TheAgitator.com
Wow
Saturday, November 22nd, 2003There are lots of things to disagree with in David Brooks’ New York Times column this morning.
Here’s something reasonable people can’t disagree on:
It is a beautiful, magnificent piece of writing. Maybe the best opinion piece I’ve read all year.
I’m awed. And envious. And I can’t wait for the conservatives to cry “Judas!”
Brooks makes a very interesting point. In a purely secular society, sanctioning gay marriage might indeed be a conservative stance.
I strongly disagree, however, with the underlying assumption that gay couples cannot have marital fidelity without approval from the state, and especially the assumption that such endorsement necessarily confers fidelity on heterosexual couples, when clearly it does not.
In our society today, state recognized marriage is required for couples to be granted peripheral benefits associated with marriage, such as insurance and social security. However, the distinction made between hetero- and homosexual couples for this purpose is an artificial, unnecessary, and in my opinion unconstitutional barrier.
The fidelity and commitment that truly lay at the heart of marriage do not depend on state, or even religious, approval. Can not an atheist couple be committed to one another without the blessing of a higher power? Do not some homosexual “partnerships” far outlast the state-approved “marriages” of some heterosexual couples?
Clearly, some mechaism is needed to resolve disputes that will ineveitably arise in some marriages. This is easily solved with a simple contract. Beyond that, where there is no commons there should exist no government.
The foundation of Brooks’ moral plea for state recognized gay marriage completely crumbles at this point:
When liberals argue for gay marriage, they make it sound like a really good employee benefits plan. Or they frame it as a civil rights issue, like extending the right to vote. Marriage is not voting. It’s going to be up to conservatives to make the important, moral case for marriage, including gay marriage.
No one can make a moral case for state recognized marriages. The liberals are quite right to only pursue the “benefit plan” strategy in their arguments for state marriages because entitlements are the only thing the state has to offer those who would subject themselves to government defined marriages.
The genuine bond of matrimony is private and internal, hence the state has nothing moral or sacred to bestow in any marriage.
Bad link.
On the substance, I tend to agree with the comments above: since commitment has no necessary connection to legal status, the equality/civil rights argument is the correct one.
And on the style, I fear I’ve got to disagree with Radley; I thought it was mawkish and overwritten.
I disagreee somewhat with all the commentators above. It is true that the state per se has nothing to do with commitment. But the laws the state puts in place do provide incentives to organize our lives in certain ways, and perhaps more importantly, do in fact signal broad societal acceptance and endorsement of certain kinds of behavior. While all of us here are obviously sophisticated people who understand the contingent connection between morality and legality, many or most people assume that there is some moral basis for law, and a law against something, or in certain contexts the lack of a law recognizing the legitimacy of something, creates in many minds a presumption of immorality, and in many minds closes off possibilities for living that are better left open. The point that state recognition is not necessary, and has no special conceptual relationship, to romantic commitment, leaves Brooks’s main point untouched; the legal recognition of gay marriage would help promote a culture of fidelity, and we would be better off if we had such a culture.
“The point that state recognition is not necessary, and has no special conceptual relationship, to romantic commitment, leaves Brooks’s main point untouched; the legal recognition of gay marriage would help promote a culture of fidelity, and we would be better off if we had such a culture.”
How do you square that with libertarian principles?
Lynette, Square what? That we can make ourselves better off by using the law expressively?
“Lynette, Square what? That we can make ourselves better off by using the law expressively? ”
The law is a big stick. How do you propose to use it expressively?
That we can make ourselves better off by using the law expressively?
Will, you won’t make us better off by expanding the authority of government to further hold sway over the lives of individuals via penalties and incentives (incentives paid for at a cost to others, I might add).
The shift toward a culture of fidelity will best be realized by individuals, themselves, acting on their own behalf. There is nothing stopping gays and straights, alike, from partaking of all the decency and morality that holy matrimony has to offer.
No one needs the government’s permission to embrace a life of private marriage.
Lynette and I have commented at greater length in Marriage, The Institutional Man, and The Makers of Manners.
Lynette Warren: No one can make a moral case for state recognized marriages. The liberals are quite right to only pursue the “benefit plan” strategy in their arguments for state marriages because entitlements are the only thing the state has to offer those who would subject themselves to government defined marriages.
The genuine bond of matrimony is private and internal, hence the state has nothing moral or sacred to bestow in any marriage.
This is the most intelligent comment I have heard on this subject (in this forum) so far.