MARRIAGE AND SUFFERING: Eve Tushnet responds to Jonathan

[Eve is a young D.C.-based writer who has a column with National Catholic Register. But she is perhaps better known to the blogosphere as the author of EveTushnet.com, here.]

I guess what I'd like to talk about is suffering. Jonathan Rauch argues that opponents of same-sex marriage wish to impose a burden of suffering on homosexuals that we would not impose on heterosexuals. Rauch writes, "many conservative opponents of same-sex marriage apply a double standard and treat the welfare of gay people with a cavalierness that they wouldn't dream of applying to heterosexuals. ...We're asking you and your colleagues to take gay lives and welfare seriously. Why should that be so hard?"

But many of us oppose things that currently exclusively affect heterosexuals, such as abortion and divorce. I'm not sure where my copy of Maggie's "Abolition of Marriage"  is, but I recall a couple apposite moments from the book: Maggie takes to task pastors and politicians who focus on homosexuality while ignoring the far more prevalent and (to them) personal issues such as divorce and adultery (issues Maggie has never in her career ignored or downplayed!).

This is not someone who is binding burdens onto others that she is unwilling to lift herself.

In the long run, I do believe that both abortion and most divorces are harmful to the adults involved. (And in fact, I think there are some ways in which same-sex marriage will be harmful to gay men and lesbians as well--more on this briefly later.) But I don't think anyone can deny that carrying a child to term when you don't want to, or remaining in a lonely marriage, hurts. Sometimes it hurts a lot.

It may be hard certainly, to find openly lesbian, gay, or bisexual opponents of same-sex marriage, but they (...we) do exist. I'll steal a line I used on my weblog: "C'mon, even my ex-girlfriends don't think I hate gay people!"

The logic of what I suppose you could call the "social conservative" position (lame term) is that in every society, there is an unavoidable and rather high level of suffering. A healthy and just society seeks not solely to reduce suffering, but also to shift the burden of that suffering wherever possible, so that adults receive more of it and children less. Therefore, a healthy and just society doesn't make responsible fatherhood and strong family formation less likely in order to make gay adults feel like society honors their sexual and romantic choices.

Of course none of this answers the question of whether and how same-sex marriage would hurt marriage, from my point of view. But first I wanted to clear away the underbrush--the notion that opponents of same-sex marriage are singling out gay people for a burden of suffering they would never impose on heterosexuals.

posted by maggie at 4:03 PM VOTE

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