How Banning Gay Marriage Will Destroy the Family

I didn’t plan to write about marriage again so soon, but here it is, the issue of the week, overshadowing Haditha, immigration, the Indonesian earthquake, global warming, and Brangelina’s new baby.

Someone has to say it: A constitutional amendment banning gay marriage will destroy the American family and all the sex-related “values” our brethren on the religious right hold so dear. And it will do so by creating an irresistible demand for a constitutional amendment banning heterosexual marriage.

The logic is clear. Since the Supreme Court ruled, in Lawrence v. Texas, that anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional, it’s legal for gays to have sex. Add to that a ban on gay marriage and you will create a special class of people – gays and lesbians – who are free to have all the sex they want, as long as it’s outside of marriage.

This is bound to lead to grumbling among the heterosexual population, even a certain amount of gay-envy. Heterosexuals will start saying: “How come we’re supposed to get married if we want to have sex? How come homosexuals get all the breaks?”

True, most of the demand for a constitutional amendment banning straight marriage will come from the commitment-phobic 18-36 year old male demographic, but this happens to be the most influential demographic in the land. Their tastes determine what movies are made, what we see on TV, and whether we can find sneakers that don’t look like rubberized platform shoes. If the 18-36 year old male demographic demands a ban on heterosexual marriage, you can bet that the right-leaning politicians will change their tune faster than you can say “Dick Cheney’s daughter.”

Instead of bashing gays for their insidious “lifestyle,” the politicians will start beating up on them for their “special privileges” – the right to party all night until well into your fifties, the right to blow off a partner as soon as he or she starts carping about closet space, and so on. Straight young men will tire of trying to pass as gay as soon as the conversation turns to children. They’ll run into the streets shouting, “Freedom from marriage for all!”

And if a ban on gay marriage doesn’t succeed in actually destroying the American family, it will certainly do a great deal to annoy the American family. Face it, there are no “heterosexual families” or “gay families.” Any extended family that doesn’t contain at least one gay couple just hasn’t extended itself very far. There are gays and gay couples caring for elderly, usually straight, parents or children, and gays who bring the green bean casserole to mixed sexual-orientation Thanksgivings. In short, gays are already embedded in “the American family,” and anyone who messes with them is messing with that noble institution.

Families have a stake in marriage if only because it’s an occasion for a wedding, meaning a chance to dress up, drink too much, and flirt with your cousin’s ex-husband. If gays can’t marry, that’s one less wedding per extended family, and that, I say, is too high a price to pay.

You still don’t like the idea of gay marriage? Then, as my friend, the economist Julianne Malveaux, says: Don’t marry a gay person. Case closed, problem solved.

Comments

[Heidi]

Love this article! What really bugs me about this is that "they" trot this issue out every time the religious right looks like they may lose interest. When will they notice that they are just being used?

[dearkitty]

Bush's war on gays, observers say, is to deflect attention from the Iraq war.

And maybe, if wars in Iraq and against gays are not enough for Bush, he may start a war in Iran ...

See http://dearkitty.blogsome.com/2006/06/03/usa-bushs-war-on-gays-to-deflect-attention-from-iraq/

[James]

Great post. I'm always disgusted when this "issue" comes up and you're right that it is soley to try to throw a bone to the religious right.

[Sharon]

Let me see if I’ve got this straight…George Bush’s so-called ‘base,’ the so-called ‘religious right,’ wants a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Aren’t these a lot of the same people who deny that the Bill of Rights applies to the States? Aren’t these the same people who want to roll back 200+ years of Constitutional law to the so-called ‘original intent’ of the Founders?

Who’s going to enforce their amendment even if it passed? Which it won’t. Surely not George W. “The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper” Bush?

How long is it going to take before the religious wingnuts catch on that they're being used?

[mickeymouse]

This sounds like a slippery slope argument to me - if we let X happen(anti-Gay marriage amendment), obviously, the even more horrible, inevitable Y will happen to(dissolution of marriage as a whole). Notably, the occurrence of Y is unsubstantiated by empirical evidence. That is, a cause and effect relationship that we have actually seen take place.

(A slippery slope argument used to justify the Vietnam War, for example, would go something like this: if we don't act now, Vietnam will be first, then Laos, then Cambodia, then Greece, Britain, and then your back yard! Unfortunately, though, we don't actually know whether or not these consequences will actually occur, and hence, our original defensive 'justification' for action does not hold true...)

Concisely, slippery slope is a form of psuedo reasoning, and we should all find ourselves wary of claims formulated in such a fashion.

[Julie & Christi]

Thank you!! We ARE the lesbians who bring the veggie course to the Irish Catholic Thanksgivings!

[HoosierNan]

My son works at a place that rents all the wedding party stuff: tents, china, tables, tableclothes, etc. He can't understand why Republicans would be against gay marriage.

"Republicans are all about making money, right? You know that we can pull in more than $10,000 for a wedding? Republicans ought to be in favor of gay marriage, because it means more weddings, so more catering business, more florist business, more tents that we rent, and so on!"

[spike]

ok yeah i am gay or lesbian if you will. i am also a teen still going to high school. yes there is alot of problems with the gay community today but when was there not i mean come on theres books about it and the authors were scarde to write them yes they were happy that they did write them for the strugling teen who just so happens to be gay or lesbian or even bisexual. and your right a gay guy/women is stronger then a straight guy/women who doesnt accept the fact that there are gay people in this world. i have friends who didnt realize i was gay tell long after i had already told them. yes i am GAY AND PROUD and i always will be. i dont care if i get hate mail for me being happy with my sexuality. what is marriage any way is it not love is it just lust. i mean there has been more break ups from marrige in the last ten years from striaght people then gay. there is something called common law granted to the most part it doesnt count if you are gay but if the love and the bond you share with your significant other is that strong then consider your self married. love isnt just about sex. love is in your heart deep down hidden away by the emotions that we share with each other. i know alot of gay couples who have been together for more then ten years. my cousin and her spouse have been together for about 30 years now and they are still going strong. thou the ring is not papered and is not legaly correct they still love each other and the ring and the love they show for each other shows it. most are scared of the idea of there child or there friends being gay i have some friends that cant tell there parent that they are bi or gay or lesbian because of their parents desicions that they would kick there own shild out on the streets because of their sexuality and who they love. marriage is a privliage not a right we shouldnt have to beg for the priviledge to marrt most straight relation ships who chose to get married didnt love or didnt know their spouse long enough to be married. if a gay couple can go ten years and still be in love and a straight couple cant then there is a problem with how the striahgt couple handled things. i dont mean to sound rude about this but if you dont love some one but they wont have sex with you enless you marry them then dont marry them then divorce them later if you truly dont love them. email me back i would love to stay in touch with you. ~Spike~

[Rhea]

Many of the couples I met outside City Hall in Cambridge, Mass., the night that same-sex marriage went into effect in our state were couples that every Republican would have loved: long-term, committed couples, together 25, 30, 40 years -- almost without exception!

[Sharon]

Rhea, I think that's longer than Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, or Rush Limbaugh were ever married to the same person!

HoosierAnn, your son is absolutely right! And what about all the wedding gifts to be bought, and new homes to be furnished?

[Ceci]

As a person who just got booted out of a 12 year relationship only 4 months ago, the fixation some people in this country have for denying gay marriage/civil unions does chafe....a lot.

I entered into my relationship with the naivete of thinking I found the love of my life. Within 2 years, I'd sold my home, car, and furniture and we'd begun moving to follow her corporate career advancement. Unwittingly I allowed all of my former assets to be transferred into capital used to buy things that were only in her name. Then the ultimate committment...we sold our home and began full time RVing. Now there were no assets at all. Just a gypsy lifestyle and no ability at all for me to go back to college or even take a part time job due to moving the rig every few months.

What should happen...she got tired of RVing and me. I ended up on a street corner figuratively speaking with 8 boxes of stuff and my 2 dogs. I managed to get a few thousand dollars out of the joint account so that I could rent a car to return to my parents (80 years old) living in MS.

My attempts to email her pleading for financial help to get myself started again, met with silence. Eventually she issued an order of protection against me. To my horror, she had to state that I was an imminent physical threat...even though we were 1700 miles apart. Now, I can't even get my 2 boxes of mementos and books that are stored at her parents house without risking being arrested.

Anyway, I bring up my personal case, not for sympathy (I've just gotten a job at a university library as an assistant and the benefits are insurance and 6 hours of courses per semester for free) but to show how easy it is without legal protection to have someone end up homeless and on the public dole. Once you've fallen that low it's extrememly hard to get back into the flow of society.

There are indeed larger consequences than "mere" morality for this persistance in finding some segment of our citizenry that doesn't deserve equal rights. *(I use that phrase because even though I *could* have sued for unjust enrichment or an implied contract...just try getting a court in MS to listen to your arguments when they hear that you had a domestic partnership. They don't have to. There's no legal precedent and most won't separate the partnership's sexual connotations from the contractual obligations. Obligations that are understood to exist between a man and a woman where one partner is dependent on the other. Plus...how in the world was I supposed to pay for a lawyer?)

[BTW...I got "downsized" from my relationship just as she began to excel in her career and we would have finally been able to build a nest egg and have assets. She wasn't just well past the $100K salary. She was now hobnobbing with executives and discussing golf at pebble beach. Hmmmmm. I can't help but notice the similarity to how corporate america works. As soon as an asset has created the wealth it was expected to..it's now an expense and needs to be culled *immediately*.]

Sorry for the rambling. I tend to be way too verbose. Thanks for listening.

[lc2]

Our moron -- I mean mormon -- governor here in Massachusetts had to throw the religious right a bone when gay marriage became legal because he has presidential aspirations (beware! early predictions are that he's a front-runner!).

So what did he do? Told town and city clerks to refuse to issue marriage licenses to non-Massachusetts couples, invoking a 1913 law that prohibits non-residents from marrying here.

Uh, can you say tourism? There is a fortune to be made providing same-sex wedding packages to out-of-staters who want to have a "real" wedding, even if it only carries symbolic significance in their home states.

The funny thing is that the town/city clerks refused to enforce the law unless that state was willing to pay overtime for all the extra research that would require. For our governor, love -- of money, that is --prevailed, and the clerks now process the paperwork for any pretty much any two humans who request it.

And this "argument" that gay marriage weakens straight marriage? For better or for worse since gay marriage became legal, my husband's and my marriage hasn't changed a bit -- we still argue like children half the time after nearly twelve years of holy matrimony.

[M_Cheevy]

Wouldn't this amendment contradict the already existing "equal protection under the law" principal?

[Bill White]

The 1913 law used to restrict marriage to Mass residents was intended to prohibit interracial marriages in the early 20th century. The interesting part of this is that the current discussion is filled with conservatives claiming that interracial marriage has no similarity at all to same sex marriage.

With that said, I do have to say that the key problems which same sex marriage solve are health care and custodial care rights. It seems to me that neither are gender preference issues.

Since most of our health care is supplied by employers, and employers generally are not required to provide family health care to same sex couples, many spouses don't get health care. This is not, however a gender preference issue. It's a health care issue. Many more people who are in either same or opposite sex relationships, or even in no relationships at all, don't have adequate health care. This is a broad societal problem, which can only be solved by some sort of government meddling.

Similarly, hospitals and health care providers need not honor the wishes of an incapacitated patient, and same-sex partners are often denied access to their sick or dying partners. It may be that partners could make contracts to declare who they want their caregiver to be in the event of their incapacity. I don't know about this.

So, if we had single payer health care, and we had enforceable custodial contracts, or affidavits of some kind, how far would this go to satisfying the needs for same sex marriage? I guess it would go pretty far. After all, you can call you partner your wife or husband in any state of the union. No jackbooted federal thugs will arrest you if you do. And in Massachusetts, if you actually do marry, conservative people will not recognize your marriage or treat you like married people. And they are under no legal obligation to be friendly to you, after all.

[CLD]

Love the article! Especially the last three paragraphs.

As for extended family, I just found out, a newly-found, long lost first cousin is a fellow lesbian. Apparently, it runs in the family!

[Jaded Prole]

The state has no business recognizing or defining "marriage" at all as it is a religious institution. Legal unions are another thing and the civil rights of any consenting and legally competant adults to engage in them should be guaranteed.

What continues to destroy marriage and the family is the economics of a market economy. Family has become all but a memory for we struggling wage slaves. Who has the time for it when everyone has to work crazy schedules?

[sofita]

I have a question that I cannot seem to get answered. I am opposed to gay marriage, because I think it will create more homosexuality. After all, if you don't believe that celebrating homosexuality creates more of it then how do you explain the ancient Greeks?

More homosexuality will make it even harder for women who want a traditional, natural family to find a willing mate.

I also oppose gay adoption. Proponents of gay adoption often claim that it has been proven that children raised by gay couples do no worse than children raised in traditional families. However, I really don't see what that provese. Children have a right, based in common sense and natural law, to both a mother and a father.

I am a daughter, and my relationship with my Mother has been the most important thing in my life. I believe I was "endowed by my Creator" with a right to a Mom, and just one Mom, not two as that would dilute the relationship. It really doesn't matter that I might have done just as well economically or psychologically without one. I was born with a right to a Mom whether that is convenient for gay people or not.

I also was born with a right to a Father. I didn't have one, and I can tell you that it brought me near destruction. I slept around as a teenager looking for the love that I should have gotten from my Dad. A recent study of daughters raised by lesbians confirms that they are indeed more promiscuous than daughters raised in natural families with both a mother and a father. (Kendall and Stacey) Oh well, good thing I didn't catch HIV in one of my escapades.

Can someone please provide an intelligent response to these concerns. I am a good-hearted moderate who does not take any pleasure in making life harder for other people. I am not "intolerant" and I am not a "fundamentalist." Quite to the contrary, I am a Universalist, that is, I believe that all are saved by an infinitely merciful and All-loving Deity.

Anxious for feedback.

[iceack]

Wow! That was really an insightful article. But I also don't think it will happen. For every marriage the state (at least in CA) makes $70. Weddings themselves are a multimillion-dollar industry, and republicans enjoy portraying themselves as the fuzzy family types. What I CAN see happening, is the government getting rid of all the tax breaks, perks, ect that comes with being married, instead of getting rid of marriage itself. Undoubtedly mortgage, insurance companies, employers, will follow suit; and life will become viciously difficult for the American family.

[Robin]

My parents say they are not in the least threatened by my partner's and my marriage.

BTW, we have an official piece of paper from Jeb Bush's Florida to prove we're married: as noted in the state park guestbook where we took our vows! ;)

[callibrarian]

sofitia:

1. Celebration does not make people gay. All it does is let them know it's okay to get out of the closet. Historical record shows that many cultures had open homosexuality, not just the Ancient Greeks. Side note: many of these gays men married. Read Plato for more on that. (I believe it was Plato, about to be put to death, whose wife and children visit him, even though he loved other men.)As Chris Rock put it, you always had a gay relative, eh just never had anyone to be gay with.

2. You say that more homosexuals mean less men for women looking for traditional marriage. But who wants to marry a gay guy? I would prefer that gays marry so they don't marry straight women and mess up our lives. Read "On the Down Low" (nonfiction) or watch "Brokeback Mountain" for more details.

2. You base your anti-gay adoption stance on your belief that children, under natural law and common sense, deserve both a mother and father. But what about when one parent dies? What if they are divorced and the kids don't get to see one of them? What if one is in jail, or in the military? What about a child who has no parents at all? The nuclear family isn't available to everyone, yet these children need people to love them just the same. I know a lesbian couple who adopted four drug babies, and while my married religious friends claim they want to adopt, when I gave them this option they said no-can-do. As Stephen Colbert said about the anti-gay marriage movement, "It's more important to make a point than it is for these children to have a home." And how many crappy straight parents are out there? Plenty, we just don't think of their orientation having anything to do with their crappy parenting skills.

4. Your relationship with your mother is your personal experience. Just as I cannot imagine having another mother, there are those out there who cannot imagine not having two mothers or two fathers. Most humans tend to adapt with what's available to them.

5. A recent study showed that many teenagers lie when taking sexual activity studies, most notably those who take virginity pledges (the more conservative of the bunch). The study is on MSN. So who really knows the real numbers? Plus if promiscuity is caused by gay parents, how do we explain the promiscous people of a generation ago? Maybe we're missing something---could be that the teens feel open to express themselves sexually, or they're more likely to live in larger cities where the neighbors are less likely to say something than if they were in a small town. And not having a father does not destroy everyone. I didn't have one, neither did many of my friends, and we weren't promicious at all.

[Mary Gay]

Sofita, I agree will all callibrarian's comments and would like to add, please imagine for a moment that you are a lesbian woman. All your life you tried to respond to men like society wanted you to, but it just wasn't happening...then you meet the woman who makes the bells chime for you, you live together, have dogs together, house, mortgage, the whole works, including a marriage in your church, but you still can't have the over a thousand legal rights you could have had if you could have made it with a man...any man. Does that seem fair to you? Imagine...I can't even make burial plans for my partner of 13 years; we have to pay taxes on our own stuff if the other dies; we may not be able to visit each other in a hospital, share a nursing home room, access each other's social security, file joint tax returns, etc. It just isn't fair.

[Jacqueline S. Homan]

There is NO reason that ALL Amricans cannot have equal protection under the law. Mary Gay summed it up perfectly. I am a straight woman happily married to a wonderful man 25 years my senior. Our best friend, actually he was more like family to us, was gay. He died last year and I am really sorry that he did not see in his and his partner's lifetime, the enjoyment of the same rights that my husband and I enjoy. It's not just a matter of fairness, it's a matter of a Constitutional right to equal protection under the law.

[David]

Sofita's comments, although I have real empathy for the pain she feels over the absence of her father, are an expression of what I've come to see as the "nanny state" mindset. You see it in the discourse of the fundamentalist right, although obviously it's not limited to that demographic. A striking example is Jan LaRue of Concerned Women for America, who tells the story of how she had premarital sex and got pregnant, then had an abortion because she was ashamed of having sex with her fiance before they got married and didn't want anyone to know. Because she was traumatized by her own bad choices, she is now dedicating her life to making sure that those choices are not available to anyone else, and demanding that the state comply with her project.

It would be more constructive for her and for Sofita, instead of casting about for blame, to simply take personal responsibility for their choices, deal with the fact that they made mistakes if that's how they feel, and move on. They do not have the right to destroy other people's lives and tear apart their families in order to vindicate their own choices. I'm sorry to be harsh, but my 23 year partnership with the man I love has nothing to do with her promiscuity or the absence of her father, and we are not willing to pay for it. It is incredibly self-centered for her to suggest that.

[archy]

A constitutional amendment banning gay marriage will destroy the American family and all the sex-related “values” our brethren on the religious right hold so dear. And it will do so by creating an irresistible demand for a constitutional amendment banning heterosexual marriage.

The logic is clear. Since the Supreme Court ruled, in Lawrence v. Texas, that anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional, it’s legal for gays to have sex. Add to that a ban on gay marriage and you will create a special class of people – gays and lesbians – who are free to have all the sex they want, as long as it’s outside of marriage.

This is bound to lead to grumbling among the heterosexual population, even a certain amount of gay-envy. Heterosexuals will start saying: “How come we’re supposed to get married if we want to have sex? How come homosexuals get all the breaks?”

The answer always rely on us.. of how we take things personaly and how we repond to it. just like Filipina ladies looking for marriage
did.

[Albert]

The debate about so called homosexual "marriage" is not about marriage but wherther or not one's psychoapthology(yes Viginia,homosexuality is a mental disorder in case you didn't know thatRead the research literature)constitutes a special interest group.They are not a "class" of people anymore than alcoholics and drug addicts are a class of people.And bloggers are also not a "class" of people.

Race,yes.Sex,yes.But not one's sexual addictions and behavior.Get real.Homosexuality is not innate and can be treated if one wants.They do have a choice,you know.

[Sidhe]

Wow, Albert, you need some more recent research literature. The APA removed homosexuality as a "disorder" way back in the 70's. Here's just one in the myriad of links you can get by typing in "American Psychiatric Association, gay" in Google's search:
http://healthyminds.org/glbissues.cfm

All research done in the last 10-20 years indicates that being gay is *not* a choice, and why on earth would someone choose a life that leads to ridicule, less rights as a person, and sometimes death (aka Matthew Shepard)?

(and by the way, I am a perfectly mentally healthy, heterosexual, married woman, and the idea of gay marriage doesn't "threaten" me at all.)

[Sally Dersch]

Wow. I have a sister who is gay and never have really given much thought to the situations that are being spoken of. My first comment would be that. My sister and I were raise by the same mother and by are stepfather, there is nothing in our childhood that made her gay and me not. I can say that when she announce that she was gay. I was "offended" Would that be the right term? Homophobic?? maybe a better on. However, I love my sister very much and her sexuality did not change my relationship with her and there is no reason that it should. Whether she is in a relationship with a man or a woman does not affect my relationship with her.
Next, I need to comment on the fact that she is in a relationship with someone that she loves very much and is someone with whom my sister would love to marry and spend the rest of her life with. I personally would love to see this happen. It is hard enough just to find that person in your life and then when you do and you make the decision to stay together - you are discriminated against at every turn. This is not fair.
Whoever made the comment about them not raising or adopting children is just crazy. There are no requirements to becoming a parent. I know because I have one biological child and 4 stepchildren. Your sexuality has nothing to do with parenting skills. It has obtacles yes but not ones that cannot be overcome. I have obstacles in raising my children and I am often able to turn to my sister (who is gay) for support and advice. I would not think twice about asking this advice from her or allowing her and her partner to care for my children.
As for the whole political scene - I find it funny that we have people who fight so hard to separate church and state on every other topic except homosexuality. I hear all the time - what it says in the bible about gays - It is time to make a decision on the issue - tell me why it is okay for a hetrosexual to get married and divorced as many times as they want but not for a gay couple to do the same?
We are talking about people with feelings, opinions, and lives that intermingle with society everyday just like you and me. I look up to my sister and have a lot of respect for her as well as her partner and I don't feel that she deserve anything other less than the happiness that she wants out of life. If that means that she should get married to someone of the same sex- then by all means - I want to hear wedding bells. To me that is the meaning of AMERICAN FAMILY - to love and cherish the people that are in your family and support them in their goals in life and their persuit of happiness.

[Barbara]

It makes me sick that I have to portray you on stage in order to get where I need to go for the next two years of my life.

[Brent]

"Add to that a ban on gay marriage and you will create a special class of people – gays and lesbians – who are free to have all the sex they want, as long as it’s outside of marriage."

As if the prospect of marriage has ever slowed down gays and lesbians from having sex outside of marriage.

[achieve]

Pretty much nothing seems worth doing. I've just been letting everything happen without me these days. I've just been sitting around waiting for something to happen, but whatever.

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[chris]

How will a ban on gay marriage end up destroying the family and as well as straight couples. If anything, it will preserve marrige. If you give the right to marry to gays, whats next. What will happen, is there will be no definition of marrige. If you think about it, if everyone can marry then what makes marriage special. If gays really did love each other, then they should be happy with living together and expressing their love for each other. Unless they have an alterear motive such as the benefits of marrige. I have nothing against gays doing what ever they want in their own homes but when they start to eliminate the meaning of marriage, I must protest.

[Shazia]

Great blog and article on marriage. Here's a great article on having a happy marriage that is an absolute must read for everyone: