MORE ON MARRIAGE AS DISCRIMINATION: Gabriel Rosenberg

In an earlier post I examined some of the reasons I find discrimination troubling. In the last post I responded to some common arguments that try to claim that the prohibition on SSM is not a case of sex discrimination. It is one thing to try to justify the discrimination, but those arguments merely ignored the discrimination and evaded the issue. Today, I will examine some arguments that deal with the issue and try to justify the discrimination. Such arguments will need to explain why the sex of the individual makes their situation so different as to justify the disparate treatment. Note it is not enough to say that gender differences are real. If that alone were enough, all gender discrimination as well as religious discrimination would be justified. Any substantive argument needs to address why these differences justify disparate treatment when it comes to marriage. ...

…a same-sex couple cannot provide both the mother and the father that a child needs. From a policy perspective I have often wondered why it is better for the children to be raised by unmarried parents of the same sex than by married parents of the same sex. Those are issues that I have dealt with elsewhere, and will continue to address elsewhere. For now, I want to focus merely on the discrimination aspects. I see this situation as having much in common with other circumstances in which parents marry. They cannot provide everything for their child, but they try their best to provide as much as they can. ...

On a deeper level, though, there is something that troubles me even more about this argument. Essentially it says that a man cannot be a mother and a woman cannot be a father. Well certainly by definition that is true, but as we have noted we must move beyond the definition in matters of discrimination. What is it exactly that we are saying a man can provide for a child that a woman cannot (or vice versa)? I have heard three answers to that question, although I am certainly receptive to more.

The first answer I have heard is a general one that a child relates to his or her father differently than to a mother. This highlights, however, an aspect of discrimination I find troubling. We relate to all individuals differently. A child relates to his or her parents as individuals and not as some representative of a larger group. We should be focusing on the individual things a person can provide for his or her child, and not resort to generalities about how men or women behave.

The second answer I have heard is slightly more specific and points out that only a parent of the same gender can know first hand what it is like to be that gender and can relate to the unique difficulties of maturing with a particular physical body. Of course children grow up with all sorts of experiences and difficulties. Sometimes one parent can relate to it directly, sometimes both, and sometimes neither. Even when parents don't know first hand what the experience is like, though, they can often relate in some other way. The situation of a parent not being able to relate directly to all of the experiences of a child is common to all parents, and I don't believe it is justified to use this one particular instance to justify denying the child’s parents the ability to marry one another.

The final answer I have heard is that only a parent of a certain gender can role model that gender. This highlights what I think I find most troubling about the discrimination. First of all, as in the last case, parents relate or don't relate to the child on so many levels that to focus on this difference strikes me as wrong. We don't prohibit a marriage because it lacks a parent who can model other roles. Only gender roles are so necessary so as to require this distinction. Furthermore, what use is it to model a role unless a person is going to model it well? I don't know what "male" qualities a father is supposed to be model, but I have been told they include duty, honor, and responsibility. Aren’t these virtues a woman can model as well?

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posted by Eve at 11:53 PM VOTE

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