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
“People have realized that the complete removal of the feminine element from the Christian message is a shortcoming from an anthropological viewpoint. It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity."
This is just another of the unintended consequences of the cultural acceptance of contraception and abortion! Men's sexuality has been robbed of its creative essence. It is now viewed as something that imposes a burden on women (when conception happens to occur), something used to control women or something that is purely recreational. Why would men bother?? In taking away their responsibility, we've also robbed them of their significance! In the big picture of humanity, men have been made into nothing more than a nuisance women have to figure out how to control in order to bring about the next generation. Men don't see it as their task to protect the vulnerable because they see themselves as the vulnerable ones. A few well preserved vials of sperm would make men entirely obsolete in the world's ethos today!!
That is astounding Robin, and good for you for standing up. At the heart of that matter, I think, is even worse than a gender mixing message. There is an increased sharper and sharper focus on the "self." Solid Catholic teaching returns our focus away from ourselves to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The original sin, Eve denied her womanhood when she desired to be like "gods." Since the only god she knew was the Father. Where was Adam? He stood impotent... in other words, they were divorced. There's a young girl at Robin's son's high school who was just told that she is the center of the universe and it's a tragic disservice to her.
Ditto what Mary said! A lot of high schools have very poor math and science depts, for boys and girls. I also am educated as a chemical engineer, but chose to teach the two years before we had children because its hours were more suited to spending time with children. (I was looking ahead). When it came time and I was pregnant with our first, I realized that I did not want to leave him with someone else, and was able to stay home full time. I am not sure it would have been that easy if we were used to another engineering income and not just a private school teacher income. Also some of my first job offers were out on oil rigs - I had no interest in that at all even though I enjoyed my engineering classes and did well in them. No one discouraged me from an engineering job, on the contrary I got a lot of flack for my decision not to pursue an engineering career.
I've been lurking, but this is one that irritates me. Beats the heck out of me what these "barriers" are. I was educated as a chemical engineer, where 1/3 of our class was women. However, in electrical engineering, only 1 or 2 out of 30 were women. Is it possible that women are Just Not Interested in some areas? Nah, it must be The Man keeping us down so we must legislate (and, I agree -- when they say "legistlate", I hear "quota"). And actually, I have a friend that was also a chemical engineer. When she lost her job, she decided not to go back into engineering and started working from home so she could spend more time with her 3 kids. Also, if nothing else, there are all kinds of incentives for women to enter science and engineering -- scholarships not available to men, guaranteed housing on campuses that do not guarantee housing to the general population, etc. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that schools in general are not preparing students for the hard sciences. It is truly a sad state of affairs, the lack of science education these days.