Burnt Orange Report

A different and reasoned perspective on the debate.

It's not bad, but the better part of it seems to be "gay marriage will just be another failed government program."

Interesting article. Personally, I think its problem is that it assumes legalizing gay marriage would be a detrimental change in the institution, like "encouraging" women to have children out of wedlock by giving them welfare benefits. This is based on the notion that "one of the very important ways in which the institution of marriage perpetuates itself is by creating a romantic vision of oneself in marriage that is intrinsically tied into expressing one's masculinity or femininity in relation to a person of the opposite sex; stepping into an explicitly gendered role." There's no reason, though, that adopting a "gendered role" is a good thing -- in fact, society has spent much of the last hundred years or so defying old gender stereotypes. Given that old expectations of marriage, such as the wife staying home while the man goes out and works, have fallen away without the institution crumbling, it seems like a change to the gender roles implicit in marriage could be a positive chance, rather than a negative one.

I had this same discussion with my step-mother, who adamantly believes that gay marriage should be legal. I personally don't care, but think if two people want to enter into a legally binding agreement, they should be able to, no matter what you call it.
My question has always been this: If marriage is redefined as including two men or two women, then what is the legal or logical reason to not allow marriage between three people?
Don't jump on me yet. Don't take this further down the slope and say, "what about dogs? or kid?" That's just silly. Dogs and kids could never consent.
But if three adults decide to have a committed relationship, shouldn't they get the same benefits legally as two adults, no matter what their gender.
I've had this discussion and if there's a logical/legal reason why this wouldn't be workable, please let me know.

Hi Steve,

As a gay person who supports the right of myself and other gay people to marry, the best way I can respond to your question about polygamy is that we gays aren't trying to go that far down the slope. That is, we are only fighting for our rights to marry each other, and not for polygamists' right to marry in groups of 3+. If the time comes that polygamists come together as a class of marginalized people (as I believe gays are) who can't imagine spending their lives in any other arrangement, and would like recognition from the state for that arrangement, and feel that they and their children are being detrimentally affected by their lack of access to civil marriage, it will be their battle to fight, not ours. In the same way that interracial couples earlier this century didn't have to justify gay marriage in order for them to be able to marry, we don't have to justify polygamous marriage.

If you don't think that reasoning is satisfying, here is another tack. The idea of marriage between one man and woman is fundamentally flawed, because it requires defining what is a "man" and what is a "woman," and any parent of an intersex or transsexual child can tell you that that is not an easy task. Indeed, there is currently a legally married lesbian couple here in Texas because of one of them was born a man. Their marriage was recognized because a prior legal case had determined that sex in Texas is based on what is written on one's birth certificate. That doesn't do much good for somebody born in Indiana, where they don't record a baby's sex.

Max,
Thanks for the comments. Just to keep this discussion alive, though:

"It will be their battle to fight, not ours." So me, as a white straight man, shouldn't be concerned with anyone else's civil rights? This doesn't make sense. If we're talking about what's fair, then whether or not you support their lifestyle is irrelevent, it's about what's right and what's wrong.

Max,
Just playing Devil's Advocate. But, I just found out James Dobson has made much the same argument I did so I retract it. While I am a straight, fairly conservative, Christian, white male, I don't want to be associated with the likes of him.

Hi Steve,

Regarding your question:

So me, as a white straight man, shouldn't be concerned with anyone else's civil rights?

I think my response would then be "not necessarily." It may very well not be in your interest as a straight man to fight for the civil rights of gay people, though it may very well be, because you know gay people, think marriage denial is unfair/detrimental to gay people and their families, believe that homosexuality and heterosexuality are morally equal, think gay marriage is good for business, whatever. But I don't necessarily expect all straight people as a group to support marriage rights for gay people just because they can marry the person they choose. It'd be nice, and I can try to convince people (especially those that care about me), but I know not to expect it from all straights. (BTW, I happen to support marriage rights for heterosexual couples, even though I'm gay, because I do believe that it has societal benefits, especially for the children of heterosexual partners, such as myself.)

If polygamists start major advocacy for marriage rights, some gays will scoff, while others will join in their fight. It's kind of like how we gays depend on the analogy to interracial marriage, but all people who support interracial marriage don't necessarily support gay marriage. Some see parallels, others don't. Those that do likely support our civil right to marriage, those that don't probably don't. Either way, ours is not necessarily their battle to fight (though, of course, it would be nice if they did fight for us ... I just know it won't always happen).

To this question:

it's about what's right and what's wrong

I don't have a good answer for you, probably because I don't even know anybody in a polyamorous relationship(s). Unless you count my slutty friends. But they don't usually want their relationships to be recognized by anybody for longer than one night, let alone by the State for the rest of their lives. ;-)

But I think what you're really trying to ask is whether I can make a claim about the moral superiority of a partnership of two that merits excluding the legal recognition of partnerships greater than two. I (personally) can't. You'll have to ask a polygamist or anti-polygamist or anthropologist for that, which I think is kind of my original point.

I can say, for example, that there are at least 6,158 same-sex couples raising children in Texas (source: http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsproj/publications/GayDemographics.pdf) who can't offer full protection to their children (well, at least not as full protection as straight couples) because Texas won't recognize their relationships. You'll have to ask a polygamist, though, whether there are that many Texas kids being shafted because of nonrecognition of their unions.

I do think, though, that telling gay couples that they can offer protections to their children through non-marital legal means would be kind of like telling a man+woman+man polyamorous grouping that they can do so as well by having man1 and woman procreate, have woman and man2 marry, then have a judge force man1 to pay child support and man2 to support the family as step-father. A little silly and contrived, no? But anyway, I don't know of anybody advocating for such recognition of their polygamist relationship, so I'm not even sure why I brought up the comparison.

Civil marriage in this country is a contractual agreement between two individuals. In fact, same-sex couples would work well within the parameters of this contractual agreement. Hetero or same-sex...two people entering into a contractual agreement. Polygamists would not fit into the contractual agreement dicated by civil marriage in this country.