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from Social Issues
Is Marriage a Universal Right?
("What is Wrong with Gay Marriage," by Stanley N. Kurtz
Commentary, September 2000, pp. 35-41)
"A clear majority of the American public opposes
same-sex marriage," says Stanley Kurtz of the
Hudson Institute. "And yet this opposition,
though real, is by-and-large silent. So striking
is this general silence, that one cannot help but
wonder about the reasons for it."
Three respected and moderately liberal Protestant
theologians were recently asked to explain their
views to a T.V. audience on the question of gay
marriage, Kurtz notes. All were opposed to gay
marriage, but they declined to appear because they
feared being publicy labelled as "homophobic."
Kurtz explains that the great French admirer of
American democracy, Alexis deTocqueville, warned
that in a democracy, social ostracism can be all
too easily used against those with minority
viewpoints. But what is curious about the current
situation, Kurtz notes, is that social ostracism
is now being used effectively against the majority
viewpoint.
He notes the powerful "censoring role" of the
mainstream media, and the fact that a small group
of deeply committed partisans can sometimes
succeed in imposing certain costs on their
ideological adversaries.
"But one also senses," he says, "that the
silencing of the majority would never have been
possible were the majority itself more certain of
its ground."
Misunderstanding the
Democratic Ideal of Equality
Because we as Americans favor tolerance and
equality--and consider them obligations of our
democracy--we have become confused when required
to justify the very traditions, such as marriage,
upon which "democracy itself depends," because
those traditions seem to conflict with the
democratic ideal of civil rights and
non-discrimination.
Kurtz cites writer Andrew Sullivan--not a radical,
but a self-described gay conservative--who agrees
that marriage is an institution worth preserving,
and one which will encourage relational stability
and economic security among gays, just as it has
among heterosexuals. In fact, Sullivan predicted,
gays might prove to be even more committed
marriage partners than are heterosexuals. (But in
a later New Republic editorial, Sullivan admitted
that many gay men have no interest in marriage if
it carries the expectation of fidelity.)
How then, Kurtz wonders, would gay marriage
actually play out? He notes that in reality, the
gay community has long "put a premium on sexual
promiscuity" and on rebellion against society.
Radical gays have long argued that homosexuality
is by its very nature incompatible with the norms
of a a monagamous marriage. Would marriage truly
prove to be transformative? William Bennett argued
in a Newsweek editorial that the transformation
would likely not take place in the habits of the
gay community, but in the heterosexual community:
same-sex marriage would fatally undermine an
already weakened institution by breaking the bond
between marriage and the principle of monagamy.
Besides, Bennett argued, once gay marriage became
the norm, there would be no principled argument
remaining by which society could resist polygamy.
Marriage exists as an institution, Kurtz explains,
not because it is a "universal right of all," but
because "certain communities have decided that
this particular form of personal alliance between
a man and a woman both needs and deserves social
encouragement."
If marriage was really a universal legal right of
all who sought it, then it would have to be
redesigned in the form of a contract by which any
group of parties could form whatever sort of
alliance they chose.
What is Marriage For?
"What we are thrown back on," Kurtz says, "are the
fundamental questions of what marriage is, and
what it is for." Even more important, he says,
the continuity of the two-person marital bond is
"all that stands between our children and chaos."
Kurtz believes that marriage is naturally anchored
by the complementarity of the sexes, although
"even to mention it [complementarity] these days
is to invite ridicule." He notes that male-female
physical and emotional complementarity is
biologically-based and thus "not about to
disappear." Women help to domesticate men.
Another anchoring factor is the man's sense that
his home is his "castle" and he its "king,"
despite the reality that "a rough sort of
equality" has always lain hidden in the reality of
a husband-wife relationship. "What the Promise
Keepers has the audacity to say out loud about a
man's authority within the marriage bond remains,"
Kurtz says, "in subtler form, the formula of
heterosexual marital success."
Same-sex marriage has enormous subversive
potential, Kurtz notes. Gay activists are already
arguing for an experimentation with "novel family
configurations" involving sperm donation, open
marriage, group marriage, and polygamous marriage.
Websites have been set up to support
"polyamorists"--women who live with more than one
husband.
In short, he explains, gay activists are asking us
to "transform, at unknown cost to ourselves and to
future generations, the central institution of our
society." Gay marriage ought to be resisted
"firmly, politely and above all, unashamedly."
"If there ever was a place to draw the line,"
Kurtz insists, "this is it."
Updated: 3 September 2008
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