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December 28, 2003

Procreation

Eve Tushnet has a column in the National Catholic Register on the Goodridge decision. While she makes some interesting points about "bait-and-switch", I want first to address her concerns as to how the court "miss[ed] the point" on the procreation argument. Eve writes:

Marriage - civil marriage, not just sacramental marriage - is essentially a procreative union in two ways. First, marriage only exists because of procreation....Second, marriage is procreative because marriage is society's way of ensuring that as many children as possible have mothers and fathers. A couple who cannot conceive children on their own can adopt, thus providing children with a mother and a father. Two men, however, can't replace a mother, nor can two women replace a father.

Her first point, that marriage only exists because of procreation, does not explain why same-sex couples should be excluded. Nonprocreating couples marry quite frequently without any perceivable harm to themselves or others. The fact that same-sex couples will marry will not eliminate the need for marriage. Her second point does attempt to distinguish between same-sex couples and other nonprocreative pairs.

I have several problems with this argument. First of all it treats all women (and all men) as interchangable train parts. A child's mother may be replaced by any other woman, but by no other man. All that matters is that there is a woman and a man as parents. Eve talks about the problems of a child being raised by his mother and grandmother, but it would seemingly be all right if the child were raised by his mother and grandfather. It is also clear that some opposite-sex couples marry even when the purpose is not to give a child a mother and a father. For example, when two eighty-year olds marry it is not likely they plan on having children. The fact that people marry for other reasons does no harm to marriage.

What exactly is the harm in same-sex couples getting married. Eve says the harm comes in "sending the message" that men (hence fathers) are unnecessary in forming a family. I'm not certain what Eve perceives the consequence of this message will be. One possibility is that two women will decide it is possible to form a family without any men. They will marry and possibly start raising kids. Of course female-only couples are already doing this. To see any harm of SSM we would need to believe that (1) such families are inherently harmful and (2) as a result of SSM more women will decide to do this as opposed to marrying men or remaining single and childless for life. From a policy perspective, to oppose SSM one also needs to believe the harm created by these additional same-sex parented families is not outweighed by the benefit of giving the existing families the protections of marriage. This view would also seem to hold that it is better for a lesbian either to marry a man or to remain single and childless.

Perhaps the harm perceived by Eve is that the "message" will lead some men to father children and then abandon them because they now believe fathers are unnecessary. Under the old message of "fathers are necessary, but any man will do", though, such men still might leave as long as they believe the mother of their children will meet some guy--any guy. More importantly if a man does walk away from his responsibilites, which occurs today without SSM, he bears full blame for his actions. I think it would be sickening to try blame same-sex marriage for his crimes. It's like trying to blame Malvo's murders on the movies. I think there are much better messages than "men are necessary for families". Some of these include: "If one fathers a child, one has a responsibility to that child and to its mother", "If one adopts a child, one is taking on the same responsibilites of parenthood", "If a couple is raising a child it is generally better for the couple and the child if the couple is married", "The obligations of marriage and of parenthood are not to be entered into lightly and may not be abandoned", "Intercourse between a man and woman could lead to a child for which they both bear responsibility", "Pregnancy is not the only risk of sexual relations". None of these messages is altered by allowing same-sex marriage. In fact some of these messages are actually weakened by prohibiting same-sex marriage.

UPDATE: Eve has responded in a series of four posts starting here. I replied with a series of posts starting here.

11:26 AM in Arguments Against SSM, Children and Same-Sex Parenting, What Is Marriage? | Permalink

Comments

Legal ssm would destroy the public understanding that a child needs a father and a mother. Currently even single parents and same-sex parents benefit from this understanding that there is a gap in the child's life, and some make an effort to fill that gap with godfathers, uncles, aunts, etc. to mitigate the damage. It's not as good as having a real father and mother (and by "real" I do NOT mean biological "parents", I mean a father and mother that are actually around, living with the child, legally responsible for the child, etc.), but it's better than nothing at all.

Marriage is the only legally defined institution that celebrates the union of man and woman. You kill that legal meaning of the word marriage, we eventually lose that meaning from the public sphere; the idea dies except in a few religious pariah groups (like the Indian reservations in Brave New World). The idea of marriage benefits not only the children of married people, but also children in less optimal situations. If you don't even know what you are missing, you're in a much worse predicament.

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Posted by: suuny | November 04, 2005 at 10:34 PM

"Legal ssm would destroy the public understanding that a child needs a father and a mother."
I believe you fail to realize that currently, SSM is legal, as there is nothing written anywhere in the constitution about marriage. The public has not shown any sign of losing understanding of marriage so far, so your point is completely baseless. If you are going to indict homosexuals for only providing one gender of parent, then you would have to attack every single parent out there. Homosexuals have families too, with both female and male members, so who is to say that the child does not have the influence of both genders?

"You kill that legal meaning of the word marriage, we eventually lose that meaning from the public sphere; the idea dies except in a few religious pariah groups (like the Indian reservations in Brave New World)."

This statement is what we call a fallacy. It is using the slippery slope idea that because one thing happens everything else will go downhill from there. You have no proof that marriage will lose its meaning, or that the world will become like that of Brave New World, so you cannot use that as an argument.

Posted by: | December 13, 2005 at 11:59 PM