REAL/IDEAL, RIGHTS/RESPONSIBILITIES: Gabriel Rosenberg replies to Elizabeth Marquardt

Elizabeth Marquardt claims that I apparently think that being raised by your two biological parents is a privilege; otherwise I could not compare it to being raised by well-off, educated parents. She says that being
raised by your biological parents used to be considered a birthright not a privilege.

I've been trying for days to understand this. Eve had argued that we must withhold the societal honor of marriage from same-sex couples because it was not the ideal parenting arrangement. Without agreeing with her on the merits of same-sex parenting, I had pointed out that we allow--even encourage--other couples to marry without achieving the ideal. Ms. Marquardt never argues that the other couples do achieve the ideal. Instead she argues that they achieve something different. They provide a setting where a child's basic rights could theoretically be
granted. She has changed Eve's argument into a claim that we must withhold the societal honor of marriage from same-sex couples because it denies children their right to be raised by their biological parents.

Let us assume that a child has a right to be raised by his biological parents. When a same-sex couple adopts a child, it is not the couple that has denied this right. The child's link to his biological parents had already been separated. By withholding marriage, we are then punishing the couple (and the child) for something they did not do.

Ms. Marquardt's argument is troubling for another reason. Many opposite-sex couples marry and raise children that are not the biological offspring of the union. She seems to think that such relationships should not be called "marriage". They should be called something else for fear that we would assume that such arrangements were just as good as a couple raising children biologically connected to both parents. She elaborates this view in a recent op-ed in the Chicago Tribune in which she informs us of her fear that children are left confused when adoptive parents are considered the same as biological parents.

I strongly disagree that parents should have some other labels attached if the children are adopted. The reason I feel this way is that adoptive parents have the same legal and moral responsibilities for their children as biological parents. I find this responsibility-based view a better approach to our problems than Ms. Marquardt's rights-based view. When a person becomes a parent, be it through sexual conduct or adoption, that
person bears certain obligations to care for the child. The government enforces these responsibilities and does what it can to help people fulfill them. As a society we also do what we can to help and honor those that
sacrifice to meet their parental obligations. The same goes for marriage. The responsibilities entailed in being a parent and those entailed in being a spouse differ in their details. In both cases, though, we enforce, honor, and ease the burden of those obligations. Therefore, if one person takes on the exact same responsibilities in marriage as another I see no reason why it should be treated any differently or go by any other
name.
posted by Eve at 6:31 PM VOTE

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