Massachusetts Marriage, Modernity: Part Two

It’s been a week and, not surprisingly, I have received a lot of responses to my last article. The main criticism leveled was that I failed to exhaustively cover every argument in favor of gay marriage.

While I understand that no motive except dishonesty could have prevented me from giving a comprehensive treatise on the debate in a roughly 400 word article, perhaps the reader will indulge me in my deceitful plot by considering only the arguments I actually address rather than those which could be made if space was not limited.

I now return to the fundamental confusion involved in this debate: the presupposition that any society that does not give a legal status to a chosen sexual or residential affiliation is somehow wronging the unrecognized parties.

There are two possibilities here. First, it may be that the only goal of the gay marriage proponent is to obtain tax and legal benefits for their associations. If this were the case, then civil unions should be acceptable. However, some states that had civil unions later redefined their marriage laws as well.

This belies the claim of mere “legal” equality being the goal. There are some who are content with civil unions, but the majority of the movement desires more. What then is the goal of the proponent? The same goal of most liberal polices these days: “equality” defined as amorphously as possible. This goal presupposes the argument before it is even made. Consider the following scenario.

A brother goes before a family court and seeks to be legally designated as the biological father of his sister. He is not the father and thus possesses no intrinsic claim to paternal rights. He does not want “mere guardianship” of his sister because this still denies him the higher sobriquet of “father”. The judge may then ask “why do you want to be considered the father of your sister when you have no preexisting legal or biological claim to this term?” The brother then responds that “I truly love my sister and want to take care of her while having legal recognition of our relationship.” “Alright”, responds the judge, “but how does redefining fatherhood in this case so that you meet the new definition aid your love and care of her?” “It is the principle of the matter!” retorts the brother. “The fixation on the historical meaning of the father relationship should not deny me the same status”.

The same farce exists in the argument for gay marriage. Never mind the fact that legal benefits could be obtained in many places. Never mind the fact that the relationship of the two people is not materially enhanced by a piece of paper. The redefinition of this institution such that their sexual relationship appears equally with the other names in a legal record is the end in and of itself.