WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Matt Taylor replies to Eve

I think you are largely correct in that most people who feel strongly about SSM hold one of two worldviews:

"In the first, and older, worldview, societies across the globe and down through the millennia have regulated and honored marriages in order to deal with the fact that intercourse makes babies. ... In the new worldview, marriage is regulated and honored because society and government want to reward people for being in committed, loyal pair-bond sexual relationships."

However, I don't agree that the two most prevalent worldviews are those that you describe.

Your statement of the second, newer worldview reflects the conservative pro-SSM position of Andrew Sullivan and David Brooks, for example. But more liberal or radical SSM advocates, who probably constitute the majority of pro-SSM voters, seem uninterested in defining the purpose of marriage at all. Their primary concern is to give gays and lesbians equal access to every social institution, whether it be marriage or military service, employment, etc.

On the first worldview, traditional societies do not usually feel such a sense of agency in their conception of marriage, as Mark Tardiff once pointed out during an earlier discussion on this blog. Marriage is, for them, whatever was handed down by their deity(ies) or some other traditional authority, and this is in fact where most voters who oppose SSM seem to be coming from.

The communitarian view of marriage you articulated in your post is, in my opinion, a relatively new idea, primarily conceived as a response to recent changes in family structure, same-sex households among them. I personally find this view of marriage convincing; it's hard to think of anything more important than advancing the welfare of children, and marriage certainly does that. However, I don't think this view is widely held by the American people.
posted by Eve at 1:46 PM VOTE

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