Moral Decay and Same-Sex Marriage: Squaring the Circle
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The passage of Proposition 8 in California on November 4 seems to have vaulted the issue of same sex marriage into the spotlight of America’s culture wars, stirring a variety of emotions amongst Americans coast to coast. Arguments from opponents to marriage equality have varied in focus and quality, but perhaps one of the more sincere and thoughtful refrains has come from conservatives like Rod Dreher.
Recently Dreher has been engaged in a back and forth with Damion Linker where he has once again fleshed out his concerns around the larger issue of moral decay, of which non-traditional definitions of marriage that include same-sex couples are both symptomatic and contributory. Dreher writes,
We’ve been over this a thousand times, and I don’t know how to make it plainer but than to say that changing the law to permit same-sex marriages teaches a lesson about the meaning of marriage that I think is untruthful, and ultimately deconstructive (if that’s a word) of the concept of marriage. We legislate morality all the time; except for procedural laws, that’s what law-making is. Making same-sex marriage legal teaches a different moral lesson, one Damon believes is salutary. I think it tells a lie about human nature, and the nature and purpose of sex and sexuality. I don’t fear that my children will “turn out gay,” or whatever paranoid nonsense some liberals impute to us conservatives. What I do fear is that they will grow up in a culture that tells them by example that marriage means whatever we want it to mean.
I do not disagree with Dreher that as the foundations of our traditional institutions erode in the face of complex social dynamics, we are forced to grapple with increasingly hazy moral clarity. That such moral haziness represents an assault on the signifiers of meaning against which we pin our lives is, as well, not a controversial statement in my mind. However, contra Dreher I see the legalization of same-sex marriahe and the institutionalization of marriage equality as an effective redress to our contemporary ethical dilemma.
My contention that we might use marriage equality as recourse to moral relativity does not stem from a simple “big tent” take on marriage, which is to say that we needn’t to take a monotonously expansionist view of marriage that decrees: the more people married the better. This is not numbers game.
To slow the slide of moral ambiguity we need to rest our strategies on a qualitative analysis of what role the institution of marriage plays in upholding a meaningful notion of life lived. While it may be true that for some same sex couples the institution of marriage is not imbued with a fundamentally religious meaning, as it is for Dreher, that does not mean that it is a simple expression of preference, either.
A deeply held significance to the union of two people in marriage can exist outside of the boundaries of specified organized religion. This is true of both heterosexual and homosexual couples from many walks of life. The intention to marry often times signifies two individuals’ intentions to build a life together, which often includes the creation of a family. In this regard, the social importance of marriage as the bedrock of cohesion remains intact.
What’s more, increasingly the desire to create and raise a family is an integral part element of the intentions of same sex coupes in seeking marriage. While the values that are ensconced in the raising of a family will vary from family to family, there is a common element of purposefulness and meaningfulness that is expressed in the commitment to riase a family. One does not wish to raise a family in the midst of moral chaos. Same sex couples, just like their hetero counterparts, seek the fulfillment of both growing old with a life partner, as well as the ability to pass on a legacy through children.
All of which is to say that there is a significant and coherent set of values that remain firmly ensconced in the institution of marriage that do not rely on specific religious convictions, but may provide a contemporary buttressing force against the disturbing creep of moral relativism. With a whole subset of individuals clamoring to access this set of values, it seems as though it would behoove those seeking to stem the tide of relativism to find ways accommodating those willing participants.
Of course, this proposition is not easy.
To allow for the inauguration of same sex couples into this relevant set of contemporary values, religiously inclined individuals such as Dreher have to square the circle of their opposition to homosexuality itself. While no doubt personally challenging, such a reconciliation is no impossible and has already been achieved by surprising number of religious individuals, particularly amongst the younger generation of worshipers.
At core, I think the questions that faces people like Dreher is what they find more disturbing: the possibility of tolerating a different lifestyle or the social hazard of creeping moral relativity. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I think the two have a greater degree of mutual exclusivity than we might think.
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28 comments
Dreher said this yesterday:
Cultural elites in the US — and I’m not using the phrase in a negative sense, but a descriptive one — have already concluded that homosexuality is a morally neutral condition. The polls show that this view is becoming more generalized throughout the population, especially the white population (blacks and Hispanics remain more traditional in their view). This is why we’re going to have gay marriage soon: we are a post-Christian nation in which the traditional Christian view of sexual morality (and not just homosexual morality) is no longer believed to be true by an increasing number of people. The problem for the pro-SSM crowd, as they seem unable to concede, is that they have no authoritative basis in which to ground their sexual ethic, aside from mutual consent, which is completely plastic.
Which is why, in the end, the polygamy analogy is the stronger one, even if you see homosexuality as morally neutral: because there appears to be no persuasive basis, absent custom and/or religion, to say these forms of mutually consensual sexual activity are licit, but these aren’t. As we will find out, in time.
The simple truth is that morality has to be removed from the equation if gay marriage is going to gain any kind of widespread acceptance. We’re just too religious of a nation to see it go any other way. This is the approach of most gay rights activists who label gay marriage a ‘civil right’ as opposed to a moral one. I know a lot of people mock the ’slippery slope’ arguement but when you remove morality, we head towards polygamy and other types of relationships. I’m not saying here whether any of those or right or wrong, but I think gays need to be honest about the side-effects of their inclusion into the institution of marriage.
I disagree, actually. I think morality must be a part of this debate, because the morality of equal rights and social justice play a major role in determining why minority rights should be ensured. The creation of a gay sub-culture is socially destructive, and bringing gays into the mainstream culture and into the stabilizing institution of marriage is essentially a moral question.
I agree with you E.D. and maybe I should have been more clear on that. Even though I believe morality plays an indisputable role in marriage and should not be separated from the discussion, I see it as near-impossible to get wide-spread acceptance without doing so. It’s just very hard to successfully argue for gay marriage on moral grounds without running into a major wall.
I also agree 100% that a gay sub-culture is destructive…my question remains though, do they really want to go mainstream? Would we see gay clubs, gay parades, gay-oriented media, etc go away?
Perhaps, though probably not entirely. I think they would play less of a role in gay identity especially among younger gays in their formative years. That would be a good thing, I think.
E.D. : “I disagree, actually. I think morality must be a part of this debate, because the morality of equal rights and social justice play a major role in determining why minority rights should be ensured.”
I quite like this. I generally don’t think of equal rights being a moral claim but I can see and agree with your take.
The problem for me is that I am one of these moral relativists. I fear those like Rod much more than two boys kissing. Damn right, I want marriage to mean what my wife and I decide it means. I certainly don’t want Rod over for dinner so that he can define my relationships for us. This is my problem with marriage at the moment. There is a large swath that says “marriage” has inherent meaning that is ultimately founded on their understanding of Western Judeo-Christian morality. I’m willing to compromise and let these people have the term but I want a purely civil secular contract for myself.
When it comes to the issue of “morality”, there are a lot of elephants in the room. The first question I’d have is “why is yours better than mine to the point where mine should be replaced by yours?”
The answer always seems to eventually boil down to “there’s more of us than there are of you.”
As for SSM, with the advent of 99.98% effective birth control (it’s for acne! seriously!), the act of sex was divorced from the act of procreation.
*THAT* is what changed marriage. Marriage, for a good long while, was about two people who loved each other who wanted to create a family (or, of course, about two people who owned property who wanted to create an heir). It was about the creation of children. Sure, there were exceptions, but they were exceptions.
With the advent of birth control that worked (that is to say, that the guy didn’t have to be in charge of nor change his life because of) the institution of marriage changed from being primarily about kids to being primarily about two people in love (with kids being secondary).
Since being “in love” can be described with only slight hyperbole as “temporary insanity”, when marriage stopped being about “the children” and started being about maintenance of the feeling you get the first time you see each other naked, divorce *SKYROCKETED*.
And thus was the “institution” wrecked. When folks argue that they want to “protect traditional marriage”, they don’t see that that horse ran away decades ago and will not go back into the bottle, if I may mix my metaphors.
If all it is is civil protections for two people who still get all fuzzy when they see each other naked, why not hand it out to anybody?
When it comes to plural marriage, there are issues with regards to Medicare, Social Security, etc that probably need to be discussed honestly (as a libertarian, I’d like to point out that abandoning them wholesale will resolve any and all problems!) but, on a “marriage in the eyes of God” level, I don’t see how the state has the competence to either grant or deny it… the same as I feel about gay marriage.
I don’t understand the “definition of marriage” argument because we’ve had marriage defined in at least a few places across the globe differently than it has been traditionally and as far as I can tell everyone can still define their own marriage and feel fine about it however they please. Is Dreher’s marriage different today than it was before Vermont or Iowa or Mass. started allowing gays to marry? No. So the real moral question is about minority rights, not about definitions of words. That’s why I don’t accept civil unions but do accept civil marriages as an acceptable end to this debate.
Do people in a “civil union” have the right to call themselves married?
If not, why not? Do they have the right to go to a Unitarian Minister and have a marriage ceremony? Would they be married after the ceremony?
If not, why not?
Scott, thanks for speaking against all those moral relativist and those prone to hazy moral flight of fancy. It’s well past time that the likes of Dreher, Bill Donahue and so many others be called on their relativism. In picking which Judeo-Christian exhortations they wish to push they diminish the Word of God. Relativism has no place in the United States of America. Bravo!
Mike:
“I know a lot of people mock the ’slippery slope’ arguement but when you remove morality, we head towards polygamy and other types of relationships.”
What, precisely is the fear of polygamy based on? Canada has the Blackmore case coming up. Separated from issues of consent and age, which can and should be dealt with, what’s the issue? Not enough women to go around?
“What, precisely is the fear of polygamy based on?”
For the most part, polygamy *IN PRACTICE* is a patriarch with subservient (in the 70’s, they would have been called “brainwashed”) wives.
Very, very rarely is it a polyfidelitous triangle/square/dodecahedron of a group of folks who would make wonderful poster folks for the idea of how the human heart is capable of infinite love.
Neraly everything I wanted to say has been said better upthread, so I’ll just add that I think Jaybird exaggerates the impact of the Pill a bit, as by the 1960s we’d already come a long way from marrying purely for child-rearing, and marrying for “love” wasn’t uncommon. Additionally, broad prosperity and better education of women, both of which encouraged avoiding pregnancy, changed marriage as much as a better technological method of doing so. Of course all these factors are entangled.
(Also, though it’s true fewer people are marrying nowadays, divorces rates have been declining for a good two decades, precisely when gay couples gained their rights. That saw about how “half of marriages end in divorce” hasn’t been true for at least five years if not longer. If there is any correlation at all it is negative.)
In any case, I feel that Dreher’s problem is that he refuses to admit to himself that, as a social institution, marriage has always meant whatever we wanted it to mean, and that acknowledging this does nothing to strip it of meaning or moral content. Culture changes, yes, but it’s funny to me how traditionalists and arch-liberals both seem to think it’s more elastic than it really is.
Cascadian,
Personally I have less of a problem with polygamy than with gay marriage (and my problems with the latter grow increasingly slight). My point in mentioning polygamy though is that I think it is dishonest for gay marriage advocates to say that legalizing gay marriage won’t lead to other allowances. I also think it’s extremely hypocritical for them to vocally support the redfinition of marriage based on gender but refuse to accept the premise of redfinition based on numbers.
At the end of the day I would just prefer that all sides were honest about their goals and the likely results if things change.
I think that divorce rates have been declining, in part, because now it’s the generation of kids who watched their parents divorce getting married.
That’s just a guess though.
I also suspect that there’s a lot more “we lived together for two years, broke up, then I found my life partner a couple years after that” going on (when, in decades past, the “lived together for two years” would have been a, ahem, “starter marriage”).
But I’m just guessing.
Jaybird:
I have a bunch of tattooed Christians down the street that preach wives submission. Certainly this isn’t unique polygamy. If the concern is the protection of women, wouldn’t legalizing polygamy so that the women would have legal recourse be a better protection than to have groups of spiritual wives or mistresses?
Here in Seattle we do have a Muslim communities where I’m sure there are a few relationships of the fearful type, I’d guess their are many more of the latter type in the broader community.
In any case, I feel that Dreher’s problem is that he refuses to admit to himself that, as a social institution, marriage has always meant whatever we wanted it to mean, and that acknowledging this does nothing to strip it of meaning or moral content. Culture changes, yes, but it’s funny to me how traditionalists and arch-liberals both seem to think it’s more elastic than it really is.
Precisely.
And allowing that same-sex couples can engage in marriage extends the sphere of a certain, if not somewhat amorphous, set of values that do a great deal more to combat the general trend towards relativity of value in the public square than it contributes.
Cascadian, I understand that there are Christians who preach submission of women.
At this point, however, they only get to oppress one woman per marriage. There are also healthy role models for marriages (I am proud to say that my wife’s sister visited us for Christmas a few years back, did stuff like go to the grocery store with us, drive around on errands with us, so on… when she went back home she immediately dumped her boyfriend).
When it comes to polyamory, that’d probably deserve its own thread. Maybe the institution of marriage would help weed out the folks who aren’t poly but merely call themselves such as justification for questionable behavior.
Or, maybe it wouldn’t.
In any case, I find the “but what about Social Security!” argument to be much more interesting with regards to polyamory than the “but Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice have been together for 4 years now and they should have legal recognition of their polyfidelitous relationship!” argument.
Not enough women to go around?
Actually “bare branches” are a real problem in polygamist communities where, indeed, there are not enough women to go around. Younger men, less affluent, etc. are cast out of the society.
The list of ills associated with polygamy is a long one, and the list of legal barriers and potential abuses of such a system is also quite daunting. The fact is, whereas gay marriage doesn’t really change the dynamic of marriage as a legal institution (and all the associated problems with that, such as divorce) polygamy radically does – in terms of childcare, custody, divorce, taxation, etc. This doesn’t even speak to the social problems polygamy causes – and I live very near the largest polygamist city in the United States…
Social Security, for as long as it’s around would be interesting. As my GF says, “as long as the lawyers get payed”. It would also be interesting to see how legalizing would affect existing communities. If wives, currently classified as single moms on welfare become wives, how would they still qualify for the same benefits?
In these days, Bob and Ted might find it quite handy to minimize housing costs and benefit from an economy of scale, to have a broader support group to rely on, so that do not need to rely on others.
Are Bob and Ted allowed to buy a house together now, perhaps with Carol working her pink collar job and Alice doing the lioness’s share of the cooking, laundry, and tidying?
Is the lack of a legal status the main thing preventing the Bobs and Teds from engaging in this totally sweet setup?
Just to be PC, lets have Ted do the house work while Alice is corporate.
The problem isn’t legal status. I’m sure that can be gotten around legally, as gays have done for years. The problem is it’s illegal. In the wrong State they’d lose the kids and all do time.
It’s illegal for two families to share a house? Really?
People lose their kids over this? All the time? Really?
Certainly, it’s not illegal to share housing as long as that’s all there is.
Well, their was the snafu in Texas with the kids. I remember a few years ago a threesome (two men and a woman) went on some talk show about their relationship and lost their kids and were ordered to break up.
“Anyone who willingly goes on Jerry Springer (or the like) is pretty much demonstrably a bad parent.”
With that bad joke out of the way, I would like to read more about this issue. Was it prior to Lawrence v. Texas or after it?
I think it was prior. It’s been a while. I’ve got to get on with life for a while. I’ll track down a link for you later if you haven’t already found it.
I think I’m satisfied that the whole “this happens all the time” claim was somewhat hyperbolic.
Sorry, I wasn’t trying to make the stronger claim. I don’t think that a law has to be prosecuted consistently, or even often, to have a chilling effect. I’m sure the same was true when homosexuality was illegal.
The error was mine, I think. I read “and all do time” as “and do all the time”.
So my bad.
As for the chilling effect, I rather think that there is more of a cultural dynamic at work keeping Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice from sharing a house than a legal one. Heck, even the poly folks I know have separate houses. The primaries share a house, and the satellites all live elsewhere.