Conor Friedersdorf has a pretty good take-down of Rick Santorum’s reasons for opposing same-sex marriage. Friedersdorf evidently supports same-sex marriage for culturally conservative reasons (praising marriage and its value to families, wanting to preserve it). Santorum’s argument against same-sex marriage, on the other hand, is little more than an assertion of authority and definition. Santorum writes:
A husband is a man who commits to a woman, to her and any children she may give him. He commits to his wife without any reservations, to share with her all his worldly goods and to exclude all others from this intimate communion of life. From this vow of marriage comes a wonderful and unique good: any children their union creates will have a mom and a dad united in love, in one family.
Friedersdorf responds by pointing out the wide gap between these assertions about marriage and the actual practice and legal requirements of marriage:
That’s a vision of sacramental marriage, but it ain’t civil marriage in these United States. In civil marriage, prenuptial agreements are permitted, so the man hardly shares all his worldly goods, and plenty of people marry with reservations, and without violating the law when they do so. People write their own vows too. Sometimes they say them in Vulcan! Sometimes they don’t include sexual fidelity, and if they cheat or sleep around with or sans permission they are hardly compelled to divorce. The state keeps on viewing them as being married. Alternatively, it’ll permit them to divorce and marry other people, even if they have kids. So much for “one united family.”
“That’s the special work of marriage in law — to connect things that otherwise fray and fragment: love, life, money, moms, and dads,” Santorum says. Interestingly, gay people are sometimes moms and dads, and the ones who want to marry typically seek material and emotional security — just like straight people, they’re trying to prevent love and money from fraying.
ptt says:
Santorum doesn’t “oppose same-sex marriage”. He opposes any recognition of gay couples in the law. Why gay people and our supporters play along and don’t make it absolutely clear how out of step he is with the American people and how dishonest his rhetoric is mystifies me.
January 17, 2012, 10:26 pmSteve says:
The argument for marriage equality that seems to resonate with people who didn’t support the concept all along is what Andrew Sullivan calls the “conservative argument” for same-sex marriage: the idea that same-sex couples can love one another, commit to one another, and raise children together in a stable family unit just as opposite-sex couples do. Not everyone agrees with these premises, of course, but more and more people are coming to the conclusion that same-sex marriage advocates aren’t asking to change what marriage means, they’re actually asking to buy into the traditional (and somewhat idealized) concept that has existed all along.
So I guess I probably agree with a lot of the things Rick Santorum says about the importance of the family unit to society. I believe kids have better outcomes in a stable, two-parent household. I support a lot of government policies that aim at supporting marriage and the maintenance of stable family relationships. It’s just that he sees the male-female relationship as an indispensable part of all this and for my part, while that sort of commitment is the only one I’ve ever known, from everything I can see the love and commitment shared by same-sex couples doesn’t seem any different from what I see in my own marriage.
January 17, 2012, 10:46 pmJoe says:
In Audacity of Hope, Obama notes that he felt that the “absence of any meaningful consensus” made SSM a distraction from other more “attainable” measures to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians. He also supported civil unions for same sex couples.
Politically, though pragmatism might not be totally principled, his opposition to same sex marriage was likely at based on that once he no longer was some small town pol. Meanwhile, he has helped “attain” and continues to fight for more means to deal with said discrimination.
Pragmatism and compromise is not totally lacking in religion either. People’s long term religious beliefs are often based on doctrine that was the based of a compromise between conflicting doctrinal choices. The average believer manages and though they might not be as “sophisticated” as Santorum’s brand of faith, the end result often is better.
January 17, 2012, 10:47 pmMark Field says:
If it’s any consolation, Santorum wants to enforce his views of marriage on straight folks as well. All of the things you mention as not embodied in law, would be so if he had his way.
January 17, 2012, 10:53 pmChris E. says:
I’m still waiting for the sophisticated argument in favor of gay marriage. So far, from what I gather: 1) it’s what some people want, and 2) everyone else is a bigot.
January 17, 2012, 10:55 pmJoe says:
[a few typos mixed there ... I guess it fits since change is messy too]
January 17, 2012, 10:56 pmHarry Huntington says:
Actually no candidate, Santorum included, has provided a rationale for the state to have anything to do with marriage. You can have child support laws without marriage. You can have laws dealing with inheritance without marriage. There is no reason to prefer “spouses” or “partners” for health insurance, tax benefits, or a share of one’s pension or social security. State interference with marriage is merely a legacy (and a tired one of that) of laws designed to extend to the middle class (back in the 19th century) the type of financial protections routinely extended to rich girls when they “married.” Marriage laws are all about dividing property in a way that is socially acceptable. They are designed to prevent a man from taking the best years of a woman’s life and leaving her destitute. Fact is these days the state does not need to provide that protection for women (or men) regardless of their sexual orientation. The answer to the marriage issue is to get the state out entirely.
January 17, 2012, 10:57 pmRoger says:
So Santorum is wrong because some people recite wedding vows in Vulcan? This posting is the silliest argument yet.
I am glad that the candidates do not waste debate time giving arguments about same-sex marriage. Obama is against it and the Republicans are against it. Arguments against are well-known and there is no need to discuss Vulcan wedding vows. There are many bigger issues.
January 17, 2012, 10:59 pmMarksleen says:
Interesting how the criticism of Santorum’s argument is that the exceptions should define the rule. If marriage has no core meaning and does not exhalt an ideal that provides tangible benefit to people beyond those involved, why have the state involved in it? If marriage is solely about modern notions of romantic love, why should the state coerce me into providing tax benefits to support it?
January 17, 2012, 11:08 pmSteven says:
“The understanding asserted in the writings of natural-law theorists and in Catholic doctrine, upon which Santorum draws, is that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life, and that sex is proper only for the purpose of procreation within that union.”
Your argument would be more persuasive if you avoided showing such ignorance of Catholic theology. The Church teaches that sex within marriage is important both for procreation and for the good of the spouses themselves. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2360–2372, particularly 2361.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm#2360
DC: True, there’s an assertion in natural law and Catholic doctrine that marital sex alone serves both unitive and procreative goods. But the point relevant here is the religious insistence on procreation — such that even non-procreative marital sex (like oral or anal sex) is condemned under the doctrine. Catholic teaching, at least, is that the use of “non-natural” methods of contraception (e.g., condoms and the pill) even among married couples is morally wrong. This view is nowhere reflected in the law; and even at the time of Griwsold v. Connecticut, it was the law in only one state. It’s an understanding of sex within marriage that is consistent with Santorum’s religious beliefs, and one which he and other believers are free to practice, but was long ago abandoned in the law and is accepted today by very few people except conservative Catholics.
January 17, 2012, 11:11 pmDan Z. says:
Why is it necessary for anyone who’s against gay marriage to articulate a coherent reason to oppose gay marriage– so that those who are for it might reconsider their beliefs?
January 17, 2012, 11:15 pmTim J. says:
It reads like you tried really hard to not listen to Santorum’s arguments here. Disagree, sure, but you should at least be able to frame the other guy’s argument in terms he would consider fair.
Calling him inconsistent because straights don’t live fully up to the standard of marriage is silly, since I think we can be confident he would oppose that as well. And while it can be tricky to extrapolate back into the past, I feel confident enough that had he been around, Santorum would have been opposing the legal innovations that made divorce so common-place today, given that he is a supporter of covenant marriage.
January 17, 2012, 11:18 pmJoeJP says:
Harry Huntington says:
There is no reason to prefer “spouses” or “partners” for health insurance, tax benefits, or a share of one’s pension or social security.
Going to the other extreme isn’t overly convincing either. The couples involved have special relationships that provide SOME reason to prefer them in various respects.
State interference with marriage is merely a legacy (and a tired one of that) of laws designed to extend to the middle class (back in the 19th century) the type of financial protections routinely extended to rich girls when they “married.”
Marriage laws apply to all classes and include things that have nothing to do with financial matters at all. Misguided myopic views of a complex institution that make it about such limited things are problematic no matter what side is involved.
Marriage laws are all about dividing property in a way that is socially acceptable.
Marriage laws apply when there is no property involved.
They are designed to prevent a man from taking the best years of a woman’s life and leaving her destitute.
Marriage laws provide fiscal benefits the other way around too, but again, they do much more than that.
Fact is these days the state does not need to provide that protection for women (or men) regardless of their sexual orientation.
Marriage laws provides lots of things that are still useful to both parties.
The answer to the marriage issue is to get the state out entirely.
The partners would still have many things growing out of their “marriage” (fill in word) relationship that the state will have to regulate. They can not “get out” even if we don’t hand out state marriage licenses.
January 17, 2012, 11:18 pmTim J. says:
Yes, that part was painful. When you can’t even correctly articulate the position of the largest religious denomination in the world, you clearly haven’t bothered to do even basic research on the topic. This is the equivalent of opining on foreign policy by worrying about what might happen if China gets nuclear weapons.
January 17, 2012, 11:25 pmbuddyglass says:
For many opponents of same-sex marriage (of which I am not one) I think the issue mainly comes down to adoption. If you let gays marry then it’s that much more difficult to keep them from adopting. You generally want to keep them from adopting for some combination of the following reasons:
1. “Children need a mother and a father”.
2. “Gays (men at least) are more likely to commit sexual abuse.“
3. “Since homosexuality is purely psychological, children adopted by gay parents are more likely to wind up gay themselves.“
4. “Even if these kids don’t turn out gay, they’ll most likely turn out to be highly accepting of homosexuality, and that’s bad too.”
#1 may or may not be true, but it’s not really relevant if we suppose that being adopted by two gay parents is superior to being raised by straight foster parents or in a Ukranian orphanage.
#2 may possibly be true in the case of two men adopting a son, but otherwise no. A household consisting of two lesbians and a daughter is probably less likely to result in sexual abuse than one containing a father, mother and an adopted child of either gender.
#3 is probably false.
#4 is probably true, but taken to its logical conclusion it argues for prohibiting anyone who’s “gay friendly” from adopting.
January 17, 2012, 11:26 pmscattergood says:
The argument against SSM is an really a discussion of what it means to engage in homosexual acts. Is engaging in homosexual acts a deterministic behavior and thus should not be subject to any moral framework, or is it a non-deterministic behavior and should be subject to a moral framework?
If you believe that engaging in homosexual acts is deterministic, that is it the expression of a state of being of an individual, then you will eventually come to see SSM as a right and that those who engage in homosexual acts are denied equality, thus it isn’t being for SSM, but for marriage equality.
If you believe that engaging in homosexual acts is not deterministic, and that it is subject to some moral framework, then being force to recognize SSM and sanction it goes against ones moral framework and you will oppose it.
Unfortunately, all the scientific evidence in the world does not support that engaging in homosexual acts is a deterministic behavior. Twin studies conclusively refute that notion.
So supporting SSM is a moral decision no more and no less than not supporting SSM.
January 17, 2012, 11:43 pmMark Field says:
Just a point of terminology: the equivalent term for “sophistry” when applied to Catholics (usually Jesuits) by their opponents is “casuistry”.
January 17, 2012, 11:44 pmBABH says:
But see also 2363: “these two purposes cannot be separated.” So nice try, but Prof. Carpenter’s point stands.
January 17, 2012, 11:50 pmBABH says:
Of course, it may be that some moral decisions are incorrect (e.g. “slavery is acceptable”) and others are correct (e.g. “gay and lesbian marriages are worthy of celebration and support”).
January 17, 2012, 11:57 pmAsher says:
The mostly likely function of heterosexual marriage is to stabilize the sexual marketplace interactions between men and women. It is not not NOT abut procreation, at least not directly. On the other hand, gays, by and large, don’t get married, when given the chance. The whole argument is about as serious as an argument over the state flower.
The only real danger is of feminism attempting to use residual reasoning to blur the distinctions between men and women, on a legal basis.
Relationships between same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples have a different importance in society, because of the vast differences between men and women.
If the parts are different the holes are different.
Erm, wholes.
January 17, 2012, 11:58 pmAsher says:
Slavery is only wrong because Lincoln killed six hundred thousand people to establish its wrong-ness, in the US. If he had not established it by blood it would not be wrong. Taboos are usually (always?) established in blood. What is considered right or wrong, at any particular time, is a function of power.
January 18, 2012, 12:01 amClark says:
Aargh. At least make an argument that does not obviously justify a million other forms of bigotry that you would not be caught defending in public.
January 18, 2012, 12:02 amConor Friedersdorf Rebuts Santorum's Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage | The Cockle Bur says:
[...] arguments in a coherent manner, unlike Santorum’s stump speeches. Dale Carpenter over at the Volokh Conspiracy also has a take on Santorum’s [...]
January 18, 2012, 12:08 amptt says:
No he doesn’t. He has no program for imposing his views by law on straight couples. He won’t even suggest it and, when questioned about the state banning contraceptives — something he thinks it should be able to do — he hides behind the word “silly”. Regulating heterosexuals appears to be silly.
January 18, 2012, 12:08 amEllen S says:
Why is child-rearing the central purpose of marraige in 2012? At one point, many people devoted much of marriage to child-rearing. The average life expectancy in 1800 was 25, and the average life expectancy in 1900 was 50. Today, the average life expectancy is more than 75 and going up. We wouldn’t think of denying women the right to marry after menopause because they can’t have children.
The gay community had vigorous debates about marriage in the 1980s — some gays argued that marriage was bourgeois and therefore contrary to gay life. Given that so many straight people seem unwilling to get married, isn’t it nice that there is a demand for marriage?
January 18, 2012, 12:08 amA Berman says:
There are lots of different arguments against Same Sex Marriage. Some of the most powerful ones, i.e., statistically-themed discussions of the effect of the sexual revolution on marriage rates, don’t necessarily fit into a political campaign. So it’s easy pickings to argue against what politicians say while campaigning.
It’s still an unrefuted fact that traditional views of marriage and family lead to more marriages and bigger families than non-traditional views. That’s why traditional views evolved. Traditional Marriage as the ultimate Meme. Pictures passed around on Facebook of happy, caring same sex couples at their same sex wedding surrounded by happy friends does nothing to refute the facts. Maybe we can be ok if a few States have a progressive take on things, but most SSM advocates simply come off as uncaring about the big picture.
January 18, 2012, 12:12 amBABH says:
As I wrote, that may be so, or it may be that there are, in fact, moral truths.
January 18, 2012, 12:15 amAsher says:
For those of you who base their support of same-sex-marriage on the premise that homosexuality is, at least partially, genetic I have one question:
Are there other behavioral traits that have a genetic basis, say, criminality, honesty or intelligence, or are those all determined by environmental inputs.
Yep, homosexuality, especially the male variety, is almost certainly heavily genetic. The problem is that we got a bunch of ignorant hypocrites who want to say that homosexuality the only behavioral trait governed by genetics.
A bunch of goddamned intellectual frauds.
January 18, 2012, 12:17 amptt says:
Well, there’s heterosexuality. It’s about as genetically determined a “behavioral trait” as homosexuality. How about that one?
January 18, 2012, 12:23 amAsher says:
Okay, and what is the source of those moral truths?
January 18, 2012, 12:24 amptt says:
This is an opportunity, Asher, for you to demonstrate your intellectual honesty by explaining to us all how your sexual orientation is like kleptomania. Have at it!
January 18, 2012, 12:25 amgecko says:
I don’t get why everybody is so bent out of shape over a candidate who will most likely end up in the dungheap of nth place finishers. Is the fact that he doesn’t like gay marriage and a tiny percentage of people chose him in a batch of uninspiring candidates and the media had an epileptic fit over it supposed to prove that AMERIKKKA wants to hang gay people and burn them at the stake?
January 18, 2012, 12:34 amptt says:
What is the big picture? When even gay couples get married, what is the big picture about marriage?
January 18, 2012, 12:39 amDebrah says:
Really?
January 18, 2012, 12:44 amClark says:
You do realize that what you think of as traditional marriage is actually quite radical given the history of unions, right? (Actually I don’t think you do).
January 18, 2012, 12:45 amBooker T says:
Gay people have been hoodwinked into equating marriage with civil rights and equality. No other group in society has been placed in that position. Soon we will be hearing this question: “Hey, Joe gay, why are you not married? Don’t you want to have your civil rights and be equal to your fellow citizens?”
Marriage is definitely not about civil rights and equality! At least that is not how it has been historically viewed. It is like saying that black slaves attained civil rights and equality upon marriage.
I submit that gay marriage is a phenomenon invented by amoral libertarians, liberal republicans and democrats to tame and domesticate homosexuality, and eliminate its excesses in this age of HIV/AIDS. This is a sure-fire way to keep the angry gay-rights activists quiescent. After all, the gay marriages one sees on TV are sanitized affairs that never have the cross-dressing and other excesses of gay rights parades.
I will condemn Santorum when you advance a better reason than I have stated above to support gay marriage.
January 18, 2012, 12:46 amClark says:
No, Debrah. I am sure Steve is lying and said that simply to irk you. Could there be any other reason?
January 18, 2012, 12:49 amVladimir says:
If Obama could push a magic button and have his way on this issue, without any political repercussions, what do most SSM supporters think he would do?
I am continually astounded at the free pass he gets on this. He’s either a bigot or a moral coward, yet fifth-tier GOP primary candidates catch more grief in any given week, for the same position, than Obama has since he started running in 2007. It doesn’t to much to dissuade me from viewing the gay rights establishment in the same light as the anti-war left (since 1/20/09) or the deficit hawks on the right (no explanation necessary).
January 18, 2012, 12:50 amDebrah says:
Rick Santorum is far too rigid and conservative on social issues to ever make it out of the gate in a national election.
Obviously, he has surprised lots of people with his hard work and determination to have done as well as he has with so little financial backing.
However, his rigid religious agenda as well as his archaic and inane views on abortion are deal-breakers for centrists and independents.
Does this planet really need more women popping out more babies? (!!!)
And yet, when the rabid gay “activists” like adam’s-apple Dan Savage use terms like “Santorum’s froth” and then ask former prez candidate and SSM detractor Herman Cain to “suck my d!ck” .....
...... you just know which side is the crazier.
January 18, 2012, 12:58 amAlan K. Henderson says:
For human history up until some time after Three’s Company went off the air, marriage was universally understood to be an inherently heterosexual union. For a few years less than that, it was understood to be a contract between the married individuals and society; the idea of general society being a party to the marriage contract lost much favor during modern times.
The State is not a party to the marriage contract. The State’s role is chronicler of the marriage, as it is a chronicler of births, and it enforces certain provisions of the marriage that society delegates to the State, such as divorce and inheritance laws. The State is neither the owner nor the legal custodian of marriage, therefore it lacks the authority to define the concept.
January 18, 2012, 1:04 amAsher says:
Hey, moron, the point is that all behavioral traits have, at least some, basis in genetics. Yeah, including what’s called kleptomania.
January 18, 2012, 1:04 amptt says:
Dan’s asking the Herminator to prove that sexual orientation is a choice by going down on him doesn’t strike me as “crazy”. Certainly it’s rude, but it is also pretty direct and to the point.
January 18, 2012, 1:08 amptt says:
So what was your point? If all behavior is genetic — which I don’t buy — what were you trying to get at?
January 18, 2012, 1:15 amGrover Gardner says:
What would be a “sophisticated argument” in your book? The arguments that have been presented on this site alone, over and over and over, go well beyond “it’s what some people want.” Are you simply dismissing the points continuously raised concerning legal recognition of relationships, the various and sundry rights and benefits afforded married couples, child-rearing, adoption, emotional stability, emotional and physical health, etc. etc. etc.? Are these not sophisticated enough for you?
January 18, 2012, 1:40 amOrenWithAnE says:
Isn’t is great when a poster makes it crystal clear how irrelevant his opinions are:
January 18, 2012, 1:44 amJHW says:
I’m quite certain Obama supports same-sex marriage.
Really? So, Rick Santorum thinks DOMA is unconstitutional and that sexual orientation deserves heightened scrutiny? He opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment? He opposed Prop. 8? He has publicly spoken in support for civil unions with equal federal and state rights?
Complain about Obama’s refusal to publicly express his support for same-sex marriage if you like. But it’s just silly to suggest that his stance on this issue is identical to that of any of the Republican candidates, let alone the one who thinks that all same-sex marriages should be nullified and that consensual same-sex relationships are like sex with children and animals.
January 18, 2012, 1:50 amJHW says:
I’m quite certain Obama supports same-sex marriage.
Really? So, Rick Santorum thinks DOMA is unconstitutional and that sexual orientation deserves heightened scrutiny? He opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment? He opposed Prop. 8? He has publicly spoken in support for civil unions with equal federal and state rights?
Complain about Obama’s refusal to publicly express his support for same-sex marriage if you like. But it’s just silly to suggest that his stance on this issue is identical to that of any of the Republican candidates, let alone the one who thinks that all same-sex marriages should be nullified and that consensual same-sex relationships are like sex with children and animals.
January 18, 2012, 1:50 amRicardo says:
This appears to be incorrect as a matter of law, though. A bit of Googling led me to California’s Family Code Section 300–310 which does, in fact, appear to define marriage and provide the conditions under which the State of California will recognize that a marriage has taken place. Here is the relevant text:
So there you have it. Are you arguing that the California legislature exceeded its authority when it passed Section 300? If so, on what ground?
January 18, 2012, 1:56 amGrover Gardner says:
No, they don’t. They just don’t offer conclusive proof. But they don’t conclusively refute the idea either.
January 18, 2012, 1:58 amD.O. says:
Leaving 2) alone, I think 1) is a pretty compelling argument.
January 18, 2012, 1:58 amA. S. Haley says:
This post is titled “Santorum the Sophist”, but it is the author who engages in the sophistic fallacy of ignoratio elenchi. By contrasting Mr. Santorum’s description of the “sacramental ideal” of marriage as honored by the Catholic Church with the civil law’s current parody of the same name, and by describing the former as “conclusory and weak” in comparison to the latter, Prof. Carpenter demonstrates only the feebleness of his premises’ ability to support his foreordained conclusion.
January 18, 2012, 1:58 amChris E. says:
Not only that, they’re not sophisticated at all. Unless mere guess work is now the relevant bar for sophistication.
January 18, 2012, 2:03 amGrover Gardner says:
What? The gay couples I’m familiar with who are NOT on television, and I’d count at least thirty or more, don’t as a habit act or dress like people in gay pride parades. Their lives hardly need to be sanitized. In most cases they’re pretty boring and mundane.
I think, in fact, that the portrayals of gays in television and movies are moving away from stereotypes and more toward reality–people who pretty much act like everyone else most of the time.
January 18, 2012, 2:06 amGrover Gardner says:
Well, I have to ask again, then: What, in your view, would be a “sophisticated” argument in favor of gay marriage?
I’m not sure what you’re referring to by “guesswork”.
January 18, 2012, 2:10 amAsher says:
@ pH
The point is the idea that the ability to learn things is entirely environmental affects public policy.
Realistically, probably only between fifteen and twenty percent of the population has the intellectual capacity to get anything out of college. Laughably, the state of California has recently instituted a requirement that everyone has to pass Algebra II in order to graduate high school. They did this because a lot of good research found that people who passed Algebra II significantly outperformed those who did not.
Of course, what’s really going on is that Algebra II is a filtering mechanism to select individuals who have an elevated innate reasoning abilities.
Our entire educational system operates on the blatantly false premise of the human mind as a blank slate. So, while leftists wet their panties over the state refusing to issue an endorsement of Jimmy’s and Jonny’s love, we have a grossly broken, inefficient and bloated educational system.
January 18, 2012, 2:11 amAsher says:
@ OrenwithanE
Yes, not only did I say that, but I also said that if what Hitler had said about the Jews had been true the Holocaust would have been a perfectly reasonable response. If there is an identifiable group within society that is malevolent or produces large concentrations of anti-social behavior that is ground for minimizing the impact of that group on society.
A society that refuses to do that is weak and servile. The servile deserve tyranny. If I encounter such a society I have no qualms about bringing about its destruction so that something better can take its place. If I am born into such a society I am going to treat my circumstances as imposing no moral obligations to it, at all, because that is the general state of affairs.
A social contract requires that the parties to it, generally, sustain and observe it. If there are large portions of the population who do not observe the contract then those remaining portions that do are suckers and fools.
January 18, 2012, 2:21 amJ.T. Wenting says:
correct, he only doesn’t want his name on a law that establishes what he considers an immoral practice as legally binding.
Quite different indeed.
As to marriage: IMO it should be restricted to the original purpose of providing a stable environment in which to raise children, and nothing more.
January 18, 2012, 2:29 amNowadays (and that’s the argument used by homosexuals to claim that restricting marriage to heterosexuals is discriminatory) marriage is seen as an economic and fiscal instrument more than anything else. Tax benefits for married couples make being married very attractive, as do things like (in some places at least) getting preferential treatment when applying for housing and things like that. Social security for married couples can be more than what both partners combined would get were they single (whether living together or not).
If such benefits to being married were removed or restricted to those couples who actually are supporting their own children, there’d be a lot fewer marriages, a lot fewer divorces, and no more cry from homosexuals to allow them to marry.
Asher says:
@ Grover Gardner
Look, I think the whole debate is laughable. Heterosexual marriage evolved to make the opposite mating market more stable. The vast differences between men and women make the male-female mating game very competitive and chaotic, and, potentially, very violent. Note, that young male violence patterns are very correlated to marriage rates. Heterosexual marriage creates these benefits for heterosexuals because of the nature of the socially-unregulated heterosexual mating market.
I am not opposed to gay marriage. But I am pretty sure that the same benefits are unlikely to accrue because same-sex mating markets have completely different dynamics than the opposite-sex mating market. And, fercrissakes, gays don’t even get married in significant numbers when they do get the opportunity.
Finally, there is one large issue related to gay marriage that makes me very uneasy, which is its close relationship to gender feminism. The philosophical underpinnings of the movement is what’s known as autonomy theory, which is that the only true human good are things that are freely chosen. Now, when I say “freely chosen” I don’t just mean the absence of physical force, this also includes any social pressure.
And that is dangerous.
January 18, 2012, 2:36 amAsher says:
@ Grover Gardner
In the Constitution we hear about the need to create a more perfect union. Describe how government endorsement of same-sex unions creates a more perfect union (no, no between the two people involved) and a stronger, better functioning society.
Personally, I have zero interest in whether or not government endorses same-sex unions. The US has been inexorably moving away from a more perfect union toward a corrupt diversification, so, I have no investment in the continuance of the current body-politic.
January 18, 2012, 2:43 amDoc Rampage says:
Why do you think that? I’ve never seen the point made except as a minor side point, and gays can adopt today anyway.
No, that’s not the argument against SSM. In fact that has nothing to do with the argument against SSM. The argument against SSM involves the question “why does the government recognize marriage?”. If you think the government recognizes marriage because it makes the married couple feel all giddy and happy, then you might be inclined to support SSM. If you think there is a more serious purpose to marriage, then you have to ask whether recognizing gay relationships satisfies that purpose. I’ve yet to see a libertarian proponent of SSM give a serious response to this question: what legitimate government purpose is served by government recognition of marriage? (except for those who have honestly answered that there isn’t one –but clearly those people have no interest in preserving government-recognized marriages, so their opinion on SSM is suspect).
None of those things constitute an argument for gay marriage. They are (weak) arguments for creating a generic legal framework that lets any small random group form a family-like union, regardless of any sexual relationship. For example, two elderly heterosexual sisters who want to live together and support each other should be allowed to enter such an arrangement.
In fact, I have never seen an argument in favor specifically of gay marriage that didn’t boil down to the fact that gays feel sad and left out because sodomy is not treated with the same reverence and respect accorded to the genuine sex act which can lead to the miracle of a new human being. And that it’s mean of society to let them be sad like that.
January 18, 2012, 2:57 amDoc Rampage says:
That theory is ridiculous in so many ways, it seems fruitless to even start on them, but here goes:
1. Slavery was considered wrong by many Christians (this was the official position of the Catholic Church) hundreds of years before Lincoln.
2. After the US Civil War there were still plenty of places where slavery was not considered wrong.
3. Practically no one’s mind was changed about the wrongness of slavery by the Civil War.
4. People have always had moral positions that were not supported by those in power.
5. People in power have always done things that other people thought were wrong.
6. There is historically little correlation between moral beliefs and laws beyond a few basic laws such as those against murder and stealing. For example, no one thinks that it is inherently immoral to build a shed without getting a permit from the city and an awful lot of people think that it is inherently immoral for a man to tell a girl that he loves her just to get laid and then tell her to get lost because he’s done with her, but that’s not against the law.
7. A great deal (perhaps most) of morality involves what it is moral for those with power to do to those without power. This is not explainable under your account.
January 18, 2012, 3:28 amLarryA says:
Well, yeah. Back when parents married off their children as part of business deals, maintaining control of estates, or sealing treaties, lack of birth control led to more children being born. Of course more of the kids also died before they grew up, and more grown kids were necessary to work on farms, so it worked out.
And of course it led to more marriages. Given that “Til death” was a whole lot shorter there were just as many second, third, or fourth marriages and blended families back then.
Of course that was the European tradition. A lot of other cultures had much different traditions.
“Traditional marriage” isn’t equal to “the way it was in the U.S. in the 1950s.”
Because if you can’t articulate a coherent reason to pass a law against something, the law should not be passed and the thing should not be prohibited.
January 18, 2012, 3:33 amGrover Gardner says:
Well, for starters, two elderly heterosexual sisters are automatically granted legal benefits that gay couples are not, by the simple fact of being related to each other. They already have a “family-like union.” So that doesn’t strike me as a particularly striong rebuttal.
Well, I think it’s about more than feeling “sad” and “left out.” Gay people are treated pretty horribly in far too many places, as a result of prejudice, ignorance and fear. Legalizing gay marriage may or may not help to rectify some of that, but at the very least it may expose people to that fact that there’s precious little difference between gay people and straight people when you come right down to it.
January 18, 2012, 3:37 amGrover Gardner says:
Then I don’t need to waste my time and yours.
January 18, 2012, 3:52 amKen Arromdee says:
Why restrict that to gay sex? Ask him to perform some other activity which disgusts him, such as, oh, eating a bucket of flies. If he refuses, does that mean that eating flies isn’t a choice? If he refuses to pray to Satan, would that mean that religion isn’t a choice?
January 18, 2012, 4:22 amcaptcrisis says:
Santorum’s world view is basically Antonin Scalia’s too.
Scalia doesn’t have to answer any questions about SSM — he’s lived his adult life in a cocoon surrounded by bowing and scraping law students (as a professor) and by bowing and scraping everyone-elses (as a SC justice) — but if pressed, his rationale probably wouldn’t sound much different than Santorum’s.
I make this observation because on matters of law Scalia’s influence is (of course) MUCH greater than Santorum’s.
January 18, 2012, 6:18 amPublic_Defender says:
Yes. Obama may not have set forth a theoretically consistent theory, but he’s a politician trying to make meaningful change. He has succeeded. He has advanced gay rights further than any other president, and as far as anyone could reasonably hope for.
Which matters more, nice words or results? In this and other matters (e.g., sanctions against Iran), Obama chooses results.
January 18, 2012, 7:15 amOwen H. says:
It is hardly our fault that you refuse to see.
January 18, 2012, 7:17 amOwen H. says:
I eagerly await your proposed laws banning people with criminal records/tendencies, who are dishonest, or are of lower than average intelligence, from marrying.
January 18, 2012, 7:22 amsenor says:
I like Rick Santorum. He makes people uncomfortable, which a good presidential candidate should do. He is the first presidential candidate since Robert Kennedy to challenge the glib ceertainties of college students. He is also the only candidate to think and talk in terms of the big picture–what kind of values should a society have–knowing that the American people are too uneducated to understand the importance of what he asks. Does everyone have the “right” to be happy? Does ANYONE have the “right” to be happy? What factors go into the granting of a legal identity by the state? Race? Gender? Sexual orientation? You can take a fetus in the womb after a few weeks, and you can tell whether it is male, female, black, white, Native American, etc. You can’t tell whether it is gay or straight. In fact, as scattergood and others have already said on this post, sexual orientation is the only “identity” deterministic by behavior. If the culture grants legal identity status on that basis, just where is the “limiting principle.?” I know, I know, just raising that rather elementary point makes me a bigot. Like the Obama administration’s constant accusations of racism, this is another attempt to suppress debate. Same-sex marriage may be a political right. if it is, it’s going to have to be won state-by-state and its going to take 50 years. It is not, I would argue, a fundamental constitutional right.
January 18, 2012, 7:47 amRicardo says:
As for Asher, I’d advise steering clear. His incessant attempt to derail threads with off-topic digressions into pseudo-Nietzschean philosophy, evolutionary psychology, genes and IQ and other such topics, his gratuitous insults (“intellectual fraud”, “moron”, “ignorant twat”) and his scurrying away or handwaving when challenged and pressed for citations for his sweeping, unsubstantiated claims reveal the style of a crank and a troll.
January 18, 2012, 7:49 amjrose says:
I’m trying to understand what legitimate government purpose is served by current marriage law that excludes same-sex couples but includes infertile opposite-sex couples.
January 18, 2012, 8:05 amFloridian says:
Too late for that. At least 48 states already allow adoptions by gays.
Only Florida has an absolute prohibition on gays adopting, although the state does allow gays to be foster parents. Go figure.
January 18, 2012, 8:08 amegd says:
Has the president explained to us why he opposes gay marriage? Or are you including President Obama in what “we’re likely to get.”
I think libertarians are eternal pessimists. They whine and complain about the Democrat/Republican candidate, but as soon as there’s a chance to replace them they fall all over themselves pointing out how the new guy is even worse than the old guy.
I’m curious if libtertarians who tend to vote for the mainstream political parties tend to favor incumbents over challengers.
January 18, 2012, 8:49 amJoe says:
Only Florida has an absolute prohibition on gays adopting.
Didn’t that law get overturned in court?
January 18, 2012, 8:56 amrob bob says:
“Friedersdorf evidently supports same-sex marriage for culturally conservative reasons”
Sounds like there might be enough sophism to go all around here.
January 18, 2012, 8:56 amJoe says:
Only Florida has an absolute prohibition on gays adopting, although the state does allow gays to be foster parents.
Didn’t the anti-adoption law get challenged in court, struck down and not appealled?
January 18, 2012, 8:57 amrob bob says:
“That’s a vision of sacramental marriage, but it ain’t civil marriage in these United States....”
Wow, this is really old and weak stuff. Haven’t we covered this ground before? The existence of nonconforming examples does not disprove the root meaning and purpose of marriage. The fact that you can poke lots of holes in the institution of marriage doesn’t dictate that it be further obliterated.
January 18, 2012, 9:02 amrob bob says:
“sex is proper only for the purpose of procreation within that union. ”
I missed where Santorum said that. Now THAT would be a far out position.
January 18, 2012, 9:05 amJoe says:
J.T. Wenting says:
As to marriage: IMO it should be restricted to the original purpose of providing a stable environment in which to raise children, and nothing more.
Marriage was not only for this purpose and we can’t pretend to be able to go back to the fictional original time at any rate.
Marriage was “originally” available for older women who did not have children. For one thing, it was a way to protect women while the women provided certain things for the couple as well.
Nowadays (and that’s the argument used by homosexuals to claim that restricting marriage to heterosexuals is discriminatory) marriage is seen as an economic and fiscal instrument more than anything else.
By many others, including their families, faiths and communities, marriage is a special bond that provides value that goes beyond economics and fiscal. The spousal privilege recognizes this even when money isn’t involved. If this was all about money, things wouldn’t be as emotional as they tend to be.
If such benefits to being married were removed or restricted to those couples who actually are supporting their own children, there’d be a lot fewer marriages, a lot fewer divorces, and no more cry from homosexuals to allow them to marry.
Fiscal benefits are important, including when raising children or caring for people in their old age. But, other things are as well. Also, marriage is not just about children. When not talking about this subject, this is readily apparent to people. Someone sees their parent or grandparent, past childbearing age, get married. They know it isn’t merely about money or children.
Marriage is a special institution in this society and is special for various reasons. This subject somehow compels people to cheapen it to be about limited things, usually in the promotion of discrimination. At times, the side not for that sort of thing goes along, and they are wrong too, if somewhat less so, since they are not doing it to promote inequality and bigotry.
January 18, 2012, 9:07 amOwen H. says:
And yet agaiin you try and smear all homosexuals and those who support equal rights with this filth. And you think this is how to be civil? You think you deserve civility when you accuse everyone that supports equal right and marriage equality of complicity and worse with these vile acts?
Strangely, almost all if not all of the recent stories I’ve seen about foster/adoptive parents torturing or murdering chldren involve straight parents. And despite your false accusations, noot one person here has ever said that homosexuals have never committed such crimes,nor expressed any support for them doing so whatsoever. Meanwhile, you try to pretend that only homosexuals can be evil, and ignore the fact that the vast majority of child abuse is committed by heterosexuals. Even with pedophilia, if the criminal exibits any adult sexual orientation at all it is overwhelmingly hetersexual regardless of their choice of gender for abuse.
January 18, 2012, 9:11 amrob bob says:
Agreed.
January 18, 2012, 9:11 amMark Webster says:
He appears to be agruing that anti-theft laws are discriminatory.
January 18, 2012, 9:23 amrob bob says:
Agreed. I think the general differences between men and women are an important but overlooked point. If an opposite-sex couple is truly different than a same-sex couple, then at the very least it makes sense to have a different word describing it, just like we have different words for apples and oranges.
January 18, 2012, 9:26 amAl B. Tross says:
Santorum has stated: “Any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.”
Wouldn’t one have to conclude that if Santorum were elected President (Heaven forbid!), as Commander in Chief he would have to abstain from shtupping his wife?
January 18, 2012, 9:33 amClark says:
Oh, how come conservatives always forget religion so easily? It’s not the pettiness and nastiness that bothers me, it is the supremely lazy argumentation.
January 18, 2012, 9:38 amWallace says:
Chris E., the sophisticated argument for same sex marriage is to provide support for a same sex couple that has an unexpected pregnancy, promoting their relationship to each other and their biological offspring.
January 18, 2012, 9:40 amClark says:
You should read.
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/police-orange-county-man-tried-set-wife-fire/nF8fW/
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/08/12/1780873/sergeant-who-allegedly-set-wife.html
http://www.khq.com/story/16425718/man-accused-of-trying-to-set-wife-on-fire-leads-police-on-chase-kills-himself
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2012/01/wilfredo_ruiz_accused_of_attem.php
http://www.click2houston.com/news/Man-accused-of-stabbing-setting-wife-on-fire/-/1735978/7626624/-/eayiq0z/-/index.html
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011–08-26/news/ct-met-domestic-violence-nail-polish-20110826_1_heinous-battery-grease-fire-sentencing-hearing
http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/call-centre-worker-sets-pregnant-wife-on-fire-148533
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/gary/gary-man-who-set-fire-to-ex-wife-s-home/article_463b66dc-ff4f-539a-bb3f-47cd13edfcdb.html
January 18, 2012, 9:46 amscattergood says:
Right, but the point I was making is that support for SSM is based on moral approval. Thus what is really sophistry is when Judge Walker in the CA Prop 8 case writes:
Why is it sophistry? Because support for SSM is no different than opposition, it is the assertion of a moral framework, without reason, and not based on fact.
January 18, 2012, 9:47 amrob bob says:
Agreed.
January 18, 2012, 9:53 amBob Loblaw says:
Just wanted to point out that Romney’s position is that apparently we need a constitutional amendment to put society’s stamp of approval on heterosexual marriage, because it encourages children to be brought up in households with a mother and father. So I think this post undersells his position, and likely those of other candidates as well. Romney’s position does have a certain internal logic to it, even if you don’t agree with it (which I don’t).
I also think these kind of posts neglect what is truly scary about the Republican position, which is the idea of more or less permanently embedding the current viewpoint of certain conservatives into our constitution in a way that takes liberty away from the people and the states.
January 18, 2012, 9:54 ambuddyglass says:
When I’ve argued the point with SSM opponents “think of the children” is usually their last line of defense. Civil Rights be damned, SSM is going to harm children so it can’t be allowed.
Point taken. The SSM opponents I’ve argued with must not be aware of that fact. Or, they think that normalization of SSM will make gay couples more appealing candidates for adoption (than they are now) because they’ll be able to officially marry instead of just living together.
January 18, 2012, 10:03 amSteve Donweber says:
Did not see that one coming.
January 18, 2012, 10:04 amrob bob says:
1. The law serving the purpose does not need to be narrowly tailored, and obvious practical considerations favor a simpler rule. What are you going to do, administer fertility tests to everyone?
January 18, 2012, 10:08 am2. Categorical recognition of male-female relationships serves the procreative rationale even without the potential for actual procreation in individual circumstances. That’s because it recognizes the distinct type of relationship.
3. Male-female relationships may have particular benefit outside of procreation, i.e. the general complimentary characteristics of men and women promote stable and productive and healthy relationships. — “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Mark Field says:
Asher’s comments are truly remarkable: he manages to get me and Doc Rampage on the same side. That takes a special talent.
January 18, 2012, 10:15 amKilroy says:
In response to the comment that gays are more likely to molest children:
I don’t think there is any evidence of this fact. In my years as a prosecutor, I never once had a case of a gay man molesting a boy. It was almost always straight men that would never consider sex with another man, but just had a thing for little boys. I think it is just one of those assumptions that a man molesting a boy must be gay because it is two males, but that really isn’t the case.
January 18, 2012, 10:18 amjrose says:
What if sexuality (who you desire, not what your sexual behavior is) is primarily not chosen (regardless of whether it is genetically deterministic)?
January 18, 2012, 10:23 amMark Field says:
He may not say so for political reasons, but that’s what he’d do if we made him dictator tomorrow.
January 18, 2012, 10:25 amscattergood says:
Um, no, this is clearly wrong. If you take the ‘it makes people giddy’ position of marriage therefore everybody should be able to do it, then under what logic do you make any exclusions for people to get married? Consanguinity, is that OK? Polygamy, is that OK? If not, why not?
I am sure it would make some uninsured people feel good and giddy that they can marry their first cousins or uncles or aunts so they can be insured and have other benefits, why shouldn’t they get married if support of any marriage is based on ‘married couple feel all giddy and happy’ thesis?
January 18, 2012, 10:27 amBABH says:
It’s true — he opposes not only Roe, but Griswold. Here you go:
“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘Well, that’s OK, contraception is OK.’ It’s not OK. It’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” Included in this is birth control used by married couples. Sex, he said, is “supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal and unitive, but also procreative.”
January 18, 2012, 10:30 amCJColucci says:
I’m still waiting for the sophisticated argument in favor of gay marriage. So far, from what I gather: 1) it’s what some people want, and 2) everyone else is a bigot.
In a government based on freedom and the consent of the governed, (1) is reason enough unless there’s a damned good argument to the contrary, and (2) is pretty much an empirical fact.
January 18, 2012, 10:31 amClark says:
Sherry, your argument is, as always, airtight except for one small detail you surely must know. The homosexuals use flaming pink sheets for their dirty deeds, not white ones.
January 18, 2012, 10:34 amyankee says:
The basic problem with this argument is that nobody believes that infertile couples who marry are charlatans abusing the institution by taking advantage of a loophole. Nobody expresses shocked horror upon hearing that Grandma is remarrying. Instead, the marriages of the elderly and infertile are eagerly acknowledged and celebrated. Neither law nor society treats their marriages as second-class.
At least that’s the way it is where I live. Maybe you and your friends look on infertile married couples with sneering disdain. I think my way is better.
January 18, 2012, 10:49 amjrose says:
How does recognizing the distinct male-female infertile relationship further the procreative purpose?
Don’t the benefits of stable, productive and healthy relationships (not being alone) apply to gay people too?
January 18, 2012, 10:50 amThales says:
Senor writes:
“Like the Obama administration’s constant accusations of racism, this is another attempt to suppress debate.”
Can you document even a single instance of the Obama administration accusing anyone of racism?
January 18, 2012, 10:52 amG.R. Mead says:
Actually, this is NOT the understanding of the Church — or at least it is a far too narrow rescript of it. The Catechism of the Church has an exceedingly expansive view of the significance of BOTH sexuality and marriage:
Additionally:
———-
It actually is embodied in the word “marriage” itself which only ever had one meaning, as Mr. Henderson notes more adequately than I could:
And the idea that the State “creates” marriage is belied also, as Mr. Henderson also correctly notes:
Not even the Church sees herself as defining or “performing” marriage; the man and his wife accomplish that together. The Church simply witnesses and solemnizes the marriage.
Neither the Church nor the State is a party to the marriage nor the creator or governor of its substance. Even canonical annulment proceedings are merely juridical fact-finding, as to whether the parties ever actually joined with the requisite intent to marry, or the proceeding was in form only and thus not effecting the genuine union of the man and the woman. The Church never “ends a marriage” as the State purports to do in civil divorce — precisely because the Church disavows any competence to sever what God has joined.
The Church has always disavowed the power either to join or to sever the marriage bond. In the course of the steady conquest to grasp a plenary power over marriage, the State, and its ministers in this regard, nakedly betray the ultimate ambition — to stand in the place of God.
In the contest over marriage we see the contest of the State as God, versus God understood — as God. The State is a poor — and dangerous — substitute. In other words, the marriage debate is nothing less than the old totalitarian impulse, yet again, raising its head in supposedly “liberal” trappings. It must be called out as such.
“Sweet nothings” of supposed libertarian impulses are offered as arguments: “Why can’t you let people love the way they want to love?”
That is simply a sugar-coated pile of overripe manure. No one is stopping them. Rather they demand affirmative recognition, in addition to toleration, and call upon the instruments of State force to compel that recognition over long-standing objections.
That is not liberty — that is coercion. And as shown, it is coercion in service of the totalitarian impulse. It generally ends not well.
DC: See above for responses to these points.
January 18, 2012, 11:03 amMark says:
When I was coming of age (70s, early 80s), gays were excoriated by the idiot Religious Right (just coming into its own) for their “promiscuity”. And, of course, when AIDS hit, many of the same people, whether they expressed it publicly or not, attributed it to “God’s judgment”. Now fast forwarding a quarter century, the same cretins, or their successors, get all pissy when gays want to take on the most solemn/burdensome attributes of monogamy in our society. It seems there is no pleasing the devout if you are gay–except to die as part of some “judgment”.
January 18, 2012, 11:25 amTom S says:
Considering that Santorum may end up as Romney’s partner on the Republican ticket (so that the religious right has some skin in the game), he and his reasoning should be examined thoroughly.
January 18, 2012, 11:26 amSarcastro says:
Say what you will about Asher’s “there is no morality and also people who disagree with me are frauds” and Sherry’s “Homosexuals are all pedophile torturers and liberals love it,” but I welcome the broadening the well-trod ground of actually discussing gay marriage to general crazytown.
January 18, 2012, 11:29 amArthur Kirkland says:
Why? Because the state actually exists, and therefore carries all of the inconvenient (for the dogmatic, at least) baggage of reality?
Is my marriage worse for having nothing to do with someone else’s god? What about for having nothing to do with another person’s god? As Homer observed, ‘if we choose the wrong one, God is just going to get madder and madder every day.’
January 18, 2012, 11:29 amShelbyC says:
It wasn’t the gays that determined that the state would recognize some marriages and not others. But since the state has decided to recognize some marriages, it’s only natural that gay folks would want their marriages to be among the ones that are recognized, no?
January 18, 2012, 11:55 amSmooth, Like a Rhapsody says:
@Mark:
“...gays want to take on the most solemn/burdensome attributes of monogamy in our society.”
Nothing is stopping them if that is the extent of their project. What they actually want is recognition that their lifestyle choice is superior to all others except for the one specific “one single adult man/one single adult woman” category currently favored by law.
It does not advance the argument to say that allowing SSM will not harm society; neither will allowing 15yo kids (who demonstrate competence) to drive, allowing people who don’t have JD’s (but who demonstrate competence) to practice law; or legalizing pot (,or allowing plural marriages come to think of it).
The burden is not to show “no harm”. The burden is either to show that it is a constitutional right (which it is not) or to answer the arguments of Rampage and scattergood with something other than handwaving about Loving vs. Virginia.
January 18, 2012, 12:17 pmMalvolio says:
A single incident? Yes.
(Actually, until he said that, I didn’t know he was African-American. Obama, I knew about.)
January 18, 2012, 12:18 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Mark, do you feel confident of your mind-reading abilities regarding all candidates of both parties, and is Santorum the only candidate whose dictatorship you fear?
...
In my universe, “it’s what some people want” is a valid reason to not have something be illegal unless there is an important reason to make it so. Sorry to repeat what I’ve said before and others are saying here — but Santorum’s reason might be valid if the law supported his view of heterosexual marriage. If people can serially divorce and remarry their OS partner on a whim, and that’s recognized by the gov’t, then the fact that some gay people want marriage ought to override the view of marriage that Santorum has, which would be terrific, maybe, but doesn’t really exist in the real world except with specific couples who make that reality for themselves. And gay marriage isn’t going to affect them anyway.
January 18, 2012, 12:19 pmMike says:
Am I the only one who believes that Santorum doesn’t have a problem with gay marriage, he has a problem with gay?
Its pointless trying to discern a principled position when his opposition is (IMO) based on his basic belief that homosexuality is wrong.
January 18, 2012, 12:20 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Sigh.
How is his basic belief that homosexuality is wrong not a principle?
January 18, 2012, 12:22 pmGiant Frog says:
That’s crazy talk. But also an excellent idea.
January 18, 2012, 12:33 pmSarcastro says:
[These days, we usually legislate according to utility, not morality, and certainly not animus towards a status.
Santorum’s utility arguments seem declarative at best, animus at worst.]
January 18, 2012, 12:42 pmGoggins says:
This is well put and one of the strongest arguments in favor of SSM. My response is that hypocrisy is underrated. Face it: We celebrate Grandma’s remarriage, but not in exactly the same way we celebrated her first one. We celebrate her remarriage only because it is a reasonable facsimile of a marriage in which procreation is theoretically possible. The celebration honors a certain attribute of the procreative marrriage. A marriage between members of the same sex is not even reasonably similar to a marriage of that kind, which has been celebrated for centuries.
DC: So it comes down to this: We will recognize only (1) procreative couples and only (2) non-proecreative couples that are “a reasonable facsimile of a marriage in which procreation is theoretically possible.” I think that’s about right as a description of the dominant version of the natural law approach.
January 18, 2012, 12:42 pmMike says:
I should have said “a principled position on marriage”. I don’t think he has a principled position on what marriage means. Just a position that results from his views on homosexuality.
January 18, 2012, 2:12 pmBob Roberts says:
Let us suppose that, when modern “no fault” divorce laws were being debated, an opponent had said: “The logic of these laws will lead to men marrying men and women marrying women!” The supporters of no-fault would have been indignant, and would have said that their opponents were using dishonest smear tactics. “Shame on them for distorting the issues! This has nothing to do with people marrying those of the same sex!”
In fact, if the public had actually believed that no fault would have led to SSM, they would have opposed no fault.
So it’s a bit much to come forward *now* and say that, of course, the logic of no fault leads to SSM. Oh, now you tell us!
Even the supporters of no-fault believed (for the most part) that they were simply providing for getting rid of marriages that were already broken — it would be like the amputation of a gangrenous limb. From the no fault perspective, it would be good if marriages lasted for life, just as it would be good if a person kept all his limbs for life. Cutting off an unhealthy limb doesn’t mean you’re against healthy limbs, or that you reject healthy limbs as a norm. Ditto with healthy lifelong marriages.
January 18, 2012, 2:17 pmGoggins says:
“Usually” indeed. My state, and I assume every other one, has a law establishing that the remains of a deceased person belong to his heirs, rather than to the state. This is based on nothing else than utterly irrational morality, and is harmful to a large class of persons; namely, those needing an organ transplant and who will die without one. Is that law, which certainly is harmful toward them, motivated by “animus” toward that class? If the mere moral judgment of a majority of citizens is insufficient to establish the “rational basis” and “legitimate government interest” requirements for upholding a law — something suggested in Lawrence v. Texas — then self-government is doomed. As Lincoln said, at that point “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.” (I’m sure he uttered the phrase “eminent tribunal” using his best Mark Antony “honorable man” imitation).
January 18, 2012, 2:17 pmChristopher Taylor says:
Promoting homosexual “marriage” in an attempt to save marriage as an institution is like promoting arson to save houses.
January 18, 2012, 2:22 pmGoggins says:
“Usually” indeed. My state, and probably every other one has a statute establishing that the remains of a deceased person belong to his heirs, rather than to the state. This is based on nothing other than utterly irrational morality, but is very harmful to a certain class; namely, those needing an organ transplant and who will die without one. Is that law motivated by animus toward that class? If the moral judgments of a majority of citizens is insufficient to establish the “rational basis” and “legitimate government interest” requirements for upholding a law — a proposition suggested in Lawrence v. Texas — then self-government is doomed. As Lincoln said, at that point “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.” (I’m sure he uttered the phrase “eminent tribunal” using his best Mark Antony “honorable man” imitation).
January 18, 2012, 2:27 pmDoc Rampage says:
Normal couples engage in sex, which is a biological mechanism for producing offspring and has the side effect of giving pleasure to the participants as a motivation to reproduce. Gay couples engage in sodomy which is a distorted use of that mechanism to get the pleasure while avoiding the central purpose. The purpose of marriage is arranged around the central purpose of sex, procreation, not the side-effect of sexual pleasure.
That is the reason that gay marriage does not make sense. It is not the simple fact that same-sex couples are barren, but the fact that they don’t –and can’t– engage in the act that marriage is intended to constrain and civilize.
There would be no benefit to society for refusing to marry people who are mutually barren but who can engage in procreative activity. Not only is there no benefit, but there is an enormous social cost in demanding that people submit to investigation of their mutual fertility and public awareness of the results of that investigation.
By contrast, there is no social cost to denying marriage to gays and there is considerable social cost to allowing it. Two men or two women cannot even engage in genuine procreative sex so the issue of investigating or publishing their mutual fertility is not even reached.
The social cost to allowing marriage to same-sex couples is that it leads people to view marriage as nothing more than a big party where everyone is celebrating the fact that two people are getting each other off on a regular basis. This is not a valuable social institution and it will inevitably overwhelm what is left of the original institution based around the solemn responsibilities that two people undertake with respect to each other, to future children, and to society in general when they start engaging in activities that may lead to a new human life.
January 18, 2012, 2:33 pmscattergood says:
Yes they do, if you understood statistics you would get that.
Identical twin fetuses of a Black male and Black female are both deterministically 100% going to be both Black.
Identical twin fetuses of a male and female, one of which after birth engages in homosexual acts has similar concordance rates as religiosity, divorce, and racial bigotry.
Hence it is not deterministic as defined as “the doctrine that all events, including human choices and decisions, have sufficient causes.”
January 18, 2012, 2:42 pmSarcastro says:
[Indeed, you have a point. Moreover, I have no doubt that such laws would be easily passed today on entirely moral grounds.
Also, the equality argument of the other side is also rather morality based as well, I suppose. Though that one at least has a colorable Constitutional basis.
So yeah, I’m wrong about the legislating morality bit.
Nevertheless, I maintain as an answer to Laura(southernxyl) that Santorum’s immorality argument is unsatisfying because the mere invocation of immorality requires popular support to hold currency, and these days that is eroding with respect to SSM.
I suppose that makes the pro-SSM side’s equality argument similarly unsatisfying, though...]
January 18, 2012, 2:54 pmOwen H. says:
Would you say that blacks had attained full civil rights if they were banned from getting civilly married? Or if anti-miscegenation laws were still on the books?
January 18, 2012, 2:57 pmscattergood says:
Unfortunately, even Loving v. Virginia doesn’t really support SSM, and if anything is an obstacle to overcome. For the decision states:
And what is Skinner all about? Um, the right to have offspring. Marriage, the right to marriage, and the basis to overcome exclusions to marry are based on our very existence and survival, and tied to the right to have offspring. All problematic for the SSM crowd, so it is more than ironic that the pro SSM crowd quotes Loving so much.
January 18, 2012, 2:58 pmMichael B says:
Dale Carpenter — the would-be logician?!? — fails to rise to the level of sophistical, much less more authentically sophisticated. Further, it seems probable that he couldn’t care less.
What boorish and incurious self-regard.
“Santorum’s argument against same-sex marriage ... is little more than an assertion of authority and definition.” Dale Carpenter
In fact, it’s a great deal more. Any and all sides in this debate rely, either explicitly or more tacitly and inherently within their argument, upon underlying definitions and appeals to some type of moral authority. The virtue in what Santorum is forwarding is that he is rather explicit in what he is advocating. His view and argument reflects a type of “ideal” (in quotes because it needs to be understood responsibly and reasonably on its own terms, rather than interpreted in a facile and illogical manner a la Dale Carpenter’s interpretation — i.e. Santorum is not delusional or quixotic in advancing his argument, he knows quite well that the “ideal” he is positing and arguing for will not and cannot be reified in the empirical/real world in some simplistic sense, but it’s an ideal worthy of respect nonetheless — that is what he (Santorum) is arguing.
By contrast, those arguing otherwise, more or less along “libertarian” lines, also need to argue as to why (for example) polyandry and polygamy should also not be subject to the coercive force of the law and more general social/cultural proscriptions. But that is one example only.
And assertions of authority? When has Dale Carpenter stuck around to defend his own assertions of authority against all reasonable and responsible comers? I don’t recall a solitary instance.
Carpenter and Friedersdorf are the pretenders, seemingly imagining (and asserting) that they are the ones who stand over and above any need to be more explicit, more responsibly reasoned and transparent, etc. with their arguments. Instead, they remain opaque, asserting, tacitly and otherwise, their own sophistical pretentions and would-be authority.
And do so while apparently imagining they are more “logical” as well.
DC: I have made arguments for same-sex marriage based on human goods that are very broadly ackowledged, regardless of one’s religious views or lack thereof: things like love, commitment, support, mutual responsbility, physical and mental health, caring for children in the home, and so on. There is disagreement about whether same-sex marriage helps acheive these goods, and my claims that it does are falsifiable. That’s fertile ground for debate. But Santorum and the natural lawyers start from very contested premises about the unchangeable “nature” of marriage. The conclusion — that marriage must be opposite-sex — is asserted as the argument. So no real debate is possible; it is foreclosed by the initial assertion. You either agree with the controversial premises or you don’t. Also, if you’re genuinely interested in repsonses to these very commonly expressed slippery slope concerns, they can be found very quickly in my writing and in the writings of many others on the Internet.
January 18, 2012, 2:59 pmAndyK says:
People just need to realize that the battle is an expressive one. Everyone at root knows that legalizing same-sex marriage sends a message that “this country is anti-Christian” just like banning it sends a message that “this country is anti-gay.”
And the anti-Christian message is winning out, and we need to accept that. The sooner we realize that this is a theoretical limit on inclusiveness and the franchise, the sooner we can realize that gays and Christians simply cannot live together in “civilized” society, any more than gays and Muslims.
January 18, 2012, 3:10 pmAndyK says:
Also, Michael B makes some excellent points. Formal distinctions among arguments do break down at a certain point. Obviously Dale is making arguments of the same kind as Santorum: just hidden behind certain phrases and patterns of speech, a liberal / libertarian idiom that serves an aesthetic function. It’s obfuscation, truly, but serves to make Santorum appear deficient in some (imaginary) second-order sense: “less reasoned” or “more credulous.”
January 18, 2012, 3:15 pmSarcastro says:
Seriously, Christians (and by that I mean Real Christians — you’re already living in a country that allows abortion and condoms — stop with the tolerance already!
January 18, 2012, 3:18 pmAndyK says:
I have never had comments be deleted from VC, and my recent ones were germane and civil. But, in the spirit of SOPA, I will rephrase under the assumption that the reason for deletion was plagiarism.
(1) People are forgetting the expressive disagreement here, and that this may point to the theoretical limits on democracy and liberalism. Anti-gay or anti-Christian, with no room in between.
(2) Michael B above makes some good points. Behind Dale’s OP with all its language is, at root, an argument of the same form as Santorum.
That is a much less sophisticated post, and less persuasive, but for that reason hopefully more tolerable.
January 18, 2012, 3:25 pmJHW says:
This is a very telling sentence. I admit to having no proof that its stunning ignorance of the basic human realities of same-sex relationships is broadly representative of same-sex marriage opponents, but I suspect that it is (perhaps sometimes in a less extreme form)—and that it plays a critical causal role in their views.
January 18, 2012, 3:27 pmJohn D says:
Heterosexual couples engage in both penile penetration of the vagina and other forms of sexual activity, including oral and anal intercourse. Dan Savage once quipped “oral sex comes standard,” and according to surveys, it does.
Oh, but wait, Bowers v. Hardwick was all about oral sex. It’s a popular heterosexual act, too. That means that opposite-sex couples engage in sodomy too. Wait, we give marriage rights to people who engage in sodomy? Shouldn’t there be a law against this?
After Lawrence v. Texas, I said to a straight friend, “the court just said the state can’t criminalize your getting a blowjob from a willing female partner.”
Let’s be consistent and deny marriage to anyone who might engage in sodomy.That should lead approximately no one getting married. Harsh, but it’d be fair.
And for the nth time, an inability to procreate does not invalidate a marriage under current law. There is no link in the law between marriage and procreation, no matter what some religious groups may prefer.
January 18, 2012, 3:32 pmAsher says:
Um, I am not opposed to same-sex marriage
I AM NOT OPPOSED TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
I AM NOT OPPOSED TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
How many times do I have to state this? Um, the types of heterosexuals you describe are going to have sex, anyways, and marriage just regulates them. It’s not like government refusing to issue them a marriage license prohibits them from having sex.
there is a serious disconnect in your reasoning process. Learn to follow a simple, little conversation.
Now, if we were talking about government sterilizing undesirables that would be a different conversation.
January 18, 2012, 3:40 pmyankee says:
The United Church of Christ and the Religious Society of Friends will be surprised to learn that they are “anti-Christian.”
January 18, 2012, 3:41 pmJoe says:
And the anti-Christian message is winning out, and we need to accept that.
“Christian” here is akin to saying Catholics aren’t “Christian.” That is, as others suggested, many people who believe themselves as Christian as do many faiths as a whole who do, readily accept gays, equality for gays and yes, same sex marriage. Some Christian faiths in fact provide ceremonies for them.
January 18, 2012, 3:55 pmJoe says:
And the anti-Christian message is winning out, and we need to accept that.
“Christian” here is akin to saying Catholics aren’t “Christian.” That is, as others suggested, many people who believe themselves as Christian as do many faiths as a whole who do, readily accept gays, equality for gays and yes, same sex marriage. Some Christian faiths in fact provide ceremonies for them.
January 18, 2012, 3:55 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Am amazed, AMAZED, at people who seem to think that marriage is about sex, period. How does sex help you when money’s tight, the kids are screaming, you’re hurt or injured and your spouse has to help you, you can’t agree whose parents you visit at Christmas, and so on? Maybe this is why so many marriages fail nowadays. “Well, we’re always going to be young and pretty and healthy, and luv each other exactly as we do right this second, and we’ll just have lots of sex!” Is that it, really?
Let me spell this out for the befuddled: Marriage is a partnership. You commit to the other person, and he to you, that you are in this thing together through thick and through thin. Ideally sex is part of this, but best case, it’s only part.
January 18, 2012, 4:02 pmAsher says:
Okay, science is just the relationship between explanatory theories and evidence, and devising theories that best explain the observable facts. I repeated am asked to prove [sic] — what they really mean is demonstrate — it, genes and behavior, for example.
And that is intellectually dishonest. What such a person is implying is that all behavior must be assumed to have 100 percent environmental causes unless definitively demonstrated otherwise. Of course, no other theory is required to provide such a demonstration, in practice, and this is why the detractors of evolutionary psychology as so intellectually dishonest.
All I have to do is demonstrate that behaviors can’t possibly be 100 percent environmentally determined, and the only possible conclusion, then, is that there is, at least some, genetic origins.
BTW, I keep pointing out that strident advocates of SSM base a substantial portion of their advocacy on the premise that homosexuality is, at least largely, genetic — a premise I accept. However, there is a far greater body of research supporting a genetic basis for intelligence than there is in variation in sexual behavior.
That is why it is intellectually dishonest.
January 18, 2012, 4:05 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
...Sarcastro, I, and probably some other people, reject the notion that there must be a wall of separation between legal and moral. I think there is some overlap. Most things that are illegal are also immoral. Murder, for instance, is immoral. I realize that there are those who argue from strictly a utilitarian perspective, but this is not universal.
January 18, 2012, 4:05 pmptt says:
For the simple reason that that’s what the Hermanator had talked about.
January 18, 2012, 4:07 pmJohn D says:
Here, you are right. I held a driver’s license for a number of years in which I neither owned nor operated a car. I used my license to establish my age when buying alcohol and identity when buying a check.
Despite that I didn’t drive, the DMV did not seize my license. When I went to renew it, they didn’t ask if I had been driving or where planning on driving. It didn’t really seem to matter to them.
Likewise, a marriage license is a license to get married. If you obtain one and never sign it, it eventually becomes invalid. It is not a license to procreate. We do not jail people because they procreated outside of marriage.
Nor do they ask people who are obtaining marriage licenses if they intend to procreate. I know several opposite-sex married couples who do not have children. No one is required to procreate. Are you suggesting that their marriages are in some way invalid?
There are also children whose parents were not married to each other when they were conceived or born. Do these children not exist, since they were born of a married couple?
There is no legal link between marriage and procreation.
It’s called a marriage license, not a procreation license. There’s a reason for this.
January 18, 2012, 4:10 pmG.R. Mead says:
No, it is more dangerous, because vastly greater numbers of people have been killed in the name of the State than in the name of God. And of the latter, it was quite generally a State doing the claiming of the name and the killing as well. God is quite clear on the point, and all the misunderstanding is on our side: “I desire Mercy, not sacrifice.”
Assuming it were between you and Mrs. Kirkland, it is not worse — not even in the eyes of the Church. Assuming you style yourselves Mr. and Mr. Kirkland, or Mrs. and Mrs. ShelbyC — it is not marriage — any more than my boot is a cupcake. Calling my boot a cupcake won’t make it edible. The word marriage means what it has always meant — and while a basket may be a chicken when the legislature says, it will never lay eggs, provide meat, or give feathers and down for pillows.
... As he fell into the wine-dark sea ...??? “Doh!!!!”
No, that’s only because Homer ate the only cupcake, but is now trying pawn off his shoe to God and Ned Flanders as being just as tasty...
January 18, 2012, 4:12 pmSarcastro says:
[Yeah, that’s where my comment ended up. Or at least that one may argue from either or both of morality and social utility.
Of course, there is much overlap here.]
January 18, 2012, 4:17 pmGrover Gardner says:
I understand statistics, thanks. But the twin studies do not conclusively refute the biological nature of sexual attraction, or gender ID or many other deviations from what is expected. If you understood genetics and other proposed pre-natal factors involved, you would get that.
January 18, 2012, 4:18 pmAsher says:
Liberalism is the reigning orthodoxy of the day. Liberalism is premised on the only true human good as that of autonomy. Most so-called conservatives, today, are not conservatives, at all, they are right-liberals. Libertarianism, of which I was one through my early college years, is also a version of liberalism, as is left-liberalism.
All these versions of liberalism share the autonomy premise, but differ on how autonomy is achieved. You and docrampage are both liberals.
January 18, 2012, 4:26 pmgooners says:
Well...
January 18, 2012, 4:28 pmGrover Gardner says:
Look, it’s Superman!! Able to leap huge gaps in reasoning at a single bound!
January 18, 2012, 4:32 pmptt says:
No social cost to denying marriage? I’m flabbergasted at how easily those who bemoan the social consequences of people choosing to live in sin so blithely dismiss the social consequences of forcing people to live in sin.
The only solemn responsibility gay couples do not have is procreating.
They weren’t deleted. The VC is having technical issues.
January 18, 2012, 4:42 pmjrose says:
I think yankee’s point (infertile couples aren’t an exception we tolerate in deference to privacy, they are fully celebrated) is well taken. I would only add that many straights are open about their infertility (e.g., my father and his second wife, married in their 60’s, after my mother’s death).
Yikes! Is that what you think gay relationships are about (and my dad’s second marriage too)?
January 18, 2012, 4:42 pmG.R. Mead says:
You do not ask the more salient question — “Why does the State fund it necessary to recognize marriage in the first place?”
The short answer is Darwinian in nature — The State as the monopolist of force wishes to prevent or at least adjudicate the potentially violent domination of men over their dependent mate, which in the absence of a culture of marriage, is a necessary element of male assurance of their investment in paternity and posterity in an otherwise freeforall realm of likely adultery.
That this still results in much violence even WITH a marriage culture, and legal regime is notable. The historical incidents of such violence are trivial to produce, and form the backbone for much of Shakespeare’s drama — and comedy — and is the mainstay of feminist cultural critique.
There is simply not remotely the same breadth or intensity of potential violence when it comes to gay relationships in society at large. The State has little need as the monopolist of violence to care much about it.
The welfare state, on the other hand has moderated this problem in heterosexual relationships in the lower orders by creating a different problem — a society of women almost exclusively supported by State largesse, and their men who depend for a great share of their own livelihood on derivative State support from their multiple baby-mamas. These men quite often have no personal investment and little personal interest in their offspring from this system of what amounts to welfare concubinage.
January 18, 2012, 4:42 pmJohn Herbison says:
How does sex help you when money’s tight?
What kind of money maker did you think Elmore James was singing about?
January 18, 2012, 4:42 pm