2014: WILL THE ARGUMENTS HAVE CHANGED?: Eve replies to Jonathan Rauch and about fifty other people

One of the key arguments for a federalist (state-by-state) implementation of same-sex marriage is that the states can serve as experimental labs. Let Massachusetts institute SSM, the argument runs, and then let's wait. We'll see (the pro-SSM side predicts) that everything goes just fine, and in a few years we can start taking these lessons into other states and instituting SSM there.

The less-serious version of this argument is, "The sky didn't fall!" Massachusetts has had SSM for over a month now, and lookit! The divorce rate hasn't skyrocketed, children are not abandoned on streetcorners, cats and dogs are not living together.

The standard response to this claim is to point out that cultural changes in the meaning of marriage--including deeply damaging cultural changes--probably take a little longer than a month to take effect in measurable ways. Opponents of SSM have not argued that SSM is magic that will instantly transform preexisting marriages into dark, sparkling Folger's crystals. We've argued that when you tell people that children don't need mothers and fathers, and that marriage is preeminently about the couple with children as optional extras at best, people do in fact start to believe you. That's not a light-switch, on-or-off event; it's a process of corrosion.

But you know, that's not even what I want to talk about right now. I want to ask whether we think that time will actually resolve the SSM argument; and, if so, how much time is needed. Here are some reasons I think ten years (to pick a fairly arbitrary date that is nonetheless much longer than most supporters of SSM would give it) won't be enough:

1) Would we ever accept this reasoning for redefinitions of marriage that we believe are absolutely wrong or inappropriate? Would federalism-as-experiment SSM supporters agree that New Hampshire should try out polygamy to see how that goes, or that Minnesota should try out brother-sister marriages? Or would we say, No, thanks, philosophy does just fine here, we don't need social-science data?

2) Everyone involved in the SSM debate who is heartily sick of hearing that correlation does not necessarily imply causation, please raise your hands. Expect to hear it repeated another couple thousand times in any discussion of federalist SSM "experiments," if in fact such experiments are undertaken.

3) Relatedly: You can't escape philosophy anyway. Look at the debate over those European countries that have instituted SSM or something like it. Everyone offers a host of social changes that took place within roughly the same period (secularization... SSM... the growth of the welfare state... women entering the workforce... whatever) and must then argue why their particular explanations are best. Those arguments rest on underlying theories of marriage, law's effect on society, and human nature. Why not just lay out the theories, then, and skip the social-statistics number-juggling?

Basically, time and federalism are not "get out of philosophy free" cards. We have to figure this out now.
posted by Eve at 10:43 PM VOTE

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home