Sexual exclusivity is so "white picket fence"

Mary Hunt, co-founder of WATER, has written a piece this summer that is essential reading for anyone who wants to educate himself on challenges to the legal and moral framework of marriage. Claiming that the Religious Right has pressed the non-hetero crowd (we'll use her term LGBTQ for lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender advocates) into a false paradigm: wanting to be hitched, two-by-two for the sake of marriage benefits, she raises the flag for individualism, since there are far more diverse ways to be otherwise connected than traditional pairs.

I appreciate this honest and straightforward article. She carries weight, because she is a leader in her circles and has long voiced views at odds with the established mores of revealed religion, and her points should make us stop and refine our own arguments.

1. Why marriage? Isn't it just access to economic benefits?

Progressive people, and especially progressive religious people, must do better if relational justice for all—and not just more rights for a few—is to result. Connecting rights to marriage is, in my view, an outmoded approach to the common good.

The operative problem is not same-sex marriage, but heterosexual marriage. Hetero- marriage is not a right, but a privilege- granting machine that favors those who are lucky in love by making them even luckier in the business of daily life. I see no reason to extend that privilege to more people, and every reason to curtail it, so as to level the socio-economic playing field for all.

If anything, same-sex marriages have fueled the wedding business (catering, photographers, flowers, receptions and gifts galore) and reinforced the notion that “good” gay and lesbian people come in happy twosomes. I favor other economic priorities (like health care for all) and know that many lesbian and gay people are single, between relationships, or quite content to live outside the long arms of the state. But choice is choice and I support it. Nonetheless, my long term goal is not same-sex marriage. I seek a broader, perhaps more utopian, trajectory toward full citizenship for all with an emphasis on the common good upheld by structures that support individual choices.

2. Is marriage really about sexual exclusivity?

A second problem with marriage, delicate to handle without being accused of promoting promiscuity, is one raised by LGBTQ Canadians who have the right to marry but do not seem to be exercising it in the same proportions as their US counterparts. Is hetero-marriage, with its presumption of sexual exclusivity, really what lesbian and gay people want? Do we intend to perpetuate what one Canadian referred to as the “white picket fence model,” the fiction that happiness and relational goodness only come in matched pairs?

3. Is marriage, with all the divorce out there, best for children? Why not "the village?"

The more I examine marriage, the more obvious it becomes that the laws are written to favor a certain two-by-two lifestyle that is simply a fiction. A divorce rate above forty percent and the growing number of longtime single people in our society suggest that for many people marriage is at best a temporary state of affairs. It would seem to make more sense to draw the legal lines vis-à-vis those who have children or even those who care for elders, privileging them because they have taken on the care of those who cannot care for themselves. But doing so in the case of children would reinforce the notion that children “belong” to their parents, rather than being the responsibility of society as a whole; it would reinforce that elder care is family- rather than society-based.

4. Can we repackage religion to be more "open" about its definition of marriage. (This is important, because she seems to want the "spiritual seal of approval" yet wants to morph revelation according to her own standard, meaning it's not really revelation at all.) Thus is marriage "revealed" by God or a "paint-by-numbers" invention?

Many progressive religious people, including me, have been supportive of the same-sex marriage movement. I believe that we need to continue that public support, including risking ecclesial and/or civil disobedience in doing so. But at the same time, and without risk of contradiction, I think we need to raise the kinds of issues I am flagging here so as to avoid being co-opted by the Religious Right one more time.

Religious leaders would do everyone a favor by breaking out of the moral mold and talking frankly about what we know to be the many and varied ways good people live their relational lives. We need to bring the moral energies of religion to the realities of contemporary social life. This does not mean that we abdicate ethics, but that we listen hard and speak honestly about the fact that two-by-two is not the only, and for some not the best, way to live. It is because religions put such a priority on those who are vulnerable or marginalized, like the young, the old and the infirm, that religious leaders can dare to entertain relational models other than marriage without risking the loss of what marriage now purports to protect. Someone has to start the conversation.

THUS: it is evident that we have to engage in explaining why:

1. Marriage benefits society

2. Sexual exclusivity is morally and physically better

3. Children thrive in stable homes with mother and father

4. Revelation cannot be changed (this is tricky in a secular state)

I'm intrigued to think that she thinks the "religious right" has buffaloed the LGBTQ crowd, when we feel bullied by them at every turn. Rather than being pushed into marriage, I think the LGBTQ's are walking into this fight fully cognicent, with the abolition of marriage as their end-game. Whether or not she is being coy, I don't know, but we have to understand their arguments and she lays them out cohesively for us here.

Comments

[me]

Well, I keep being told that it takes a village to raise a child. True, we all need support from others, but it is the parents' job to take on the majority of conscience formation. I get the distinct impression that when people mention the "village", what they really want is for me to hand over my child for the majority of his education and work on the sidelines. I probably get this impression because the "it takes a village to raise a child" comment invariably comes up when it is mentioned that we homeschool.

[Teresa]

Well, we've experimented with "the village" before. In recent history, the Soviet Union, distantly, Sparta. It's interesting to me that she seems to equate the high divorce rate with the classical arrangement of marriage (one man and one woman) as being a poor design. The rise in divorce rates since the 50's coincides with other rising societal issues such as: drug use, sexual promiscuity and violence. So, Ms. Hunt is convinced that marriage is obsolete. With the societal issues I just named, (which are only a few), she'll have to do a lot more to convince me that "the village" wouldn't become Hell on Earth for our children and the most vulnerable.

[Anonymous]

As the parent of an adoptive child (who spent 5 years in foster care), I can tell you that kids don't give a rat's ass about "the village." Many kids have experienced "the village" first hand and want nothing more to do with it. My 12 year old will tell you that there's no substitute for a mom and a dad. The rest is gravy.

People should listen to the experts.