ALTERNATIVES TO MARRIAGE: Jonathan Rauch

Maggie, I read your posts in reply to my and Dale's and Andrew's inquiries with interest. Forgive me if I say that I don't think that, intellectually and morally speaking, you've quite touched bottom yet.

To the question, "If not marriage, would you do something else to encourage the formation of stable gay relationships?". . .it seems to me your answer is, basically, no. I think we both agree that marriage cannot be disaggregated into its 1001 legally conferred benefits. It's the package that counts: the clear social signal that two people are entering into an important relationship, one that contrasts in fundamental ways with singleness and that brings with it a whole suite of responsibilities and benefits. Just saying "Gays could get this benefit through an attorney" or "Gays don't seem to be using that benefit" is tantamount to saying, "Public policy should recognize gay individuals but not gay relationships. Thus policy should be indifferent to whether the relationships exist at all."

OK. But you, as a conservative, know that social policy makes a difference. If you're unwilling to grant any privileged status to same-sex relationships as opposed to same-sex singleness, then you're likely to get fewer relationships and more instability and promiscuity and so on. Then, I think, for conservatives to blame homosexuals for not sustaining relationships as successfully as heterosexuals takes some real cheek!

That's the intellectual point. As for the moral one, here's how I'd state it:

1) Marriage and (just as important) the aspiration to marry are fundamental to the pursuit of happiness--so fundamental that no heterosexual would imagine living without them.

2) Shutting out a whole class of people from a fundamental part of the pursuit of happiness is, morally speaking, a severe imposition.

3) If a large group of people are to be severely imposed upon for some larger social good, society owes it to them--a moral debt, not political--to make up as much of the deficit as possible. Just shrugging and saying "Tough, it's your problem" is not adequate. Not morally adequate.

I recognize that your answer is that homosexuals aren't being "deprived" of marriage, because, by definition, a same-sex couple can't be married. As Dale says, that argument assumes its conclusion, but even granting it, the point remains: If we can't be married, we certainly can be given "civil unions."

This isn't primarily about health benefits as such, though those matter. The social recognition and, yes, approval of a relationship changes that relationship. It supports it and helps it to last. It helps us commit to another even when commitment isn't fun, and it thus helps us find and be our nobler selves. If you waved a wand tomorrow and turned all married couples into shacked-up individuals in the eyes of public policy, imagine the personal instability and social havoc. Why should it be any different for homosexuals? Why should our lives and happiness count for less?

Conservatives do themselves no favor by ducking this question. They're now losing the public, which increasingly does, morally speaking, "get it."

posted by maggie at 9:29 AM VOTE

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