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Same-Sex Marriage:

What's the Threat?

Does It Really Threaten Conventional Marriage?

A great deal of highly charged rhetoric has been unleashed regarding the presumed evils of same-sex marriage and the threat it ostensibly poses to heterosexual marriage.  The danger seems to be a foregone conclusion.  Yet, amid all the self-righteous furor, some of us dare to wonder aloud, exactly what threat does same-sex marriage—or any other unconventional personal union, for that matter—pose to established conventions, and exactly how is that threat manifested?  Let's examine some of the challenges typically raised.

Homosexuality is inherently evil.  God did not intend people to have sex in ways incompatible with conceiving children.
Humans are one of only a few species in which both male and female sexual appetites continue to be active outside the female's normal times of fertility.  If God purposely made us this way conspicuously different from most other species, then he obviously intended us to have sex for reasons other than procreation.  And since sex is such a physically enjoyable activity, he evidently intended us to derive pleasure from it, whether just physical pleasure or the deeper kind we call love.  (We can only speculate about God's purpose for this apparently excess pleasure.  Perhaps it's to give a regular boost to the strength of a loving bond, so it can endure for a lifetime.  Or perhaps he has a purpose for some people's lives other than making children, yet sees no reason to deprive them of their share of pleasure.)  In any case, it's a reasonable supposition that God intends people to have sex for pleasure (or love) much of the time, or at least whenever the company is agreeable and the mood strikes, since the opportunity for conception exists for only a brief fraction of the female's monthly cycle. 
     However, there's no biological reason that non-procreational sex must entail the coupling of opposite sexes.  If an individual is more inclined to establish and nurture an intense loving bond with someone of the same sex, then such a bond would seem to have no less virtue than a heterosexual couple's bond of love while using birth control.  Now, if one proposes to argue that birth control is inherently evil on the same grounds as homosexuality, such an argument would at least be consistent—but probably not very popular even among the devoutly god-fearing.

The only justifiable purpose of marriage is to conceive, bear, and rear children.  No other form of marriage should be tolerated.
If this is so, then marriage should be permitted only to fertile couples who declare an intent to reproduce.  Marriage should be forbidden to any person determined to be physically incapable of reproducing, and to any couples who choose not to have children.  Furthermore, any marriage which endures beyond a couple's childbearing and child-rearing years should be dissolved.  This is where the reasoning of the "natural purpose only" justification of marriage inevitably leads. 
     For most people, there are many purposes of marriage (love, companionship, and mutual support, for starters), regardless of whether procreation is part of the mix—any one or any combination of which is generally regarded as adequate justification for interpersonal union, with or without an intent to procreate.  Those who insist that reproduction is the alpha and omega of marriage and that it has no other purpose are welcome to their belief; but their practices ought to be fully consistent with that belief, and there should be no attempt to impose it upon those inclined to believe otherwise.

The Christian Bible defines marriage as a holy union between one man and one woman.
There are certainly many Christians who agree, and indeed, one-man-one-woman marriage has enjoyed a long tradition in Christian culture.  But can anyone cite a biblical passage to the effect that any other form of interpersonal union is forbidden?  Some Christian sects have adopted a policy of tolerating same-sex marriage.  At least one (the Unitarian-Universalist Church) has gone even further, administering the sacrament of marriage to same-sex couples who request it.  Moreover, there are many Americans (not to mention a majority of people in other parts of the world) who are not Christians.  There are major and minor religions which endorse forms of marriage other than the one-man-one-woman variety.  Various forms of polygamy are acceptable in Islam and Buddhism, as well as in assorted communal, naturist, and spiritist sects.  Furthermore, the custom of keeping concubines has been acceptable, even in Christianity, until fairly recently.  So far, there's no evidence that the institution of so-called conventional marriage in any of these situations is in any greater decline than among the population in general.

The best environment for children is in a family with two parents, one of each sex.
This might be an ideal standard in a world of ideal human beings.  Unfortunately, many of us, including conventionally married people, are nowhere near to any generally accepted notion of ideal.  Children are clearly not well off in a home in which the parents' relationship is dysfunctional, or if either or both parents are abusive, or if they suffer from addictions that render them ineffective or even destructive toward their children. 
     We might reasonably argue that desirable characteristics for a child's home environment include love, care, nurture, mature guidance, and instructive challenge.  Such positive environments can be found in non-conventional families—including those with a single parent of either sex, or with two parents of the same sex, or even with more than two adults—as well as in conventional heterosexual unions.  If we seriously ask ourselves what is in the interest of children, what matters most in their lives is not their parents' anatomies and sexual orientations, but whether the environment the parents supply is one that genuinely loves, cares, nurtures, guides, and challenges.  These are the qualities that make a real difference to children.  There is no sexual orientation that either guarantees these qualities or has a monopoly on them.

Homosexual marriage threatens the age-old institution of heterosexual marriage.
Many people accept this as axiomatic.  Indeed, those who make this claim rarely attempt to explain it; no information is offered about the nature of the alleged danger and the effects it produces.  The implication is that anyone who does not agree with the claim must be stupid.  But if we are not stupid, then we ought to know as well as anyone else exactly what the danger is.  So what is it, exactly?  What are its effects, exactly?  If there is a real threat, then we ought to know precisely what it is, so we can deal with it effectively.  Thus, we ought to question the popular assumption and demand a realistic answer.  If those making the claim cannot provide a credible answer, then we might well assume that it is they, not we, who are stupid.  It turns out that the threat is vague and undefined.  No one seems to know exactly what terrible things are supposed to happen to conventional marriage if same-sex marriage is allowed.

• Is there a shortage of marriage licenses, such that a gay marriage would deprive a straight couple of the right to wed?
  No, we seem able to print and process all the marriage licenses we need.

• Would same-sex marriage lessen respect for heterosexual marriage?
  A similar claim has been made against interracial marriage, yet there seems no loss of esteem for the institution that can be attributed to intermarriage of people of different skin colors.

• Would the availability of gay marriage somehow cause straight couples to divorce?
  It is hard to imagine how.  There is no reason whatever to suppose that "A same-sex couple has moved in next door" leads to "I want a divorce."

• Would the availability of gay marriage cause homosexuals who have married heterosexually (for whatever reason) to divorce and take same-sex partners instead?
  Here we might be forced to concede at least a fair chance.  But we must also ask how many such marriages actually exist, and whether they are healthy relationships in any case.  The first answer is probably "Very few," and the second "Probably not."  In other words, banning gay marriage would not save anything truly worth saving.

There are many causes of the dissolution of conventional marriage—infidelity, personal abuse, addiction, irresponsibility, poverty, and death of a spouse, to name a few.  But (to my knowledge) no one has ever listed "homosexual marriage" as grounds for divorce, and there come to mind no circumstances under which it might be so used.
 

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What Other Threat Could There Be?

Even though there appears no rational basis to suppose that allowing same-sex marriage somehow threatens conventional heterosexual marriage, many people nonetheless sense a threat, even though they cannot define it or determine its effect specifically.  Let us concede, then, that same-sex marriage might actually present some sort of threat, and speculate about what it actually threatens and how.

Since it seems most objections to same-sex marriage are religiously based, it is plausible that what is actually threatened by such an innovation might be religion itself.  Religions are duty bound to promote and enforce their own standards, at least within their own ranks.  But most mainstream religions today accept that they cannot dictate the morals of society at large, since society comprises a diversity of beliefs whose standards sometimes conflict.  Still, for society to condone or even endorse a lifestyle that a religion condemns might be seen by that religion's hierarchy and adherents as a kind of threat, specifically an undermining of its authority.

In addition, some religions, especially their fundamentalist fringes, are oriented less toward promoting genuine virtue among their own and more toward raging against the vices of others.  Indeed, external threats of vice constitute the main reason for many of these militant sects to exist; for without an enemy, there is no threat, no justification for a crusading army.  Ironically, threats are these sects' reason for being, the fuel that stokes their fires, the attraction that generates the pledges and fills the collection plates.  If there are not enough real threats, or if the threats do not seem threatening enough, then the leaders of these groups can be relied upon to invent whatever threats are needed to justify their own existence.  In contrast to mainstream religions, moreover, these sects typically do not acknowledge a boundary between themselves and society at large.  Be they Christian, Muslim, Jew, or Hindu, they presume themselves to be Heaven's chosen, and their beliefs, their causes, and their authority to be universal.  Given an opportunity, they're eager to enlist the civil government in their crusades (despite that they'd be outraged if a sect with different views were to attempt the same thing).

To be sure, there are also non-religious arguments.  But again, the "threats" they raise typically turn out to be red herrings:  They concern something other than conventional marriage.  For example, one of the least incoherent I've personally encountered is a twist on the "it's all about children" theme.  Gay marriage, the argument goes, increases competition for adoptable children, and thus increases the time heterosexual couples must wait to acquire "adoptable" children.  Now, this isn't a threat to marriage itself, for it would be an odd marriage indeed formed solely for the purpose of adopting children, and to be terminated if no children were available for adoption.  But in fact, this shortage of adoptable children is fictitious.  Granted, there's a shortage, but only of the most popular sort of children: attractive, healthy, well-mannered, Caucasian infants.  Children who don't fit all these criteria are in abundant supply.  Thus, it's not really all about the children after all, but rather about the preferences of couples who want to adopt—but only if the children are not too ugly, not too sickly, not too troublesome, not too colored, and not too old.  So, it appears that whether increased competition constitutes a "threat" or a "blessing" is relative, and depends on one's viewpoint.  If you're on the demand side of the market, an adult looking for a kid, then the additional wait time might frustrate you to the point of relaxing your criteria a bit, and giving one of those less than "perfect" kids a break.  But if you're on the supply side, a kid in need of a home, then increased demand is a good thing, because it obviously increases your chances of being adopted by someone—whether straight, gay, or single—and the flap about a "threat" seems hollow and selfish on the part of those who're supposed to be the adults in this picture.

 

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What Is Government's Role?

Should our civil law ban everything to which any religion objects?  No.  Islam forbids pictorial representations of the prophet Muhammad; but our civil government does not ban such depictions, recognizing that most people in our country are not Muslims.  Judaism forbids consumption of pork and shellfish; but our government does not ban these from supermarkets, recognizing that most people in our country are not Jews.  The Roman Catholic Church objects to artificial birth control, but our government does not ban it, recognizing that the majority of people in our country are not Roman Catholics.  It is not the role of civil law to enforce the precepts and taboos of minority sects.

Very well.  But should civil law enforce ideas to which a majority religion subscribes?  No.  The majority religion in the United States is (at least for the present) Protestant Christianity, yet our civil law allows people of other faiths to espouse their own beliefs, to observe their own holy days, to perform rites that Christians consider sacrilegious, and even to criticize Christianity.  In other words, the civil law grants to each minority religion the same general rights that the majority religion enjoys.  (It must, or else it violates the "non-establishment" clause of the Bill of Rights, by favoring one religion over others.)  Yet in America, Christianity thrives despite the freedom of people to choose other religions (or no religion), so having other options available doesn't appear to be a real threat.  Still, the availability of other options promotes discussion, and discussion sometimes raises questions that religious authorities are unprepared to answer forthrightly.  And perhaps this is what they really fear.  Yet it isn't our government's responsibility to defend any religion, even the religion of the majority.  Any religion worth believing ought to be able to defend its own beliefs and practices to those who voluntarily subscribe to it.  In a pluralistic society, no religion has a right to enlist government in an effort to promote it, or to impose its beliefs upon those who choose other religions, or no religion at all.

What does this have to do with same-sex marriage?  Very simple: Marriage is traditionally a religious issue.  Therefore, let government step aside in this matter; let each religion define marriage according to its own tenets; and let each person freely choose the belief system that best suits his or her needs and worldview.  Christian couples can lock themselves into monogamous heterosexual marriages.  A Universalist can marry any consenting adult of either sex.  A Muslim man may acquire up to four wives.  A Tibetan Buddhist woman can serve as wife to a man and all of his brothers.  Those with no religious convictions about marriage may form contractual personal unions—equivalent in all legal and social respects to what religions variously call "marriage"—with whomever they wish, on a basis of mutual love or shared interest, if not reproduction.

In a pluralistic society, what government must not do is impose its standards upon religion.  It isn't government's role to dictate to any religion the nature of the sacraments it may administer or to whom it may administer them, so long as those subject to those sacraments enter into them of their own will as free adults.  Government's duty, as defender of the liberty of individuals and families, is to protect against any clear threat of actual harm.  In the absence of any demonstrable threat by gay marriage to anyone or anything protected by law, government's sole function is to furnish the non-discriminatory legal backing for marriages and functionally identical lifetime contracts—religious or secular, two-partner or multiple-partner, heterosexual or homosexual or non-sexual—and to defend all such interpersonal commitments without bias.¹  Government's only other obligation in this matter is to sanction such unions between people who subscribe to different religions or to no religion, or who for some reason prefer to keep their relationship separate from religion.

Of course, this would depend on government's behaving more or less rationally.  But inasmuch as same-sex marriage serves as a handy emotional smoke-screen issue for politicians who would rather not talk about...

• their own misstatements and flip-flops,

• their own exposed lies, indiscretions, and scandals,

• what specific cuts in government services and benefits they'd propose to reduce the deficit,

• wholesale government corruption,

• misdirected wars,

• skyrocketing debt,

• illegal immigration,

• rising poverty and eroding consumer buying power,

• systemic dependence on imported oil,

• incompetent disaster relief,

• lack of funding for public education and emergency relief,

• disregard of safety, health, and environmental concerns,

• and general inability or unwillingness to confront reality and deal with facts,

...we should not expect rational behavior from politicians as long as the current crop are in power.  They need all the scapegoats they can find, in order to hoodwink voters into reelecting them.  So, for the rest of us, the question would seem to be: Do we let them sucker us yet again with the same old con game?  Or can we manage to stay focused on the real issues next election?²

=SAJ=

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NOTES

(1) One plausible exception to government's obligation to honor and support all forms of marriage would be for it to limit the number of spousal tax deductions per family to two, so as not to grant unfair advantage to families with multiple spouses.  In a polygamous marriage, the family would have to choose which two of its members were to be considered "married" for tax purposes, with the rest counting either as other dependents or as self-supporting.

(2) At the time this article was written—4 August 2006—the "crop in power" consisted of Republicans President George W. Bush Jr. and Vice President Richard Cheney, with Republican control of both houses of Congress.  The "next election" was in November 2006, which went overwhelmingly in favor of Democrats, giving them majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, but leaving the White House still in the hands of Bush-Cheney until they were replaced by Democrats Obama and Biden in 2009.  When the article was revised in 2012, both the Congress and many statehouses had been flooded with Tea Party extremists, whose "anti-big-government" ideologies evidently do not extend to keeping politicians from meddling in marriage or other family and religious matters.