Reality-based conservatism

[nancylebov]

David Frum concludes that same sex marriage doesn't damage heterosexual marriage.

Is there anything else in American politics which is dependent on as weak an argument as opposition to same sex marriage? The war on drugs is based on a wild over-estimation of government power, but it doesn't quite have that weird "I'll make up a definition and insist that it's realer than what can be observed" quality.

Link thanks to nwhyte.

Comments

[madfilkentist]

A while back, at least 10 years ago, there was a bill in the NH legislature against same-sex marriage, and the argumentation in the bill said outright that the purpose of marriage was to breed new taxpayers, so infertile marriages were contrary to proper marriage. The bill went nowhere. It didn't say anything about infertile opposite-sex marriages.

I don't know whether that's a widespread motive for opposition to same-sex marriage, but I don't think so. With most opponents, I think the basic motive is that they're convinced that homosexuality is evil, and legalizing same-sex marriage legitimizes it. Yet there's much more talk about "defense of marriage" than about the evil of leading people down the slippery slope of sodomy. I really don't understand why that is, since the latter argument would seem to be more effective if anything.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

It was an anti argument, but it fell apart when it became obvious that one of the main reasons people in same-sex couples wanted to marry was because they were raising children together.

There is a good reason why defense of marriage is the argument. If marriage is a voluntary contract between equals who choose each other, then same-sex marriage makes sense. If marriage is a holy mandate in which the female wife is subordinate to the male head of household to whom she is beholden for financial support, then same-sex marriage does not make sense. Allowing same-sex marriage puts a civil stamp on companionate marriage as a concept. Women in traditional marriages have a lot to gain from the legalization of same-sex marriage. People who think of this as defense of marriage may or may not realize what kind of marriage they're defending.

[madfilkentist]

Hmmm ... That would be consistent with the widespread argument against polygamy. It's assumed that in a polygamous marriage the wives (it's stereotypically assumed that polygamy means one husband, many wives) would be just chattels, so they have to be protected. The underlying assumption is that marriage isn't really a voluntary agreement between (or among!) equals.

I go further than most people in thinking that polygamy should also be legal; or rather, that the government's role in marriage should be only to make sure that the contract is recognized, the rights of all concerned upheld, and the children not abused or neglected.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Marriage is traditionally a method of transferring property and managing inheritance, of ensuring that the right person gets your shit when you die.

Adding a third person breaks a TON of assumptions built in to marriage laws. I've got nothing against it - in fact, I think multiple marriage seems a perfectly reasonable thing to let people who want to do it do. The catch is, it *will* require a complete rewrite from the ground up of a metric ton of law, to eliminate all of the situations where the inherent assumption of two-and-only-two breaks something.

As such, polygamy and polyandry are MUCH harder to work than jsut letting any two adults be the two adults in question.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

Also, traditional polygyny hasn't been all that egalitarian--current poly models are hindered by that history. Or I should say, by that backstory, since we still have more traditional polygynous marriages in many countries. I think I'm like David Frum on this one--I could see being swayed in favor of poly marriage if I saw a whole lot of them that were awesome. (Well, my standard might be higher than his! He changed his mind on same-sex marriage after it turned out not to hurt marriage as an institution.)

[(Anonymous)]

At a trivial level I think people are misusing Kant's categorical imperative - if everyone got same sex marriages the human race would go extinct, therefore same sex marriages must be bad. Silly argument, which is why few people make it explicitly.

I hear a fair bit in my O community about same sex marriage being part of the 'homosexual agenda'. Of course, that agenda allegedly includes promiscuity of exactly the sort that marriage is meant to limit. Also, as someone pointed out, in politicly conservative Jewish circles 'gay activists' seem to be as powerful as 'the Jews' are in anti-Semitic circles.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

At a trivial level I think people are misusing Kant's categorical imperative - if everyone got same sex marriages the human race would go extinct, therefore same sex marriages must be bad. Silly argument, which is why few people make it explicitly.

I hear a fair bit in my O community about same sex marriage being part of the 'homosexual agenda'. Of course, that agenda allegedly includes promiscuity of exactly the sort that marriage is meant to limit. Also, as someone pointed out, in politicly conservative Jewish circles 'gay activists' seem to be as powerful as 'the Jews' are in anti-Semitic circles.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Arguing that sodomy is wrong inherently requires making a RELIGIOUS argument for law, which means you begin your argument by admitting you're wrong on First Amendment grounds.

So they don't do that. The argument is still reilgious, and it's still wrong for the same reasons, but now it's got a patina of legitimacy. Like "intelligent design" rather than "creationism".

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've heard it argued on the basis of "spreading disease".

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Except that explanation doesn't actually address what they want to do. It's like arguing that "marriage is about chilll-druuuun" without complaining about childless straight couples.

If they were ACTUALLY concerned about disease, their position would be different. Their position is not different, therefore "we're concerned about disease" is a lie.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

*nod* I've only heard that one from non-religious people who want to give their ook a rational sounding excuse.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

That sort of analysis applies to a lot of laws about sexual conduct.

* Laws against bestiality are often explained on the grounds of "cruelty to animals" or "animal rights." But consider: Granted that a man who forces sex on a woman ought to be punished; if instead he killed her, cut her body up, and ate it, he would be punished much more harshly. But killing animals, cutting them up, and eating them is an entire industry in the United States! The majority of people don't see it as abusive; even some people who do find our current slaughterhouses appalling want them to convert to more humane methods.

* There is also the argument that animals are incapable of consent. But that argument doesn't apply only to sex with humans! If a mare is incapable of consenting to sex with a man, she is surely also incapable of consenting to sex with a stallion; and yet stallions are not forbidden to mate with mares, or human owners to aid and abet their doing so. Indeed, I've read that dog breeders sometimes find that a bitch dislikes the dog they've picked to father her pups, and that a common expedient is to put her in restraints; if "consent" meant anything that would be a criminal offense.

* Incest is argued against as likely to produce reinforcement of bad recessive genes. Well, I knew a woman who was a carrier for a genetic condition that would make any son she bore at 50% risk for an incapacitating and life-shortening condition; she was not legally forbidden to get pregnant or to bear sons. A couple can have one child with birth defects that indicate that they are at risk for more such children; they are not forced to break up, or punished as criminals for failing to do so.

In all these cases, the supposed "reasons" for banning the conduct aren't applied to similar conduct. So those reasons don't actually explain the laws; they're after-the-fact rationalizations. There may be explanations in terms of cultural or even genetic evolution, but the proximate mechanism seems to be that many people saw "EWWW!" about the conduct in question.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Throwing a couple more links into the soup:

"Why my view on same-sex marriage has changed" (http://www.oneiowa.org/news-events/guest-opinion-why-my-view-same-sex-marriage-has-changed), abstract from an op-ed piece in The Des Moines Register, by former Iowa Sen. Jeff Angelo.

"The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage" (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/01/08/the-conservative-case-for-gay-marriage.html) by Theodore B. Olsen.