Eve Tushnet wonders why marriage is the only area of contemporary politics in which tradition is used explicitly as a justification:
Two things have happened to contemporary marriage which all but compel traditionalist rhetoric in a non-traditionalist culture. First, one of marriage’s core purposes has been suppressed in public discourse. Marriage developed in major part to regulate sex between men and women—to regulate it not solely within marriage but before marriage. The idea that marriage as an institution should regulate whether the unmarried have sex used to be obvious. It’s not that everyone actually abstained, as the bawdy songs show! But the cultural expectation was that premarital chastity could be demanded, defended, held up as social necessity and religious virtue, and its opposite punished (as in the sadder bawdy songs) or wryly rejected (as in the funnier ones).
Ten minutes’ conversation with people in their teens or twenties, anywhere from Main Street to Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, will make clear that the exact opposite of this perspective is now as obvious as the older one used to be. Premarital sex is not only practiced but assumed, and often valorized. (You should live together before marriage; don’t be stupid!)
February 28th, 2011 | 11:40 am
These “traditions” are obvious to all except those who are so immersed in their own internal data (feelings, desires) that they have no use for, and no interest in, external data (other peoples’ problems, social issues, etc.)
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that sex before marriage is a destructive act.
Now, with the advent of effective birth control, it is possible – using multiple forms of birth control, in recognition of the fact that making a baby without family commitments and family structure is in fact a destructive thing to do.
Today, though, it’s all about our internal stuff: if a woman wants a baby, so what if she’s just using the man she’s seducing? Why should she care about his feelings, problems, or concerns?
Of course the reason this whole question arises is because those who can afford it, would like to change the rules of what constitutes a family, so that they may use and exploit family members – then simply refuse to acknowledge them as family members, so that they can “give” the child to the person they’d rather co-parent with.
To me the real question about gay marriage is not whether gays should have “rights” – it should be noted that it is not society but biology that “discriminates” against gays, by not allowing them to “marry”: they are biologically incapable of becoming kin, and can only pass for kin through an act of fraud.
To me the real question about gay marriage involves that act of fraud. What is it about being gay that gives someone the right to pick and choose which family obligations they’d like to honor?
Children deserve to have both kinds of relationship: mother and father. Both are valuable, and children should not be robbed so casually.
They also deserve to not have their biological connections severed for frivolous reasons: people have an interest in knowing their own biological kin, and the only time we should take that away from them (and, yes, recognize it for the loss it is) is when it’s necessary.
It’s become fashionable to assume everything is “all about me”. But when family becomes “all about me”, it stops being family. Human relationships are reduced to drama and power struggle as the affluent use and manipulate the less powerful.
February 28th, 2011 | 2:44 pm
A retronym is a new name for an object or concept to differentiate the original form or version of it from a more recent form or version.
–Wikipedia
“Traditional marriage” makes it onto the list of retronyms which includes “acoustic guitar,” “representational painting,” “Classic Coke,” and “Hank Williams, Sr.”
February 28th, 2011 | 9:46 pm
The last marriage I attended was in Denver, Colorado.
The first kiss between the couple came after the Padre stated, “I now declare you man and wife”
The courtship of this couple was a traditional Catholic one.
God is dead is a Friedrich Nietzsche Time Magazine article of April 8, 1966.
The article is appropriate for the modernists of today that have given up hope.
At least Judas realized he was wrong and spent a few minutes agonizing over his error.
Today people just make error an everyday part of their life, to be tolerated and celebrated.
Jesus Christ put the ‘Tradition’ in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony when He put His hands in the water and changed it into wine.
Marriage of itself was fine; it was clear and cool like water.
But after a while, water gets stale, and bitter if left to stand alone.
Wine of the best kind, as Christ made becomes better with age.
So go Marriages with Christ in them.
Tradition.
*
February 28th, 2011 | 10:07 pm
Blake writes: “To me the real question about gay marriage involves that act of fraud.”
I know two gay men raising a minority, special-needs child who was abandoned by their oh-so-honest heterosexual, biological parents who couldn’t be bothered with the burden.
Your comment is slanderous.
“What is it about being gay that gives someone the right to pick and choose which family obligations they’d like to honor?”
Heterosexuals are doing a fine job of abandoning their own obligations, if you ask me. I love how Newt Gingrich has the audacity to pontificate about the immorality of gay couples when he pressed his first wife to sign divorce papers while she was in the hospital being treated for cancer. Gays are looking to solidify those obligations, so your critique seems a bit misplaced, don’t you think?
February 28th, 2011 | 10:51 pm
I know two gay men raising a minority, special-needs child who was abandoned by their oh-so-honest heterosexual, biological parents who couldn’t be bothered with the burden.
Your comment is slanderous.
Those who advocate for gay marriage want to change the law for the express purpose of enabling exploitation.
I am sure there are individual gays who are not out to exploit anyone. In fact, I would guess that most gays are not.
But just because they may not mean to hurt anyone does not mean they aren’t doing a terrible thing, when they try to pressure an entire generation of children into believing that it is selfish for a child to want a relationship with both mother and father.
Same-sex and opposite-sex parents are not identical, and the two types of relationship are not interchangeable.
By the way it’s a pet peeve of mine, when people talk about orphaned children or children in crisis, children whose families of origin have been destroyed somehow, as if these children are somehow lucky to be tossed crumbs.
The “sexual revolution” is what destroyed the American family in the first place.
If we were a less narcissistic nation – if we prioritized children above sexual pleasure, instead of vice versa – then there would be far fewer children in crisis, and of those kids in crisis, we’d be able to find families willing to offer the child both a mother and a father, instead of saying “well aren’t you lucky to get what you we feel like giving you?”
February 28th, 2011 | 11:19 pm
There is a lot to be said about the “term” “traditional marriage” however the use of the term is what is under question here.
I would question the issue of ‘authority’ (and I am not anti-authority). Marriage is an ancient institution which is not merely a social arrangement made up as human history went along. Marriage began ‘in the beginning’. if it did not exist then, well folks, there wouldn’t be anything after the beginning would there?
Certainly there have been many expressions of marriage within many cultures-certainly not what someone would call ‘traditional’. Perhaps we are (sadly) living in an age that obviously has precursors in ages past when all sorts of arrangements were indeed made. However, something within the human race tells us that there is ‘an ideal’ of marriage at least.
Certainly the Revelation given to Israel ultimately informed the idea of marriage-One God, one spouse in an exclusive faithful covenant-however it was already an ‘ideal’ if not practiced commonly in other cultures
Marriage is connected to the propagation of the human race. This is what, for the first time in our age, is being questioned. it was questioned long before ‘gay rights’ etc surfaced. It was questioned with the advance of the ‘contraceptive agenda and culture’ which hit wave after wave on Judaeo-Christianity. Up until 1930 the deep connection between marriage and procreation was maintained-but then in 1930 it cracked with the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion giving some ‘exceptions’ on the issue of ‘birth control withn marriage’-the cracks widened and the flood opened.
It is the Gospel that gives us the third fundamental component: love. Not that married couples did not love one another before the Gospel of Christ-that simply is not true. However it is the love with which they love each other that is new and transformed-the love that is like Christ’s, the love that is the Holy Spirit poured out into the hearts of two baptized Christians.
Is it ‘traditional marriage’ or ‘the nature of marriage’, what it was and was meant to be ‘from the beginning’ when God, not man instituted it-that we are talking about?
March 1st, 2011 | 12:29 am
James: Do you suppose your comment is any less slanderous?
March 1st, 2011 | 8:40 am
Hey, how about we call it orthodox marriage instead of traditional marriage? That’s harder to argue against since traditions can be made or started at any time.
March 1st, 2011 | 5:08 pm
If marriage is solely about the State creating the most suitable environment for raising children, why then do we grant marriage licenses to convicted pedophiles, rapists, murderers and drug dealers? I have yet to hear anyone suggest that a civil marriage license should be denied to any heterosexual convicted of any of the above offenses. Heck, I don’t think they’d even be denied the blessing of their local pastor, would they?
In any rate, check your local adoption agencies. Most likely, there are dozens of children looking for homes. If heterosexual couples were breaking down the doors trying to adopt the discarded children of other heterosexuals, perhaps there would be a reasonable discussion of what scenario would be the optimal situation for the kids in question. As it stands, that’s not happening. It seems to me they’re better off in a home with two people where they are actually loved and cared for rather than living in foster care or a single-parent household or group facility.
March 1st, 2011 | 8:09 pm
So, James, are you saying that you would accept a law that denied marriage licenses to same sex couples if it also denied marriage licenses to convicted pedophiles, rapists, murderers and drug dealers? And are you also saying that you would accept a law that denied same sex couples the right to adopt any children other than the ones that heterosexual couples have refused to adopt?
March 1st, 2011 | 10:02 pm
If marriage is solely about the State creating the most suitable environment for raising children, why then do we grant marriage licenses to convicted pedophiles, rapists, murderers and drug dealers?
The right to procreate has been classed as a basic human right.
Saying that someone should not be allowed to have kids because they are drug dealer, or a rapist – or a homosexual, or a necrophiliac, or a religious minority – is unethical. (This recognition arises out of the 20th century’s experimentation with involuntary sterilization.)
The question of gay marriage is not about the right to procreate – gays have as much right to procreate as anyone else. The question is whether being gay warrants granting generous exceptions to the rules governing honorable procreative behavior – for instance:
- recognizing, honoring, and caring for the person you make a baby with (as opposed to using them and dumping them out on the street like a common prostitute when you’re done with them).
- placing the child’s well-being first, currently considered the most important priority in defining “good” parenthood
- treating children and family members as people, rather than as goods (commodities, transferable goods) or services (“gestational carriers” and “donors” – things rather than roles)
If gay marriage passes, the basic rules about how family is defined will be altered. A child’s well-being will be demoted; the almighty crotch will be elevated.
March 2nd, 2011 | 11:11 am
Marriage is not so much about procreation as about filiation. As Jean Carbonnier was fond of saying, any account of the function of marriage must take account of the fact that the law facilitates marriage “in extremis.” Now a death-bed marriage obviously serves no procreative purpose! It can, however, establish an incontestable paternal bond.
Same-sex marraige will either establish a two-tier system of marriage, as in Belgium and the Netherlands, where filiation is confined to opposite-sex couples or to the abandonment of legitimate filiation altogether, with the paternal bond being created either by acknowledgement or judicially.
Even the old maxim, “Mater semper certa est” [The mother is always certain] is now problematic, with jurists debating the rival claims of the “genetrix” and the “gestatrix,” with the tide of European jurisprudence favourig the latter.
It seems pretty clear that the question of Same-sex marriage cannot meaningfully be discussed, apart from the questions of adoption and assisted reproduction. But this is simply to acknowledge the “traditional” view that marriage is about providing men with legitimate offspring and children with an indivisible filiation to both father and mother.
Thus, as the French Senate said, in ist report on the Ordinance of 4 July 2005:
“The presumption of paternity of the husband rests on the obligation of fidelity between spouses and reflects the commitment made by the husband during the celebration of marriage, to raise the couple’s children. The report presenting the order to the President of the Republic rightly points out that ” it is, in the words of Dean Carbonnier, the ‘heart of marriage,’ and cannot be questioned without losing for this institution its meaning and value.”"
March 2nd, 2011 | 3:24 pm
Same-sex marraige will either establish a two-tier system of marriage, as in Belgium and the Netherlands, where filiation is confined to opposite-sex couples or to the abandonment of legitimate filiation altogether, with the paternal bond being created either by acknowledgement or judicially.
The next civil rights debate is going to be the child.
It is already started. To concerns over Octomom, growing awareness of issues involving exploitation in international adoption and using third world people as “gestational” livestock, etc. – these are the sorts of issues that attack our cognitive dissonance, our belief that on the one hand all people deserve to be equal but on the other hand Jon and Kate Gosselin have a legal right to exploit their children and be exempt from certain rules protecting child actors because the children aren’t “acting”.
The only thing I think left to be determined is whether we’ll have to legalize gay marriage and actually witness exploitation and abuse before we act, or whether we can generate awareness without living out the scenario.
But I have no doubt that, sooner or later, the outcome will be the same: gays will be recognized as couples, but laws will explicitly protect the children from being reduced to the role of props in someone else’s drama.
March 2nd, 2011 | 5:13 pm
I should add another concern: the law and/or society is also going to have to eventually resolve where the line should be between “freedom”, on the one hand, vs. the right of the state using its power to force us into accepting certain beliefs as “moral”.
This is the basis of the comparison between gays and blacks: “it is right for the state to force you to not hold bigoted beliefs or engage in bigoted actions against blacks, so therefore it is right for the state to use force to make people not hold bigoted beliefs or engage in bigoted actions against…anyone.”
Except there are two important considerations:
1) that blacks were discriminated against to the extent and in the way they were was the direct cause of slavery, so to the extent that the government used force, it did so only to correct its own error (undo its own prior action);
2) is it right for the state to use its power to enforce a set of beliefs? At what point does the state have the right to require you to not be a bigot?
I believe the answer to that can only be found in recognizing the hierarchical nature of rights. When liberals use the phrase “civil rights”, they usually seem to be referring to a special set of “special” rights. To say this or that is a “civil right” is basically a shortcut for the argument, “this right is morally one of the special rights that deserves protection under the law. Therefore you have no right to contest it.”
This conception is two-tiered: there are “rights” and there are “civil rights”.
But really, rights are not so simple. Some rights are more basic than others, and the liberal’s “civil right” argument always relies on focusing on one man’s right, while ignoring that one man’s gain might be another man’s loss – that is, that the other fellow has “rights” too.
This is the essence of identity politics, the idea that the way to mediate between conflicting rights is by prioritizing the “less privileged” group.
But it’s not necessary and it’s not the best way to solve the problem, because a better, more ethical way to solve the problem is to resolve conflicts by granting preference to the more fundamental right.
March 2nd, 2011 | 5:14 pm
oops I meant “was the direct result” not “was the direct cause”.
March 3rd, 2011 | 6:53 am
Blake
I agree with most of what you say.
On the question of “civil rights,” in European usage, “civil rights” refers to political rights, the rights of the citizen, such as the right to hold office, to vote &c, as opposed to “human rights.” Loss of civil rights is commonly imposed as a penalty for crime, whereas human rights are “natural, inalienable and sacred” to quote the Declaration of 26 August 1789 (The French equivalent of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights rolled into one)
Even in a country so committed to the principles of laïcité as France, we have seen the near-unanimous opinion of jurists, endorsed by the county’s two highest courts (the Cour de Cassation (2007) and the Conseil Constitutionnel (2010)) refusing to recognise a right to same-sex marriage.
Likewise, surrogacy agreements were struck down in a plenary session of the Cour de Cassation in 1991, relying on Article 1128 of the Code Civil of 1804 that “only things in commerce can be the subject of an agreement.” Of course, this also excludes any trafficking in human genetic material. Similarly, under the Law of 29 July 1994, assisted reproduction can only be used to treat a “pathological condition,” which excludes healthy same-sex couples and any other “conceptions of convenience.”
Even the Netherlands has confined adoption by same-sex married couples to children who are Dutch citizens, in compliance with its obligations under the Hague Convention on International Adoption, another example of “two-tier marriage.”
In view of the French experience, I do think it unfortunate that, in the United States, both sides have presented SSM as, primarily, a religious question; something that would be unthinkable in France. There, the argument has been (1) Mandatory civil marriage, makes the institution a pillar of the secular Republic, standing clear of the religious sacrament (2) The institution of republican marriage is inconceivable, absent the idea of filiation, enshrined, not in Church dogma, but in the Civil Code (3) The sex difference is central to filiation. Same-sex marriage is presented, not as immoral, but futile and its likely consequences, in the adaptation of legislation to accommodate it, inimical to the institution of the family.
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