THE ANTI-MARRIAGE-EQUALITY BAIT-AND-SWITCH: Barry Deutsch

In the post before this one, I argued that one of the most common arguments against marriage equality is a bait and switch. Rather than arguing against marriage equality itself, opponents argue that ideally children should be raised by a mom and a dad. Then they tell people that in order to insure that children are raised by moms and dads, we must oppose marriage equality.

Marriage equality opponents must know that this is nonsense. All over the country, and (outside of Massachusetts) without legal marriage, same-sex couples are raising children. They are not waiting for legal marriage, nor will banning legal marriage give the government a new right to take children away from same-sex couples. The policy marriage-equality opponents propose--banning same-sex marriage--does not in any way solve the problem they claim to be responding to, which is children growing up in homes without two biological parents. ...

The way some of them make the link is to argue that whenever the law treats two things with legal equality that sends a message. According to this worldview, by allowing marriage equality, Massachusetts has "sent a message" which says that no child needs a mom or a dad.

There are two problems with this point of view.

First of all, it's simply, factually wrong: equal legal treatment sends no such message. If it did, then by allowing criminals in prison to marry, the US has sent the message that convicted murderers are just swell as parents and mates, and that kids don't need two parents out of prison. By allowing the KKK a legal right to march, the government says the KKK is just as good as Veterans marching on Veterans Day. And so forth. ...

The paradox is, although no particular message is sent by equal treatment, a definite message is sent by prejudicial treatment. As long as marriage inequality continues, the US is sending a message that lesbians, gays and their children are second-class citizens (a message that's particularly harmful to lesbian and gay teens). This may seem like a contradiction in my position, but it's not. The discrimination marriage equality opponents favor is active discrimination; in contrast, equal treatment is a government's way of being neutral, sending no message at all. ...

The anti-marriage equality case rests on the implicit belief that any harm to same-sex families, however huge, is justified if it prevents any difficulty to heterosexuals, however tiny or theoretical. That view is simply not compatible with a worldview that sees lesbians, gays and their children as human beings equal in value to all other humans.

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posted by Eve at 6:59 PM VOTE

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