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Conservatives and Marriage

By W. James Antle, III on 4.20.09 @ 9:52AM

In the speech Phil linked to late last week, former McCain adviser Steve Schmidt is certainly respectful toward social conservatives -- whose views on marriage are, for now at least, shared by a majority of Americans -- unlike many proponents of his point of view. But ultimately I don't think Schmidt follows his own advice to guard against changes in marriage's definition being "lightly undertaken."

Phil says he doesn't see how Schmidt's proposed redefinition of marriage would harm a third party. And in at least one sense he's surely right: a relationship between two people generally doesn't affect a third party. So why does government care about marriage at all? In large part because a sexual relationship between a man and a woman frequently creates third parties in the form of children. It is because of this fact, not some desire to punish same-sex couples, that marriage acquired its definition as a union between a man and a woman.

Marriage is only partly about the freedom to form a relationship with a Good Housekeeping seal of approval in the form of a government-issued license. It is also about imposing an intricate network of legal obligations, to one another and various third parties, on a group of people -- husbands and wives, parents and children -- who are going to have very different needs from one another. Some of these differences in need between men and women are based on social conventions. Others are at least as biologically rooted as sexual orientation. And some, like the variations in lifetime work patterns between women (who have babies) and men (who don't), probably reflect a little of both. None of them, for the overwhelming majority of people among the 90-97 percent of our population that is heterosexual, are going away anytime soon.

It is for these reasons that government doesn't just hand out marriage licenses, but also supplies (an admittedly diminishing) set of incentives to stay together. It is why government orders alimony and palimony payments, divvies up shared property, and usually dictates the terms of child custody when marriages fail. Marriage imposes these obligations because it is designed for couples who frequently intend and are overwhelmingly able to have children. And even those childless, elderly or infertile couples reinforce the principle of man and wife by their type of union. As David Frum once quipped, the fact that some corporations don't turn a profit doesn't alter the basic assumption in corporate law that corporations exist to make profits; the fact that some married couples are childless doesn't alter the basic assumption in marriage law that marriages exist to form families.

The obvious response to all this: same-sex couples often have children too, and their families deserve the same kind of recognition. But same-sex couples don't come by their children the same way a man and a woman do. To define marriage as totally unisex is to rewrite the basic assumptions of marriage to include anonymous sperm donors, rented wombs, sex with men or women outside of the marriage, multiple parenting arrangements by design, parental abandonment not in response to a tragic set of circumstances but by design, intentionally fatherless families, intentionally motherless families, and a system of adoption that prioritizes adult desires over the needs of children and proven stability of mother-father families. This isn't inviting two men or two women to emulate Ozzie and Harriet; this is practically begging the institution of marriage to emulate the Octomom, at least in certain childbearing practices.

Maybe we as a culture don't really give a damn about any of this. At the very least, we haven't thought about it very carefully if the phrase "changing [marriage] to admit same sex unions" doesn't sound to our ears a bit like "changing the NBA to admit football teams." And since heterosexuals constitute the vast majority of people who don't give a damn, with many of them already taking full advantage of all the revolutions in family life mentioned in the previous paragraph, we might reach the point where existing marriage law does more to offend our gay and lesbian fellow citizens than it does to uphold the traditional understanding of marriage.

We might be close to that point now. The only conservative case for same-sex marriage worth the name is a conservative case for acknowledging that there is nothing more government policy can do for the idea of traditional marriage.

View all comments (6) | Leave a comment

MattSwartz| 4.20.09 @ 10:30AM

A good state response to federally mandated same-sex marriage would be to stop issuing marriage licenses entirely. Then churches (and other religious/cultural institutions) could assist people in drawing up sets of contractual obligations to one another.

Each organization would of course have veto power over who they allowed to enter into contract.

It's important to remember that state marriage licenses didn't exist until after the Civil War when the states introduce them to gain a legal avenue to enforce miscegenation laws. Now that the cause is gone, maybe the state license should be, too.

American families are as strong or weak as Americans aggregately choose to make them. Voting results are a representation of that, not a cause.

Chuck Anziulewicz| 4.20.09 @ 11:18AM

Earlier this month Andrew Stuttaford, a contributor to the conservative National Review, cited a CBS News poll that indicated that while only 18 percent of Americans over the age of 65 support marriage equality for Gay couples, 41 percent of Americans under 45 support legalizing Gay marriage. Stuttaford writes, "I fully understand (even if I do not agree with) the idea that same-sex unions are a threat to "conventional" marriage and I fully understand those who argue that opposition to gay marriage is a fundamental principle too important to be abandoned for reasons of political expediency, but these findings should, I reckon, at least be some sort of warning to those who assume that the GOP's current position on this issue will continue to be a vote-winner."

Let's face it: While just 30 years ago most Americans didn't know any friends, family member or co-workers who were Gay, today most Americans DO ... and with that awareness has come increasing support. Gay people are coming out of the closet at younger ages, and more and more Americans realizing that their Gay friends, family members and co-workers are just as likely to conduct their lives with dignity and humility as Straight, and are just as deserving of acceptance and support.

Ask yourself exactly WHY Straight couples are encouraged to date, get engaged, marry and build lives together in the context of monogamy and commitment, and that this is a GOOD thing … yet for Gay couples to do exactly the same is somehow a BAD thing? To me this seems like a very poor value judgment, and younger Americans know it. This is just one of the reasons why the GOP risks irrelevance if it continues to insist that Gay American couples are underserving of the same legal benefits and responsibilities that Straight couples have always taken for granted.

Pkane| 4.20.09 @ 10:55PM

James, fantastic post. Actually, one of the clearer treatments I've read on this issue.

My only quibble is your claim that Schmitt is "respectful" of pro-marriage arguments. Yes, he's more respectful relative to the typical leftist in that he doesn't outright compare defense of marriage to klan membership, but the view expressed here is distressing:

it seems to me that denying two consenting adults of the same sex the right to form a lawful union that is protected and respected by the state denies them two of the most basic natural rights affirmed in the preamble of our Declaration of Independence – liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, I believe, gives the argument of same sex marriage proponents its moral force.

This is the problem I have with the gay marriage crowd. It's fine to try to make a case for gay marriage. But the problem is that there is no honest case to be made. As you explained, there is a specific purpose to government support of marriage. Under that original purpose, it makes no sense to include same-sex couples.

Thus, the only argument that can be made is this absurd notion that sexual orientation is akin to race, and those who oppose redefining marriage are bigots.

When it comes down to it, I'm fine with civil unions. I can even live with government no longer recognizing marriage.

What I don't want to see is concession to the vile, ignorant politics of slander and destruction that has defined the same-sex marriage crusade.

harold ramirez| 4.21.09 @ 7:03AM

It's not true that the more homosexual people you know, or the more you know about homosexuality, the more you should support homosexual relationships. Teenagers who are struggling with perverse or unhealthy sexual temptations--and many do--ought to be encouraged to overcome them. It is perfectly possible to re-orient yourself. Just like if a teenager is 100 pounds overwieght: would you tell them that most people who try to lose weight fail, and they ought to just accept it and eat away??!

David| 5.7.09 @ 8:55PM

How is Alimony considered something that keeps marriages together? It is a break-up incentive. I am not trying to be sexist here, so I will just quote these stats, and let people arrive at their own conclusions: 70% of divorces are filed by women. 96% of alimony is also received by .... you guessed it ... women. The ones doing the leavin', are doing the receivin' (alimony). How does that keep marriages together? It's a divorce incentive fair and simple.