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AmSpecBlog
The Least Compellingly Personal Event of the Year
The Freakonomics guys try to keep their blog politics-free, so Justin Wolfers is forced to make his case against California's Prop. 8 subversively.
He masquerades his argument as a reflection on the wonder that his two gay friends' (partners of 18 years) wedding in California just prior to the election wound up a political event:
And so circumstances dictated that their love and their wedding, while being intensely personal, was also somehow public and political.
This reminds me of Bart Simpson walking towards Lisa saying, "on my way, I'm going to be doing this: [windmilling his arms]. If you get hit, it's your own fault."
And so circumstances dictated that Bart's walking and windmilling, while being intensely personal, was also somehow belligerent and aggressive.
A couple without political motivation, having truly committed to each other somewhere during the course of 18 years, would have found a way to express that commitment without involving the government or the political system.
For example, if for some reason the government forbid me from marrying a girl with whom I wanted to spend my life, at some point (very early on) I would go with her to my church and we'd get hitched. We would then be a married couple.
If, then, 18 years down the road, the government decided we could be married after all, and that, oh by the way, that marriage will convey with it certain substantial financial advantages, we might saunter down to the town hall and pick up a registration. This event would have no impact on the status of our marriage or commitment to each other.
The fact that Jed and Eric couldn't or didn't find a church -- or organization, or whatever -- that would recognize and authenticate their commitment in their 18 years together makes me wonder what they think of the tradition of marriage being an establishment of communities and not of states, and also whether their decision to "marry" at this particular time wasn't just a little bit... political.
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Will| 10.31.08 @ 12:13PM
It sounds like you're trying to have this both ways. If civil marriage isn't an institution with significant cultural and political cachet, what's the harm in extending its marginal benefits to gay couples?
Joseph Lawler| 10.31.08 @ 5:07PM
Will,
I don't think your point relates to my argument, which is that Wolfers is disingenuous in trying to paint those who uphold the tradition of traditional marriage as imposing a political dimension on Jed and Eric's otherwise entirely personal event. In fact the opposite is true: Jed and Eric never saw fit to get married in any sense of the word until the exact moment when doing so would be most political.
To answer your question, though, first of all civil marriage does have significant political cachet, hence prop 8 and my argument that Jed and Eric's actions are political. As for cultural cachet, the response would be that marriage draws its significance from its value as a social institution (kids, family life, etc.) and the state recognizes that value with marginal benefits (tax breaks, etc.) If gay marriage isn't as an institution significant in the same way, it is meaningless for the state to confer marginal benefits -- insignificant things have no margins.