…[What this debate is really about is]…a particular vision of marriage… This ideal holds up the commitment to lifelong fidelity and support by two sexually different human beings ”” a commitment that involves the mutual surrender, arguably, of their reproductive self-interest ”” as a uniquely admirable kind of relationship. It holds up the domestic life that can be created only by such unions, in which children grow up in intimate contact with both of their biological parents, as a uniquely admirable approach to child-rearing. And recognizing the difficulty of achieving these goals, it surrounds wedlock with a distinctive set of rituals, sanctions and taboos.
[This view] was a particularly Western understanding, derived from Jewish and Christian beliefs about the order of creation…
Lately [however, this view]… it has come to co-exist with a less idealistic, more accommodating approach, defined by no-fault divorce, frequent out-of-wedlock births, and serial monogamy.
In this landscape, gay-marriage critics who fret about a slippery slope to polygamy miss the point. Americans already have a kind of postmodern polygamy available to them.
Glen Greenwald took Douthat to task for wanting to continue to extend the ideal of heterosexual marriage in the civil law. Douthat today in the Times responds well including this concluding remark:
The last sentence captures the issue exactly.
The commitment to have and raise children is, of course, generative; it also involves great risk and vulnerability — for both parents and children. It is anything but contractual, again, not only for the children but for the parents as well. Either or both parents may be called upon to make extraordinary sacrifices. The norm of lifelong, procreative marriage is the only one that is sufficiently resilient and durable to honor the sacrifices all make — it’s fidelity across the generations. To declare that the norm is, in itself, empty and insignificant has the effect of undermining and confusing the commitment involved. Does that harm me? No. Am I in anyway threatened by a faithful same-sex couple? No. But systemic confusion is a dangerous thing. In the Episcopal Church, all the language of the recent resolutions has to do with adult needs and fulfillment — and therefore makes a travesty of the church’s teaching on marriage. Is this OK?
Here’s the thing — if one agrees that it’s proper and good for secular society to license relationships because it encourages stability and better behavior, then I don’t see how one can NOT support same-sex unions. It would normalize a gay community renowned for promiscuity and lack of commitment. It would provide some sense of stability.
Personally, I don’t believe that secular society should license relationships. We’ve evolved (and our laws have evolved) beyond the need for the state to form unions to protect girls and women from bad arrangements under which they had no control. That was one of the primary reasons for civil marriage in the first place.
The religious matter is a whole separate issue.
Is this OK? No, it’s not; it’s why the Anglican Communion ought to disassociate itself from the increasingly secular pagan Episcopal Church (United States),
It was a very well thought-through column and Douthat said a lot in a few words. Good thinking, good writing. The few comments I’ve seen here and elsewhere, though, miss Douthat’s rejection of many of the commonplace arguments for having the state be the agent of religion in imposing dual gender marriages as a matter of law.
teatime, you must have missed the NYTIMEs article about how aprx half gay ‘marriages’ are open and they think that aspect will have a postive influence on marriage overall.
it’s here: http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/28390
“When Rio and Ray married in 2008, the Bay Area women omitted two words from their wedding vows: fidelity and monogamy.”
despite protests i believe their purpose is to destroy the concept of marriage. society, imo, should license relationships because the very purpose of it is to promote underlying stability and continuity for the whole. where everything’s gone off the rails is that now people are only out for themselves rather than working for the good of the community. that is why certain societies in history thrived rather than falling into disarray.
the long term consequences of this will eat at society like a slow moving cancer.
magnolia,
No, I read that article. It doesn’t surprise me. But, then again, infidelity is quite common in heterosexual marriages, as well. As a single woman, I used to be quite astonished when I was younger at how many married men thought nothing of wanting to “date” me and were righteously indignant when I told them to get lost. The experiences of my friends were the same. For this and other reasons, I’m committed to remaining single and I really don’t buy all of the happy rhetoric about the stability of marriage. The statistics justify that. I would venture that the number of “open” homosexual marriages would be quite similar to the number of heterosexual marriages that contain infidelity.
Society continues to love the idea of marriage, though, and it’s not surprising that they want to “expand” it. That’s the problem when the secular state licenses relationships. Such licensing has moral implications which, IMO, oversteps the state’s boundaries. In my view, a secular society should not be making those determinations and, if they do, then they’d best be prepared to license all sorts of arrangements; otherwise, they’re discriminating against parts of the citizenry over something very personal. (The only protection they should offer is protecting minors.)
Personally, I don’t believe that the state should license any relationships and, oh my, do the proponents of same-sex marriage hate that position (I’ve discovered first-hand). I believe that relationships and family issues are moral ones, properly handled by faith communities for their own believers without ANY political or state interference. This way, those without a faith or religious community don’t have to even bother their pretty heads about “icky” things like values.
Make no mistake, this isn’t the end of it. We’re already seeing polygamous relationships entering the picture. In the past few months, I’ve seen two documentaries on TV about the polyamorous lifestyle involving both homosexual and bisexual threesomes and foursomes. It’s going on in every community. Check out the Personals section of Craig’s List for your location. It’s pretty shocking.
Pandora’s Box has been opened. The madness has to stop somehow.
The trouble is Teatime, that it does not have to stop unless you mean that the endpoint is some form of revolution from inside or invasion from outside. Absent these, the slide into moral decay is as predictable and as long as that time when one or the other above cited takes place. Now, most powerful societies die from the inside out, and this will probably happen to us. My guess is that the vast and growing disparity between rich and poor will generate the violence because we have so little patience with the old position of being content with one place in life and because we are a gun owning society. Weapons are everywhere; they are simply waiting to be organized by a charismatic leader. I’m 75, but I would not be surprised to see the violence break out in my lifetime as public debt crushes society and as the rich remain untroubled by hoi polloi’s
damning dilemmas.
There is one possibility that the past may not have seen: drug use is increasing and marijuana use will spread even more rapidly as it is legalized. We may have a stoned population, something new under the sun, which can be kept under control by controlling access to drugs. In short, Soma and its regulation may be making its appearance. Opium kept China passive for more than a century, and its equivalent may have the same effect here. Larry
teatime, i enjoyed reading your pov but i see ‘open’ and ‘infidelity’ as two separate things. open means that both parties understand and are aware , infidelity in most hetero couples involve secrecy and more often than not one of them wouldn’t be giving permission.
beyond that i would venture that many marriages are happy and faithful. the downslide began with easy divorce and the attitude of selfishness that supercedes caring about the common good of the family. we have no social contract anymore except for what is determined to be politically correct. morality is skewed. marriage is damaged but not knocked out with easy divorce but it will be as more and more people demand that their relationship be officially recognized.
i agree though with most of what you stated.