marriage — Page 4

To throw another wrinkle in my recent posts about same-sex relationships (those were in the context of the rise of Polygamy in cultural awareness), there’s a good post by Beau on whether the notion of the genetic origin of sexual orientation (or “gay essentialism”) will withstand the present anti-foundationalism and deconstructionism in liberal thought. He takes his cue from Don Browning and Elizabeth Marquardt’s The Meaning of Marriage:

In the discussion of sex, it is normal now for liberals to automatically translate that term into “gender.” The prevailing liberal theory is that no feature of masculinity or femininity is rooted in the biology of men and women. Everything is a social construction.

Everything, that is, except sexual orientation. When it comes to sexual orientation, liberals become essentialists again. Advocates of homosexuality are increasingly drawn to the idea that sexual orientation is a biological fact, not a social construction (and certainly not a choice). Therefore, society must accommodate to all sexual orientations and “get used to it.”

Browning and Marquardt point out that the logic of modernization is dissolving all claims of fixed relations and innate or essential qualities. Even the deepest and most ancient of essential differences, those between fathers and mothers in marriage, are subject to the acids of social
constructivism. It may be premature to fix the flag of same-sex marriage to homosexual essentialism today; the same modernizing theory that all identities are just social constructions may sweep it away tomorrow.

I remarked in his comment section that while there is a trend towards a radical denuding of all constructs from biological or other non-subjective roots, there are also liberal (and conservative) attempts to resist that. I myself hold a form of ‘hermeneutical realism,’ and see that while our treatment of gender is a social construct there are some non-subjective roots upon which they are built. It is part of what has me pause and not buy completely into the current postmodern movement.

Anyway, another interesting angle. Sullivan might argue that homosexuality is somehow innate where polygamy is not, but here’s another version of the attempt to challange that view.

Sullivan articulates a crucial distinction that I think gets lost in the shuffle:

Gay people are not asking for the right to marry anybody. We’re asking for the right to marry somebody. Right now, heterosexual polygamists have an option: marry someone. And gay people are told: you can marry no one at all. That cannot be just. It cannot be fair. And it cannot be conservative to refuse to give 9 million people an incentive to settle down and take care of one another.

His premise is that sexual orientation isn’t a choice, but polygamy is. That’ll be an interesting debate, but I think he’s correct. Among the goods of marriage (Augustine scholars, review your notes) are the reigning in of sexual appetites within a healthy sphere (that is, with a consentual spouse) in a way that deepens and strengthens the bonds of the union. One of the evils of breaking the marriage covenant (through adultery, say) is the weakening of those bonds. One can choose adultery, or fidelity. One can choose to give oneself entirely to a life-long partner, or not. And in a similar way, one can choose, I gather, to try to do that with muliple partners (the previous problems of polygamy to be noted). The point that conscious choice is involved. One isn’t choosing the orientation to a particular sex (though certainly how one acts that out is chosen), nor the fundamental desire to be united with someone (for all the goods of a marriage or other committed relationship). Those are more or less innate.

So a good case could be made for that distinction. Good argument. Go read it….

On Gay Essentialism….

Sullivan on the distinction between same-sex marriage and polygamy…