proposition on its face as there are many already doing it), nobody has stated why the non-procreation linked benefits of marraige should be available to non-procreating straights but not non-procreating gays.
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