MARRIAGE AND PRIVILEGE: Stephen H. Miller

[I can't read the PDF because I'm on my home computer, a.k.a. Ol' Molasses. Will read when I get in to the office tomorrow. For now, to address Stephen's libertarian points, maybe intercourse needs rules more? For more on marriage and libertarianism, try here. --Eve]

The American Political Science Association issued this release [PDF] on critical views toward gay marriage--from feminists and lesbigaytransqueer activists who'd like to do without marriage altogether.

The author of the study, Jyl Josephson, director of women's studies at Rutgers University, writes:

For some queer critics of the same-sex marriage quest, the current heterocentric vision of marriage inappropriately associates the public granting of a privacy privilege with adult citizenship for those professing lifelong, monogamous sexual relationships. Their objection is not so much to the fact that same-sex couples wish to have such relationships recognized, but rather to privileging this form of sexual relationship above all others.

If married couples--opposite or same-sex--are provided greater social, economic, and political privileges than nonmarried individuals, the result will be secondary exclusions and reinforcement of an undesirable link between a particular form of intimate association and adult citizenship.

Surprise, the libertarian in me doesn't think this is totally off the walls. Government should recognize and enforce private contracts between individuals, but perhaps we should leave it to the voluntary institutions of civil society to support and encourage those types of relationships that their adherents feel ought to be supported and encouraged.

I happen to favor marriage as a stabilizing institution; but I don't think it's right for everyone. And I have qualms about government using its awesome power to "promote" it with a broad range of incentives.

Still, it will be a long trek to the time when state and federal governments don't see themselves as mandated to use the laws and tax code to favor matrimony over other relationships--and certainly, in the view of some (not all) IGF authors, that's well and good for society as a whole. And as long as government is both recognizing and "privileging" heterosexual marriage, surely it's unacceptable not to do the same for same-sex marriage, too.

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posted by Eve at 8:38 PM VOTE

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