Why You Should Be Against Homosexual Marriage
I'm a theologically conservative Christian - so of course I'm going to argue against homosexual marriage, right? Well, that shouldn't be as obvious as it might be in American society today. Scripture is clear that homosexuality is wrong - just as it is clear that adultery, gossip, slander, and greed are all wrong. With each of these sins, we legislate in some ways, and we leave them to the realm of personal liberty and responsibility in other ways. But this post is entitled, "Why You Should Be Against Homosexual Marriage," implying that I will give you an argument as to why we should in fact, legislate against homosexual marriages. I will convince you of this fact, based almost entirely on secular sociological argumentation - though my argument will be particularly enticing to committed Christians who believe in the importance of the traditional family.
The argument is simple: the traditional family includes a father, mother, and their children. The sociological data, and basic common sense, always concludes that the best thing for children is to have a mother and a father, and the best-case scenario is for them to be their biological parents. Anything that undermines the family structure hurts the sociological foundation of our society. It is cliche to say that the family is the building block of our society, but it is cliche for a reason - it is true.
Based on this, we have to examine if legalizing homosexual marriage (or de facto homosexual marriage, i.e. civil unions) undermines the traditional family. I'm not making the elementary argument here "gay people can't have children and aren't as good as a mother and father," though those are certainly true claims. Instead, I'm making the argument that changing the definition of marriage to include homosexuals fundamentally redefines marriage from a family institution to something much more shallow - something that is only symbolic of love and committment. Surely, heterosexuals have done this on their own, with the extensive use of contraception, and more significantly no-fault divorce, but there are still cultural norms against adultery and divorce, though they are not necessarily as strong as they once were. Changing the definition of marriage to include homosexual marriage would crush those norms by completely separating marriage from parenting.
I have so much more to say about this, and I could bring up the arguments against mine, but I'll save that for discussion (which will hopefully happen). In the meantime, I want to give you some evidence. Homosexual marriage has been legal and accepted in the Scandinavian countries since about 1989. Since then, illegitimate birth rates have gone from 11-31 percent in the Netherlands, and in certain areas of the pro-homosexual country of Norway, they are as high as 82 percent. Read this letter written by Dutch scholars, which testifies to the decay of marriage in their country. This is precisely what happens to marriage as an institution when gay marriage is accepted.
So, Christian or not, you should be against homosexual marriage. Not because homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to commit to each other and love each other, they just can't use marriage as a symbol of their love. Marriage should not be symbolic, it should be a social contract between two people, an agreement that they plan on spending the rest of their life together, for two purposes - companionship, and more importantly to parent together.
I have so much more to say about this stuff... including a theory that the family is to society as the contract is to capitalism, but that is probably for a different day...
posted by Barnabas18 @ 4:31 PM
35 comments
35 Comments:
my marriage is only symbolic.
So I'm not sure I'm 100% in agreement with what you have to say here, Barnie. While I agree that there are sociological implications to homosexual marriage, all of the research I've encountered says that children raised by homosexual parents fare no differently than those raised by heterosexual parents. There may be more recent studies to indicate differently but that's what I learned at GCC. Additionally, the Scandinavian countries have A LOT of issues which could have caused a rise in illegitimate pregnancy and I don't think you can assume that legalizing homosexual relationships is the cause of it. Give some data and I'll shut up. But in the meantime, I think there are lots of other issues to consider in Scandinavia (i.e. very few people are getting married and are instead choosing to cohabitate...therefore these children are legally illegitimate). And I don't think people aren't getting married just because gay people are doing it too. It seems to me like the lack of marriages is more a reflection of their religious bent than anything to do directly with homosexuals. There are just too many factors to claim direct, nonspurious relationship.
My personal thoughts aside, I'm not sure the data in and of itself can prove that homosexual marriage is bad. Just some thoughts
Martowen...
Thanks for the comments. Let me get into your responses.
1. Simply put, there is not enough sociological data yet to prove what happens to children that are raised by two parents of the same sex. At least, that's what I've encountered, and the people at the Heritage Foundation who study this daily claim. However, there is plenty of evidence to say that children fair the best in the traditional family, with their biological mother and father. The data that I've come across (but don't have in front of me now) says that children with their biological parents do better, even, than with step parents (even if the step parents were there parents from before they were old enough to realize a difference). I don't know.. that's just what I've read. But realize also that even if there are lots of successful homosexual parents (which they would have to adopt, or have children with other partners, etc., causing all kinds of instability in my opinion),the change in the definition of marriage would cause lots of instability within regular heterosexual couples.
2. The Scandinavian countries... you are right to say that they often don't get married and cohabitate... why then has this cultural trend just started in the last 20 years? Homosexual marriage is a big reason. I agree that lots of factors , like all sociological problems, caused the rise in illegitimacy. But come on, 11-31 percent? That's a huge increase. Plus, in Scandinavia and in America, there is a pretty flat rate of 2 to 3 times higher dissolution rates of cohabitating familes to married families. I don't think cohabitating families are the same as married families, but that is up for debate.
If you would really like some data, I'll work on pulling some up soon, but those are my responses. Please keep the discussion coming, especially because you have more of a background here than I do.
First, I don't see how legalizing gay marriage would have any effect on the illegitimate birth rates for the obvious reason that illegimate births require non-gay coupling.
Secondly, I'm against gay marriage on the whole "tyranny of the minority" principle. In this case, it appears to a minority of the minority.
"One of the most important lessons to be learned from the Canadian experience is that, despite all the passion they bring to the issue of marriage in the abstract, very few homosexuals wish for marriage for themselves. There are about 24 million Canadians between the ages of 18 and 65. It's a reasonable guess that some 750,000 of them are gay. In June and July 2003, the two largest English-speaking provinces, Ontario and British Columbia, began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Within the first six months, some 300 Canadian same-sex couples had been married in B.C. Within the first year, about 4,000 Canadian couples had been married in Ontario.
Since then, the number of same-sex marriages seems to have dropped off. Current statistics are hard to come by, but it's a good guess that nearly two years after same-sex marriage arrived in Canada some 98 percent of adult Canadian gays have chosen not to avail themselves of their new legal right."
Besides that, I think the movement is largely driven by economic incentives. The biggest argument is over benefit sharing and tax breaks. In this regard, I hope the gay marriage bill passes. Would I fake gay marry someone for the insurance? Hell yeah, especially with no-fault divorce.
Lastly, are you against contraception Barnabas?
Jacks...
The contraception issue is a difficult one. Do I think that contraceptives have had a negative sociological impact? Heck yes. It minimizes the biggest natural consequence of having pre-marital or extra-marital sexual relations. I think that illegitimate children is a deterrent to many when it comes to promiscuity, but most people don't even consider that a risk in our culture.
That said, is it good that people who choose to have sexual relations outside of marriage do everything they can to prevent illegitimate pregnancy, which isn't good for society? Well, yes.
So, the question is one of mitigating factors - which has a greater impact? Which comes first really? Are people more promiscous because of contraceptives (yes), or are they just more responsible with their promiscuity (well, yes minus the paradoxical nature of it), or does it have both effects (yes)?
Ultimately, I don't think that the use of contraceptives is unbiblical, though I think you can make the case that they aren't a good thing either. Personally, I don't plan on using contraceptives at any point, but I certainly don't think we as a society can do anything about their use, nor should we.
Jacks... about your other point about illegitimacy rates, I think you missed the point of my argument... when you change the definition of marriage, legally, to "any two committed people," marriage as a whole doesn't mean the same thing. People don't have any reverence toward marriage, and they dont' see it as necessary to be married to parent. Couples cohabitate, or whatever, and their children suffer because of it. Couples are more likely to break up, etc.
Your points about Canada are well taken as well - homosexuals tend to not want to be monogamous, and on the whole why would they? Monogamy makes the most sense for parents. In fact, celebrities are a great example of this - they don't plan on parenting together (even if they have kids), so they don't want to be monogamous.
If it weren't for the few exceptions of celebrities that hve normal marriages, I'd say we should outlaw celebrity to celebrity marriages.
It sounds like your argument is coming from Stanley Kurtz. You might want to check out some criticisms of his data, methods and conclusions. http://www.slate.com/id/2100884 is an example in the popular press.
Yes, I know Stanley personally. We've talked about this a few times.
I've read the criticisms, so I don't need to check out your link... the criticisms are bogus, check out NRO and read Kurtz's responses to the criticisms.
Yeah, I have read through his responses on NRO. His statistical argument seems a bit general. But you can say the same thing about his critics.
First, I'm not denying your claim that gay marriage hurts regular marriage. I just think it's more proximite than ultimate when it comes to illegitimacy.
"when you change the definition of marriage, legally, to "any two committed people," marriage as a whole doesn't mean the same thing."
I totally agree. I don't want to play the slippery slope card here, but redfining marriage from a man and a woman to some greeting card montage of "mutual love and respect" or something opens a lot of doors. Unless the lines are clearly drawn, who is to say that polygamy is still unacceptable? or incest?
Buying into the argument that homosexuals are being denied a fundamental right opens a Pandora's box of moral relativism. The simple truth is that homosexuals have the same rights as everyone else- they are completely free to marry a single, non-related member of the opposite sex.
Barnabas: No contraception? So let's say you get married and you don't want kids for a few years... nothing? I knew a kid in high school who relied on the pullout technique, had to go into the military to avoid satutory rape charges...
...and to Stanley Kurtz! A ten-foot-tall, two-ton son of a bitch who could eat a hammer and take a shotgun blast standing!
I think evangelicals who complain about gay marriage are missing the bigger issues regarding the destruction of the family unit. Besides children being born out of wedlock, there are thousands of American children being raised by the state in a really, really, sometimes ridiculously bad foster care system. Recent research done by the pew foundation (I'm not sure if this is the same GCC pew) finds that 40% of children raised in foster care are either in jail, back in the system, or dead, within A YEAR of turning 18. That's ridiculous.
My point is that I don't worry about homosexual marriage helping to destroy our notion of family and marriage. Our notions of family and marriage are destroyed already, and real monogamy as a cultural norm a thing of the past. Contraceptives and the women's liberation movement, both of which are wonderful, have had the unfortunate side effect of destroying the nuclear family to far worse extents than homosexual marriage ever code. Monogamy is a thing of the past - serial monogamy is the deal now, and children will suffer for it.
That said, homosexual marriage is a logical extent of serial monogamy, and so I'm not against it. I don't really care - I think it's a moot point and a worthless issue; a false theological and political litmus test used to polarize conversations more often than speak about issues that will have real impact.
In conclusion, I'd much rather see many of the kids in foster care placed with a committed and monogamous homosexual couple than left in the system. Is it ideal? No. Is it biblically sound? Probably not. But it's a helluva lot better than our present alternative.
I've got lots of thoughts on contraception, but I don't want to get on a tangent here. If you'd like to post another thread on that later I'd love to talk about it...
To correct the stat, the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care (more info at www.pewfostercare.org), found that 60% of children in foster care wind up homeless, in jail, or dead within 2 years of leaving foster care. Bottom line: our current system stinks and it's not doing a good job of preventing kids from ending up where they would have been if they'd stayed with their parents in the first place.
But back to the issue at hand, I still don't think you can claim that any of the existing research indicates anything about how kids would do being raised by homosexual parents. The step parent issue is quite different, and there are so many extenuating circumstances to how kids end up in step families. I'm not arguing that homosexual marriage should be legal, nor that the definition of marriage should be modified to include homosexual relationships - my point is that it's not accurate to claim a negative effect on children at this time. We'll talk again in 20 years.
And I think one of the biggest reasons why people in Scandinavia (and America, for that matter) aren't getting married is because they don't need to. Women can support themselves without a husband now much more easily than they could even 20 years ago. Not to mention that as more people choose not to marry, it becomes easier for others to follow that path as well (obvious point, I know). And I absolutely did not state that I consider cohabiting couples to be equal to married couples. I am WELL aware of the research that couples who cohabitate first often end up divorced down the road. The psychological commitment is quite different between cohabiting and marriage and it's a tough gap to bridge. That being said, illegitimate pregnancy (as a result of increases in cohabitation and decreases in marriages) is NOT caused by homosexual marriage/unions being legally recognized. I see the two issues as being unrelated...or at least not clearly linked. Sociologists would call the assumption that homosexual marriage has caused rises in illegitimacy a spurious relationship. That's all I'm trying to say.
Thanks for all of the comments... let me respond to a few of the things you said, and then I'll get to work on a new post on contraception (I think).
First, Jacks, I like your argumentation, and the slippery slope argument is surely part of my overall argument.
Second, Red... I clearly agree with your foundational premise that our culture has crippled the institution of marriage, but that doesn't mean we don't realize what it should be still. What I mean by this, is that we still have an ideal of marriage, even if we don't act in that manner. Changing the definition will have a sweeping pedagogical effect, which will ultimately lead to the destruction of marriage.
That leads to Martowen's eloquent points to finish. I agree, in sociological terms, it is a spurious relationship. Am I claiming a direct relationship? Not exactly. Certainly not a causal one. Is there a correlative relationship? I think so. We'll need more time with more countries, but it looks like we'll find out in the next few years, huh? Finally, about the research about homosexual parents (and red's argument about foster care), I don't disagree completely. There is no evidence right now that would indicate homosexuals are better or worse parents, there is simply no data. So, I'm assuming that they won't be as good as the nuclear family, a fair assumption I think.
When it comes to foster care, I believe that placing children with single parents would be a whole lot better than foster care most of the time, so with homosexual parents might not be terrible either. That is a debatable, tough call. But, it doesn't change the illegitimacy effect, that I think is certainly a correlation, to allowing gay marriage.
CK, I'll start by responding to your original post, then take on one of the comments.
One of the difficult things about this particular debate is that as we argue, we conflate (1) norms, (2) definitions, (3) legal entities, and (4) concepts. I'll take a shot at leveling the terrain before I continue.
Marriage as norm would presumably include (1) statistics about marriages, sexual practices, divorces, and related topics as well as (2) the force of marriage as the dominant paradigm in whatever society we're discussing (or its lack in that society.) Marriage as definition would include (1) what's in the dictionary as well as (2) what definition people give of marriage when asked. Marriage as legal entity is the most objective of the 4: while it's not agreed what SHOULD be the case when it comes to the legal rights and privileges of marriages, it's largely agreed what is. Lastly, marriage as concept is the most subjective, and would include each of the 6.3 billion slightly different conceptions of marriage that you would get from interviewing everyone on the planet about it.
CK, you see (correctly, I think) that the "redefinition" of marriage touches on all 4 parts of my above outline. I'd just like to point out that it can be changed in none, any or all of these places: gay marriage could be made legal everywhere, but be rejected in the hearts and minds of people; or it could stay largely illegal, but be accepted by people.
In your post, you wrote:
"Changing the definition of marriage to include homosexuals fundamentally redefines marriage from a family institution to something much more shallow--something that is only symbolic of love and committment."
That changing the definition of marriage to include homosexuals fundamentally redefines marriage is given and disputed by no one. Implicit in this paragraph of yours is that families containing homosexuals are not "real" families, with which I would have to take issue: what then is a family? You also write that "Anything that undermines the family structure hurts the sociological foundation of our society." That's true as well, but I think it's debatable (as others in this discussion do as well) as to whether or not, even IF homosexuality is wrong, that it has a profound negative impact on "family structure," which could be broken apart in the same way I did with marriage above. I'd ask you before continuing to give me a sort of homosexual marriage doomsday scenario: it sounds comical, but what would be the worst part about homosexual marriage being (1) permitted legally and (2) accepted broadly? Tax benefits for gays? Confused children?
This is one of the most difficult (but not, I would argue, most important) issues facing us as bloggers and us as the church, because it touches on so many things we view as fundamental to our identity: sexuality, marriage, family.
jackscolon, you wrote:
"I don't want to play the slippery slope card here, but redefining marriage from a man and a woman to some greeting card montage of "mutual love and respect" or something opens a lot of doors. Unless the lines are clearly drawn, who is to say that polygamy is still unacceptable? or incest?"
(1) We are to say that it's unacceptable. That's the best answer I can give you. I, charlespeirce, refuse to let the door to incest and polygamy open even if I decide down the road to support gay rights.
(2) The slippery slope argument, applied strictly, fails here, because the SS argument says: we should not use principles to justify practices that also justify other practices we do not want. Allowing marriage between TWO consenting adults, instead of one man and one woman, says nothing about children or animals or polygamy. And conversely, denying someone a legitimate right (if we later agree that ANY marriage is a right, which I am not saying it is) based on the fact that other undesirable things might occur is wrong.
Here's a crash course in what some of the participants in this debate think about the history of sexuality;
Here's an insight into the sexual revolution.
Charles-
"(1) We are to say that it's unacceptable. That's the best answer I can give you. I, charlespeirce, refuse to let the door to incest and polygamy open even if I decide down the road to support gay rights."
I'll explain my comment-
If homosexuals are allowed to gay marry by convincing everyone that marriage is a fundamental right that they are being denied, there is no real reason why the same argumentation couldn't be used to argue marriage between anything. It is a lot like the problem I have with libertarianism- everything is acceptable as long as consenting adults are involved. That is why I argue slippery slope.
For the record, I'm only against it because of they it may be implemented. If it was to win in a state/nation referendum than go ahead and legalize it for either that state/or the nation. Since I don't buy into the rationale that gay marriage is a fundamental right I resent judicial activism- which I guess makes me a reactionary. Seriously, gay marriage is this century's prohibition- it is only a big deal because people want it banned.
Furthermore, I don't think marriage is all that appealing anyway... I'll stick with my serial monogamy, my unfortuanately infrequent serial monogamy...
Barnabas:
I really like this thread and would like to make some comments, but some background (maybe a profile or something) might help me to tailor my comments / responses / suggestions without assuming too much or too little. I take it that you are a Neo-Con (Heritage Foundation reference), but what is your discipline? Are you a sociologist? Is this a focus of your work/study?
I think it's (1) funny and (2) interesting that (#) charles pierce used so many freaking (18) numbers in his (a billion) post, and that j. morgan was hesitant to lambast a neo-con (!).
J. Morgan - my background is in political science, and I interned for the Heritage Foundation. I would not label myself as a neo-con, though I often end up agreeing with the neo-cons on a lot of issues. I have no sociological background past my own research into issues that I am interested in, such as this.
I am still in school, but I am planning on beginning a career in public policy, with my focus being on domestic issues. Of great interest to me is the issue of the family in politics (I'm applying to the Family Research Council for instance), as well as education issues.
I look forward to your comments on this thread, as I've enjoyed your input on other sites.
barnabas I've really enjoyed reading your posts. If marriage isn't legalized won't that create a lot of confusion as to the meaning of marriage because it sends the message that you don't need marriage to love and be committed to another person. Doesn't this undermine the institution, too?
Barnabas:
I want to stick very closely to your basic argument:
“The argument is simple: the traditional family includes a father, mother, and their children. The sociological data, and basic common sense, always concludes that the best thing for children is to have a mother and a father, and the best-case scenario is for them to be their biological parents. Anything that undermines the family structure hurts the sociological foundation of our society. It is cliche to say that the family is the building block of our society, but it is cliche for a reason - it is true.”
First of all, let me say that I completely agree that we need to think about marriage as a social institution (not unlike government, education, the economy, etc.) rather than something that people do (like buying Coke or voting or playing Halo). The Puritan notion that the family is “a little commonwealth” is not far off the mark in my opinion.
That said, I want to take issue with three things:
a) The data concerning the effects of family structure on children are huge and varied. It probably isn’t safe to use the word “always” when talk about them. That said, in general, the literature does suggest that children raised by both biological parents in a functional, intact family is the best arrangement. From there, we have varying degrees of dysfunction (with foster care at the bottom of that list). There are, however, almost no reliable data on children raised by homosexuals. Comparing well-established data sets to nonexistent data sets doesn’t really accomplish anything. The fact is, nobody knows how well children raised by non-biological same-sex parents fair. What little is known (they do well in school, they are more likely to be homosexuals themselves, they tend to have more frequent, low-commitment romantic relationships, etc.) tends to evidence dysfunction resulting from lack of either male or female gender modeling and not specifically from homosexual parenting. All that is to say that we really shouldn’t make any claims about child welfare in this case.
b) That said, gay marriage and child-rearing by same-sex couples have nothing to do with each other. Sweden, a state that allows gay marriage, only allows married, heterosexual couples to adopt. In other words, even if we demonstrated that children reared by homosexuals were completely dysfunctional, we could not draw any conclusions about whether or not we would support gay marriage. That has to be engaged on its own terms.
c) The other side of the “family as a cornerstone institution” argument is that, if we want to make the case that gay marriage would deleteriously affect our present (presumably functional) society, then we have to demonstrate that our current arrangement is a) functioning properly and b) integral to sustaining a functional society. Neither of those cases can be made. The fact is that marriage and society have been altered already through cultural redefinitions irrevocably. Neither marriage nor society functions as if marriage were a cornerstone social institution. The social system that relies on the institutions of marriage has already been unhinged completely apart from gay marriage. In order to make the argument you want, you would have to demonstrate that gay marriage would do further violence to marriage as a social institution and would lead to lower levels of systemic social function. You could have made that case 60 years ago, but I doubt that you could today. As redhurt said, “Our notions of family and marriage are destroyed already....”
Barnabas:
“...there is plenty of evidence to say that children fair the best in the traditional family, with their biological mother and father. The data that I've come across (but don't have in front of me now) says that children with their biological parents do better, even, than with step parents (even if the step parents were there parents from before they were old enough to realize a difference).”
That is, in general, correct. But doesn’t that undermine your point about homosexual parents? If the traditional family produces the most functional children, and we are legislating in the interest of children, then we have to be consistent with non-traditional families. We would either have to let homosexuals adopt children and rear them or we would have to outlaw blended families, heterosexual adoptive parents, single parenting, etc.
“the change in the definition of marriage would cause lots of instability within regular heterosexual couples.”
Why? How?
“...why then has this cultural trend just started in the last 20 years? Homosexual marriage is a big reason.”
What you are doing is conflating cause and effect. Homosexual marriage and illegitimacy rates are both effects (which is caused by something a bit complicated but is mostly the post-Christian, post-Industrial, wealthy, stable, socialist environment in which sexual identity and ideology are formed) and not causes in themselves or of one another. That is what we call spurious correlation in statistics. No claims whatever can be made about correlations when they are found to be spurious (e.g., murder rates and prayer in public schools).
“...when you change the definition of marriage, legally, to "any two committed people," marriage as a whole doesn't mean the same thing. People don't have any reverence toward marriage, and they dont' see it as necessary to be married to parent.”
I completely agree. I guess my contention, however, is that in the realm of the state, the social consequences of changing the definition of marriage to “any two committed people” is negligible in light of the way that the definition of marriage has changed already to something people choose to do rather than a social institution that individuals are bound to undertake and maintain.
That said, why would a conservative Christian care one whit how society defines marriage? Serious Christianity understands marriage to be a Holy Sacrament instituted, blessed, and maintained by God. So what if the pagans (and I mean that in a strict sense) and their society think that marriage is a union between “any two committed people?” For the Christian, the legal and societal understanding of things shouldn’t be of much concern and certainly shouldn’t be seen as authoritative regarding definitions.
Jackscolon:
“Buying into the argument that homosexuals are being denied a fundamental right opens a Pandora's box of moral relativism.”
I think you are right on track here. I think that the idea that marriage is a “right” is ridiculous. The problem is that people conceive of sexuality and marriage as a choice to be made or to not be made rather than a responsibility to form a social institution. In other words, rights language only becomes intelligible when pertaining to choices.
Charles:
“That changing the definition of marriage to include homosexuals fundamentally redefines marriage is given and disputed by no one. Implicit in this paragraph of yours is that families containing homosexuals are not "real" families, with which I would have to take issue: what then is a family?”
A sociological definition of family: the most fundamental institution in a society and is a) recognized by no less than legal, societal, and sacred institutions, b) permanent, c) monogamous, d) procreative, e) operated by defined roles, rules, and norms internal to itself but social enforced, f) made up of father, mother, and at least one child, and g) is intimately connected with an extended biological family group and community.
The point is that very few romantic partnerships – even marriages – qualify as families in a sociological sense.
J. Morgan:
Thank you for your thorough responses. Let me speak generally first about what you wrote. I think that we are in close agreement in our philosophical positions regarding the family structure. I think the key difference is that you see the family as a lost cause, while I still see it as salvageable in our culture. To be honest, this is the only point that I would admit to being uncertain about. Have we destroyed the family already? In many ways yes. That said, I do not see any gain in throwing the institution to the wolves by refusing to protect it when others want to butcher the definition of marriage.
Ultimately, I think Marriage is perhaps dying, but I think that gay marriage is still going to be the nail in the coffin, but a preventable one.
Other than that, I agree with pretty much everything. I never tried to make an argument about homosexuals as parents... I agreed that there was no data to support any claims. I merely argued that the stable, in-tact biological family statistically outperforms ANY other family structure, so I would assume that homosexual parents would not be an exception, but this is not central to my overall argument.
Thus, our debate is over the current state of marriage, which you have a perhaps bleaker view of than I do.
Finally, a very important point I do want to make is that I disagree with your entire Sacred/Secular premise at the end of your comment. Sure, I'd like to think that the church could retain marriage's significance while society ruins it, but I don't think it is possible, nor do I think we should turn our back on society either. The reason I am interested in politics is to advocate policy that will facilitate (but not help or hurt) a vibrant church and civil society, but at the same time serve every individual in this country. The deterioration of marriage will have negative effects on all of the children in our country. And, with 50 percent of evangelical marriages dissolving in divorce as it is, it is not like evangelicals have been able to be set apart in our marriage practices.
Yimminy:
I see your point and it is an interesting one. I have a couple of quick responses:
1. I'd rather send the message that marriage and parenting go hand-in-hand than encourage everyone that wants to committ to each other to get married (especially with divorce so easy)
2. Why not send that message to homosexuals? Why not let them prove that their relationships are stable based on actual commitment than a piece of paper or a few legal benefits?
But, on the whole, I see your point - another result of our society's assault on marriage in the last half century includes cohabitation of people that would normally have gotten married in the past. I don't know what to do about them.
j. morgan, you wrote:
"The social system that relies on the institutions of marriage has already been unhinged completely apart from gay marriage."
When, and where, was it hinged? I'm curious.
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j. morgan, let me say that I appreciate your definition of family. I think setting the bar high, or narrowing the focus, or however you want to call your demarcation of a proper family, is good, and is sort of analogous to a way that you and I and others might want to define the church.
Now, with that said, I'd like you to gently explain why you use labels like "unhinged", "dying", and "destroyed" to describe institutions like families and marriages. I don't disagree with this characterization of them at this particular slice of time, but UNhinged, dying, and destroyed all carry the implicit argument that at some other time and in some other place things were either (A) perfect or (B) better. The aberration that was 1950s American notwithstanding, can you tell me when or where the family achieved its nadir?
Charles:
The family existed more or less in the state I described in the United States during much of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries in the context of ethnic enclaves. One of the best studied of these thick, ethnic communities is the town of Roseto, PA. It was typical of Italian communities in America (and similar to German, Jewish, Polish, and other communities of the time).
This family model can also be seen in Colonial America, particularly in the early Puritan towns and in some of their Congregationalist progeny. In the Mid-Atlantic States, this has, since the Seventeenth Century, been the model of family life in marginal Protestant communities (it is still visible in the Amish community). This model has largely been absent in Southern history.
To the extent that this was not the practice of American families, however, it was, to a large degree, the normative model. If, for instance, you read etiquette and home economics periodicals and books from the Nineteenth Century (anything by Catherine Beecher for instance), you find that my proposed definition is, I think, very similar to what they propose (or assume).
Barbabas:
“...with 50 percent of evangelical marriages dissolving in divorce as it is, it is not like evangelicals have been able to be set apart in our marriage practices.”
Along with my bleaker views on marriage come my bleaker views of Evangelicals I’m afraid. I mean, Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians haven’t had nearly as many problems defying the cultural drift of marriage. I don’t want to get off topic, but I think the ideology and practice of Evangelical Christianity has been a central catalyst to the decline of marriage and not a bulwark against it at all (relationship theology, individual empowerment, membership by choice, etc. seem to be very much in line with and supports for the contemporary American culture that we are agreeing is problematic, whereas membership theology, the empowerment of a structured, authoritative community, membership by birth and obligation, etc. doesn’t).
j. morgan:
Can we conclude from your analysis that (1) the family as defined by you is what should be encouraged, and (2) homosexuals are excluded from starting families/raising children because they are the same sex, this failing to fulfill condition (f) and possibly (d)?
You wrote:
"The family existed more or less in the state I described in the United States during much of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries in the context of ethnic enclaves."
You qualified this for us; can you quantify it?
Here's an article about the problems Amish communities face with incest and sexual abuse, because of the lack of mechanisms present to deal with such issues. I think it's relevant because it points out the unique problems that such communities and families have to deal with. It's the flipside of being "tightly knit" and all the other positives that we usually ascribe to them.
What role does necessity play in all this--that these norms were not freely chosen by people, but dictated by economic and other necessities? Any?
It's funny that you mention Beecher, because she's a perfect example of the sort of veneer that covers the past that I think needs to be pulled away. She wrote these wonderful volumes of etiquette and family life, and was never married and had no children herself.
Keep up the discussion... I know it has turned more toward the family itself than homosexual marriage, but I think the discussion is related and extremely relevant.
Charles:
“You qualified this for us; can you quantify it?”
So, the Roseto study was done over 60 years to figure out why this Italian community had substantially high life expectancies than the neighboring community of Bangor. They found out it was because of thick social networks and status attainment proportional to age. Anyway, Judith Lasker wrote a review of the whole 60 years and here are some sections:
Community solidarity was maintained in Roseto by marriage with other Italians and often with other Rosetans. The results from the marriage license data show that in 1925-34, over half of Rosetan males who married chose a woman who already lived in Roseto and 93% of all marriages joined two people of Italian descent.... In 1925-34, of all marriages conducted in the church (an average of 24 per year), 87.0% were between two Catholic partners....Another indicator of the greater degree of community cohesion found in Roseto when compared to Bangor is in the high level of activity of local clubs and organizations. The number of groups identified in each town (24 in Roseto, 30 in Bangor) demonstrates the greater density of organizational life in Roseto whose population is less than a third that of Bangor. Organizations were classified according to whether they were locally or nationally-based. Of those located in Roseto. 62.5% were local compared to Bangor organizations. of which 63.3% were branches of national groups.
“I think it's relevant because it points out the unique problems that such communities and families have to deal with. It's the flipside of being "tightly knit" and all the other positives that we usually ascribe to them.”
I absolutely agree. There is no such thing as a wholesale victory. There are always unintentional consequences and they are often negative.
”What role does necessity play in all this--that these norms were not freely chosen by people, but dictated by economic and other necessities? Any?”
It plays a huge role. I think, however, that it goes beyond economic and material necessity; I think it gets at the necessity of self-definition and creedal adherence (what you may have been alluding to). I mean, Seventeenth Century Puritans could have made much better material provision if they would have adopted the model of Jamestown. The necessity for them was one of creedal importance; to betray a social model was a matter of life and death for them.
”It's funny that you mention Beecher, because she's a perfect example of the sort of veneer that covers the past that I think needs to be pulled away.”
The fact that she was one of the best best-selling authors of her century shows that it wasn’t a veneer. It was something people actually believed. Just because that doesn’t then played out in the way they lived or whatever doesn’t make it less real, forceful, or formative.
Thanks for the responses. I'll leave our disagreement about the veneer of the past for a more appropriate time--we're not going to settle it here, and I want to get back to CK's topic. I know what you're saying--we just need to hammer out sometime exactly how normative a role we want to assign things like "public ideals." We might be able to get somewhere with that.
Are you working on an answer to my first question, which was:
Can we conclude from your analysis that (1) the family as defined by you is what should be encouraged, and (2) homosexuals are excluded from starting families/raising children because they are the same sex, this failing to fulfill condition (f) and possibly (d)?
Charles:
“Can we conclude from your analysis that (1) the family as defined by you is what should be encouraged, and (2) homosexuals are excluded from starting families/raising children because they are the same sex, this failing to fulfill condition (f) and possibly (d)?”
Well, as it stands, I think that homosexual marriage would probably fail on part of (a), statistically on (c), and necessarily on (d), (e), and (f).
I am not advocating anything, I am just noting that social function as we have historically understood it necessitates a family by this definition.
Sorry, I meant to say "necessarily on (d), (f), and (g).
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