MARRIAGE AND MORAL PASSION: Maggie responds

Jonathan and Dale, it is not possible not to be moved by the depth of your honest moral passion on this issue, and the call that we share it. I have let days pass, because I wanted to reflect on it, and really to figure out the deeper sources of our disagreement. I know that you two do care about marriage, I don't doubt it. I also know that the things I have said so far touch you hardly at all. Dale in particular is looking for the reasons behind the reasons, because what I say makes no sense to him. This I regard as a great failure on my part. One of the things I am good at is making people see how someone could hold my point of view, even if they do not themselves agree.

It suddenly occurred to me that one of the thing Andrew seeks, and certainly Ben, and possibly you two as well, is to expose my underlying views about homosexuality. Well, you know you could have just asked me what I think.

And the answer is that, as a matter of sexual ethics, I support the Christian tradition. I am under no illusions that there is any kind of social consensus on sexual morality at this point and I do not think this is the main issue on the gay marriage debate at all. As I have pointed out before, I can find many, many human cultures that reject the Jewish and Christian view of same-sex sexual acts, some subcultures that even elevated gay sex above cross-gender sex (mere nature and breeding you know), but none heretofore that confused unisex relationships, however glorified, with marriage. I really do see the unisex marriage question as separate from the question of homosexuality.

But there is no denying that when it comes to alternative institutions, it plays a role: Is it better for two men to try, through sworn vows and legal instruments, to keep their beloved in a gay relationship? I don't know. Then there is Ben, for example, who is not only personally repulsed but morally outraged by the idea of a gay man choosing to marry a woman. He claims the gay community has strong sexual norms stigmatizing such people. Deviants! Perverts! Keep the sex in the community! This is a sexual norm based not on protecting children but on protecting group identity, clearly but it is a sexual norm.Certainly the hysterical reaction to the claim that any gay man anywhere has ever successfully made this transition in a reasonably satisfying way is deeply suspicious to me. Gender is socially constructed but homosexuality is essential! Some pretty deep buttons are being pressed, or repressed. But I digress.

I have more sympathy than you know, or than I can express to the underlying issues here which I think have nothing to do with legal benefits and everything to do with how men, in particular, can achieve a sense of masculinity that is pro-social outside of marriage and outside of any relationship to the feminine and to fertility (marriage-and-family). For single guys in general this is a difficulty, given (as Paul Nathanson has written) the absence of any real positive vision of what masculinity means in a post-feminist world where androgyny is the officially approved norm. One deep unacknowledged substratum of successful masculinity is of course sexual: to win the approval and love of a woman. To find oneself outside this circle, is to suffer the burdens of achieving masculinity virtually alone, without social signs or support, in the context of intense male disapproval of your sexual desires. It sounds very hard to me.

I don't know the answers, particularly because I think living in a social world in which men have normally have to win the sexual approval of women gives women enormous underlying social power, which I wholeheartedly support. You cannot explain the overthrow of "patriarchy" and the surrender of men (at least formally and publicly) to feminist demands in just a few years without recognizing this as a key source of women's power.

But as for my language in The Divorce Diversion, I stand by it Jonathan, shamelessly if you want to call it that. It is morally reckless to propose at this moment of crisis redefining marriage to make it better suit certain adults (any adults) better. If you think this is directed at gays and lesbians you are wrong. I find it more forgivable in gays and lesbians because of course when people's personal interests are directly at stake they tend to focus on that. That is human nature. But what about the other third of the population, the powerful elites, patting themselves on the back for how progressive they are on the gay marriage issue? These are the same people who look at poor, fatherless kids and say "oh, family diversity, isn't it wonderful? Aren't I wonderful for being so compassionate and progressive?" If you doubt me check out the statement on family by the Presbyterians.

Gay marriage is part of a general move towards embracing the principle of adult choice as the highest good in intimate relationships, regardless of who gets hurt. The general absence of any sense of risk and the prioritizing of adult sexual interests among most advocates is callous and indifferent and yes, Me-Decade adult narcissism par excellence.






posted by maggie at 9:37 AM VOTE

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home