I’d been meaning to link to this Village Voice article for a while, but I couldn’t figure out how to say what I wanted to say about it. The fact is, Mike pretty much said it already, so go read him.
The Tin Man
I’d been meaning to link to this Village Voice article for a while, but I couldn’t figure out how to say what I wanted to say about it. The fact is, Mike pretty much said it already, so go read him.
Hmmm. I don’t know what you agree with in Mike Benedetto’s post, but I’m a bit surprised you seem content with what he argues and implies. I guess his argument is sound — at one level, the issue is about inequality in the law in which case gay marriage should be legal to offer (should they choose to accept) the benefits of legally sanctioned marriage for same-sex partners. But his rant against “liberal blather and bullshit” is remarkably short-sighted. As commenter Huntington notes, feminists (and others) have noted the problems with marriage for decades if not centuries. What’s important about Levine’s argument (and Warner’s) is the realization that at the heart of marriage’s definition is an inexcusable social discrimination — only monogamously couples should have the whole host of health, financial, and legal benefits of marriage. Fighting for same-sex marriage is still important in the here-and-now, perhaps. But wouldn’t fighting for the larger issues be more progressive (such as universal health care rather than shoring up the yoking of marriage to health benefits)?
It will come as no surprise that I agree with Shadows’ remarks. This simply isn’t a “single-issue” debate. We’re talking about expanding marriage to an extent unprecedented since the Roman Empire; why not hold the whole institution up to the microscope now?
The other, intangible benefits of marriage (and the social costs of getting out of a rotten one) also need to be examined. Contrary to Mike’s reply to my comment, marriage often is a prison for many, a prison from which it is often very difficult to escape.
What we’re coming up against with this discussion, I think, is the problem with the whole libertarian “if you’re against gay marriage, don’t have one” line of reasoning. Not from the anti-gay point of view ironically, but from the point of view that no one, and no marriage, is an island. It’s not about individuals making isolated choices; individuals NEVER make choices in a psychological-sociological vacuum.
Speaking as someone who has been in one for over six years, I have no problem with long-term gay relationships that resemble marriage. My problem is with the societal cachet that will attach to them when they are held up as the ideal. A major result of gay liberation (and the sexual revolution in general) was the idea that there is more than one way for people to have “moral” sexual relationships with each other, and that traditional marriage often wasn’t the best of the options. In some ways, this feels like a backward step.
Thanks, Jeff! Thbfft, Shadows.
I think a far more urgent problem is the yoking of health benefits to employment status, since either you or your spouse has to have a job good enough to provide them. Never said I wasn’t an ardent supporter of universal health care — just that I don’t see the marriage debate as an opportunity to demand it.
Beyond that, I just wonder what you people are arguing for. Exactly what are the benefits of marriage that are applicable to single people? I want marriage rights to safeguard couples’ mutual property, to ensure that they have hospital visitation rights, and to give people the right to sue for the wrongful deaths of their partners, among other things. These are essential for people who are spending their lives together and meaningless for people who are alone.
(Shadows makes a further point about monogamy. Last I checked, the government does not enforce it even if you’re married — marriage is available to the promiscuous as well as the monogamous just as long as the couple is willing to make a legal commitment.)
I think this is the third time I’ve written on the subject, and the opposing view is no clearer to me now than it was when I started. It strikes me as an empty gesture on behalf of a lost cause. If you want social progress, go out and work for changes in the health care system or whatever. Marriage is fine as it is, notwithstanding the gender requirements.
Hmmm. This is always a difficult debate because there is such a hazy line between legally-granted rights of marriage and socially-conferred ones. The two kinds of rights, of course, are really dependent on each other for meaning and force. But it’s important to remember that trying to talk simply about legal rights is the easy way out. Sure, same-sex couples should have the same legal rights of marriage as opposite-sex couples. But at what cost? I’m far from arguing that laws structure society (decree a law, and it shall change the way people think and act), but I do think there is a fundamentally important interaction between the law and social mores….
To phrase the question, “Exactly what are the benefits of marriage that are applicable to single people?” is already to miss the point that marriage as it is sanctioned creates two categories of people — single and married — as the only viable means of living as social beings. What about all the people who co-habit, but aren’t “partners” of any sort? What if they create a life together anyways? Why shouldn’t they have the benefits of lovers in sharing a life, home, and property together? And what about single people? Why shouldn’t they be allowed to raise children without a spouse? (Again, not technically illegal, but marriage and welfare laws clearly support certain arrangements for child rearing.) And what of people in more-than-two living/loving arrangments? How does marriage manage their shared interest in property, death, etc.?
There are just so many things about the institution of marriage that need to be re-examined. And people eager to fight for same-sex marriage just overlook them. As you say, the law doesn’t really say anything about marriage as a monogamous institution, but what is the social expectation? Why is the culture so fascinated with the specter of adultery?
Valid concerns, Shadow and Huntington. I think it comes down to a question usually asked by reformers: do you go for incremental change now, or do you hold off so that you can tackle the larger questions first, which have less chance of success?
For many gay couples, marriage would serve some immediate needs, which Mike explains. Huntington and Shadow, I don’t necessarily disagree with your ideas, but if we’re going to hold off on gay marriage so that we can change our entire society’s attitudes toward relationships, we’ll be waiting an awfully long time.
Brown v. Board of Education wouldn’t have happened if the reformers hadn’t first tried to desegregate law schools and colleges. Change happens gradually. It’s wonderful to be idealistic; idealism is what prompts society to change. But we have to live in a society with tons of people who aren’t necessarily going to agree with what, to them, are radical changes. Those people have to grow accustomed to smaller changes first.
Just to clarify one thing – I’m not against gay marriage. It needs to be universally recognized, the sooner the better, and none of this “states are the ones to regulate marriage” junk to muddy the waters.
:) I should clarify my words as well — I’m certainly in support of legislative reform for gay marriage. I’ve signed the petitions, called the legislators, sent money to Lambda Legal and so on. But it’s disconcerting to me when the push for gay marriage becomes a platform for shutting down conversation about why it is that marriage isn’t so inclusive….