In my experience,
much of the active opposition to gay marriage seems to be tied to religion. While
we can mutually agree that all voices have a place in the gay marriage debate,
opinions derived solely from a particular religious conviction cannot be the
sole motivation for enacting public policy that affects people who may have a
wide range of religious beliefs. For a healthy democratic republic, we must
strive to balance the common good and individual freedom. Our laws and policies
must be based on more than belief. They cannot unduly infringe on the right to
individual belief, but they cannot unjustly impose specific tenets on the
conscience of others.
So putting
religion aside, are there sound non-religious arguments against gay marriage?
Earlier this
month, the Witherspoon Institute (a conservative thinktank) published a short anti-marriage equality essay authored by Ryan Anderson, a graduate student in political science. Anderson’s
essay was adapted from testimony he gave to members of the Indiana State
Legislature which is considering a constitutional amendment to ban gay
marriage.
In the article, Anderson makes the
following points:
(1) Marriage
exists for, and therefore must be defined in relation to, childbearing;
(2) Marriage
matters to the state because it ensures that children are less likely to be
victim to a host of social ills such as poverty and incarceration, ultimately
benefiting society collectively; and
(3) If governments
change the definition of marriage, it will become more of an institution for
adults to the detriment of children.
In addition to
proscribing what marriage is, and should be, Anderson argues that same-sex relationships undermine
marriage because:
(1) Gays can’t
have children;
(2) Children need
both a mother and father to optimally raise them; and
(3) Redefining
marriage to accommodate homosexuals means that society would have to redefine
marriage for every conceivable type of romantic union including “temporary”
marriage, etc.
Remembering that
we are putting religion aside for the time being, are Anderson’s arguments sound rationally,
sociologically or politically? If the facts had a chance to speak, are gays
really inferior at a social institution at which heterosexuals only have about
a 50% success rate? Do we have enough sociological data to soundly support all
of these arguments against gay families? What do the lived experiences of gay
couples tell us about these arguments?
Unfortunately, I
don’t have the time, energy or academic background to really tackle some of
these questions in depth, but here are a couple of thoughts:
1. The author
argues that the state’s interest in the institution of marriage is for
provision of a stable environment in which to raise children. While I won’t
argue that this isn’t in the state’s
interest, why should we accept that children are the only reason government has an interest in the definition of
marriage? For example, if children are the sole reason for legal recognition of
marriage, then it is inconsistent for government to issue marriage licenses to
infertile couples or couples that remarry after they no longer wish to have
additional children. They don’t need the state’s investment in their
relationship because they wouldn’t be doing anything functional for the state. In
fact, if marriage is solely designed to support parent’s efforts to raise children,
then government could create laws that nullify all marriages once the youngest
child in a family finally leaves the nest.
This argument can
lead us to silly conclusions because it is pretty obvious that marriage exists
for the couple as well as for any children they may or may not have. Loving
relationships between two consenting adults are among the greatest joys of
life. They are compelling initially because of the love that blooms between a
couple, and they are sustained – especially during the trying times of
parenthood – by that love. Since I think
it is fairly reasonable to assume a strong connection between individual
happiness and broader social well-being, then it is to a society’s advantage to
promote happy marriages, whether or not they involve children. For gays,
lesbians and bisexuals who are capable to achieving their maximum relationship
satisfaction with a member of the same sex, is it in the state’s interest to
exclude them from this opportunity?
The desire to
form stable relationships is independent of sex and sexual orientation. Gay and
lesbian couples can form loving stable homes in which to raise kids. With a
preoccupation on the sex of each individual in a couple, those who argue
against same-sex marriage run the risk of elevating relationship structure
above relationship quality. Clearly an unhappy male-female couple cannot
provide a more stable home life than a happy same-sex couple.
2. Gay people
can’t have children? This is obviously not so. Many gay and bisexual people
have their own biological children, perhaps from a previous heterosexual relationship
before coming out (ahem, quietly raises hand). Other gay couples very much want
to raise children and choose to adopt. If governments decide to deny gay
couples who are raising children equal protection under the law, how is the
state helping those particular children? In fact, the state would be
discriminating against them. When we have too many orphaned children already, is
it not in the state’s interest to facilitate the adoption of these children
into loving homes?
3. The secular
case against same-sex marriage seems to rest heavily on the notion that only a
two parent, opposite sex married couple is an optimal parenting team for
children. The challenge here from an empirical point of view is that this
argument rolls quite a few phenomena into one succinct conclusion.
Sociologically, we are asking several questions: (i) is a one versus two parent
home better?, (ii) do the sexes in a two parent home need to differ or can they be
the same?, (iii) does the sexual orientation of the parent(s) matter?, and (iv)
does legal recognition of a couple’s relationship have an effect on children?
For instance, if
research finds that the parenting abilities of single gay parents aren’t as
good as married heterosexual couples, is the disparity due to the sexual
orientation of the parent, the one versus two parent home question, or the
effect of legal recognition on parenting success? This apples-to-papaya example
doesn’t say much about whether gay marriage has a net positive, negative or
neutral effect on children. The only scientifically sound way to evaluate
whether gender “complementarity” has a non-trivial effect on children is to compare
straight and gay two parent homes that both have legal recognition and that
have raised children continuously from very young ages. Because gay marriage
has been prohibited for so long in the US, is that sort of study even
fully possible yet?
One of my
concerns with insistence that children need to have opposite sex parents is
that it makes little distinction between gender (a social construct that
defines what it means to be ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’) and biological sex. The
two are not synonymous. If gender
duality in the home is really what is important in raising children, then a
“feminine” female paired with a very “masculine” female might do a better job
raising children than a man and woman who both act very “feminine”. However, I
will back up here and suggest that arguing about what is “feminine” and what is
“masculine” and how much of each a child needs is rather pedantic. Don’t
children really need parents who model love, strength, honesty, trust, compassion,
integrity, and hard work -- qualities that are genderless??
4. The issue of
harm. I think most of us would agree that governments put in place laws and
restrictions in order to protect other people from harm. Speed limits, drug and
alcohol laws, laws against theft and aggression, etc. are generally instituted
to ensure that the behaviors of some people do not impinge on the liberties of
other individuals and cause them harm. Whether gay marriage actually causes
harm to anyone is central to the debate about marriage equality, because if
material harm cannot be demonstrated, gay marriage opponents have a very poor case
indeed.
So, let’s go
through several major classes of people:
Does gay marriage
harm gay adults? No: lots of them can’t wait to get married!
Does gay marriage
harm the children of gay parents? No: it lends needed support for their
families.
Does gay marriage harm straight couples? No: it's irrelevant to them.
Does gay marriage
harm the straight children of straight couples? No: if anything, it sets an
example of tolerance and love.
Does gay marriage harm the gay children of
straight couples? No, it may give them something wonderful to hope for in their
futures!
Does gay marriage infringe on any particular church’s theology or
opinion about homosexuality? No: they can still believe whatever they want.
--
Human beings form
such a variety of relationships that I am skeptical of any claim that only a
narrow subset of family arrangements can provide an optimal environment for
children. I am open to critical scrutiny of all of these ideas by sound
sociological research. If it can be determined that loving gay couples
substantially and repeatedly harm children or society generally, then sure,
let’s ban same-sex marriage. But I think that presently, there is no more than
a weak non-religious case against gay marriage. Societal sanction of gay
marriage is pretty common sense and more and more people are coming around.
Endnote:
The Witherspoon organization was a major funder of the controversial Regnerus study that claimed to show that gay
parenting was substandard.
