Abstract

Adam and Steve--Together at Last

The author explains her stance on the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Court to declare that gay marriage is a constitutional right. Will someone please explain to me how permitting gays and lesbians to marry threatens the institution of marriage? Now that the Massachusetts Supreme Court has declared gay marriage a constitutional right, opponents really have to get their arguments in line. The most popular theory, advanced by David Blankenhorn, Jean Bethke Elshtain and other social conservatives is that under the tulle and orange blossom, marriage is all about procreation. There's something creepily authoritarian and insulting about reducing marriage to procreation, as if intimacy mattered less than biological fitness. So scratch procreation. How about: Marriage is the way women domesticate men. Of course, this view of marriage as a barbarian-adoption program doesn't explain why women should undertake it--as is obvious from the state of the world, they haven't been too successful at it, anyway. Nor does it explain why marriage should be restricted to heterosexual couples. The gay men and lesbians who want to marry don't impinge on the male-improvement project one way or the other. What about the argument from history? According to this, marriage has been around forever and has stood the test of time. Actually, though, marriage as we understand it--voluntary, monogamous, legally egalitarian, based on love, involving adults only--is a pretty recent phenomenon. At bottom, the objections to gay marriage are based on religious prejudice: The marriage of man and woman is "sacred" and opening it to same-sexers violates its sacral nature. Gay marriage--it's not about sex, it's about separation of church and state.