As we approach the week when the Supreme Court is going to hear two important gay-marriage cases (the challenges to California’s Prop 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act), I wanted to check in on the best arguments of the opponents and challenge my own support of marriage equality, which is so self-evidently right to me as a gay liberal.
What helps me keep an open heart in this very personal (to me) and gripping debate is the realization, now being increasing verified by science, that conservative and liberal brains work differently. Each of us literally sees different facts, has different automatic reactions to circumstances and therefore stakes out very different political positions. And it’s really hard for either side to “get” the worldview of the other. This is precisely why it is so important for integralists to practice inhabiting other worldviews. Not to water down our positions or even to necessarily make compromises — sometimes the way forward is for one side to be soundly defeated (may it be so in this case!). But this does not require that we hate the other side or decry them for being stupid, deluded, ignorant or co-opted. In “protecting marriage”, conservatives are making very good sense by their own lights, and we’re wise to do our best to see their perspective.
One of my go-to conservatives is New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who in my view often exhibits an integral sensibility. He didn’t disappoint: here he is presenting a case against legalizing gay marriage that isn’t based on bigotry or religion. This was written a couple years ago, and is an excerpt from a well-known blog debate between him and Andrew Sullivan, another more or less integral thinker. The whole debate is excellent (Ross 1, Andrew response, Ross 2), and really all you need to read to be aware of the most thoughtful arguments on both sides of this issue. Here are Douthat’s key ideas:
The benefits of gay marriage, to the couples involved and to their families, are front-loaded and obvious, whereas any harm to the overall culture of marriage and childrearing in America will be diffuse and difficult to measure. I suspect that the formal shift away from any legal association between marriage and fertility will eventually lead to further declines in the marriage rate and a further rise in the out-of-wedlock birth rate (though not necessarily the divorce rate, because if few enough people are getting married to begin with, the resulting unions will presumably be somewhat more stable). But these shifts will probably happen anyway, to some extent, because of what straights have already made of marriage. Or maybe the institution’s long decline is already basically complete, and the formal recognition of gay unions may just ratify a new reality, rather than pushing us further toward a post-marital society. Either way, there won’t come a moment when the conservative argument, with all its talk about institutional definitions and marginal effects and the mysteries of culture, will be able to claim vindication against those who read it (as I know many of my readers do) as a last-ditch defense of bigotry.
But this is what conservatism is, in the end: The belief that there’s more to a flourishing society than just the claims of autonomous individuals, the conviction that existing prohibitions and taboos may have a purpose that escapes the liberal mind, the sense that cultural ideals can be as important to human affairs as constitutional rights. Marriage is the kind of institution that the conservative mind is supposed to treasure and defend: Complicated and mysterious; legal and cultural; political and pre-political; ancient and modern; half-evolved and half-created. And given its steady decline across the last few decades, it would be a poor conservatism that did not worry at the blithe confidence with which we’re about to redefine it.
Do you think, from a progressive view, that this decline in marriage is going to be a problem in the future? Are we going to produce enough children and bring them up well? Is sexual liberation going to cause a great deal of damage and even cause regression to lower levels?
I would like to think that we are maturing, becoming more open about sex and allowing more freedom will all be handled well. But it is a worry that they might cause us to go backwards and I’d like to hear your thoughts on it.
I am tired of conservative hypothesizing the potential bad effects of gay marriage as if there were no reasonable experiments to evaluate. Same sex marriage has been legal (nationwide) in Canada since 2005. Canada is the 4th nation to legalize same sex marriage.
While I recognize that in general Canadians are better educated and more polite the citizens of the US, the availability of same sex marriage has not meant the end of marriage.
My argument to those who oppose same sex marriage on “rational” grounds is to dig into the available data and make a case. The lack of such an argument suggests either that the data is unsupportive of the conservative’s position or that the conservative is just too lazy to test the hypothesis. For over a thousand years people accepted Aristotle’s opinion that heavy objects fall faster than light objects. Galileo disproved that by looking at the data. Bad hypothesis are easy to assert. It is time to stop paying attention to hypothesis unsupported by data when data exists.
This is a balanced argument. However, there are so many factors presenting themselves with regard to the decline of the institution of marriage, sexual and other addictions, money issues, our lack of maturity around what true love really is, and a host of others. It is difficult for me to take an argument like this too seriously without examining all the other issues that play into the decline of marriage. The Integral Approach is great because it considers all these other personal and cultural points. But any argument that singles out one cause without looking at the whole of it misses the point. Life is way too varied for that. A gay couple might have strong, lasting high-moral values, good money habits, etc while a straight couple lacks these. I doubt seriously whether anyone can make the argument that some of these other issues affecting marriage have anything to do with sexual orientation alone, for to make such an argument would be to throw the entire LGBT community under the bus, painting them all with one immoral brush. These issues are complicated and no side of the political parties presents a clear issue, each coming from its own perspective with its own agenda. This article, coming from a conservative, is at least less partisan in its approach. A good start, but we have a long way to go,given the multitude of perspectives and factors involved in this whole marriage debate. Integral could be a launching pad for such a wide ranging debate that actually looks at all the factors and perspectives, instead of singling out “gay” only, as if that is truly a linchpin for the decline of marriage in and of itself. Thanks, Scott
Jeff, I really appreciate your commitment to present the alternative point of view. I have just finished the book “Anti Fragile”, and gained a deep appreciation for the mysteries of culture, and age old rules learned by trial and error.
I don’t think we should change our direction, but I do think we would be wise, to be awake to the potential Black Swans that result from our actions, and assume they are there even if we cannot see them at the moment.
Wow Jeff. What if all political debate was this thoughtful and mutually respectful? Thanks for sharing it.
I understand that an integralist is inclined to seek value in divergent opinions, but surely not at the expense of logic.
If the marriage issue were to be taken out of any historical context, then Mr. Douthat might have an argument. But his defense is foggy. Which version of marriage must be defended by the socially responsible conservative mind, and which of the many changes in marriage law has proven a harm to civilization? Removal of legal polygamy from western culture? Cessation of treating a woman as chattel? Interracial marriage, once prohibited by law?
The socially responsible conservative mind, in all its magnificent gravitas, seems ineffective in the face of so many disturbing alterations to what once must have been an institution above question, even for irresponsible liberals unable to grasp the deeper truths marriage represents.
Hi, Jeff,
I am also a gay liberal, now 85 years old, someone who has been in the struggle for recognition and equal rights for many decades. I read with interest your reprint of the Ross Douthat article, and, though I won’t try to go over the entire argument for and against gay marriage, I would like to point out one or two relevant concerns:
l. The primary argument against gay marriage seems to be that marriage is intended for the purpose of procreation. This position seems to be oblivious to the fact that over population is now one of the major issues facing the globe, and, rather than excluding those who marry for love rather than procreation, we probably should be encouraging such unions.
2. Furthermore–if the test for marriage is the ability and intent to procreate, then shouldn’t we–logically–prohibit by law those incapable of procreation because of biology or age? Perhaps the logical extreme would be to force those married but past the age of procreating to divorce.
3. Finally, in reference to his contention that we should worry about the “blithe confidence with which we’re about to redefine it,” what about the”blithe confidence” with which our society has marginalized and (until recently criminalized) and reduced to second class citizens those who chose to live outside the societal norms, determining their lives by love as opposed to society’s expectations.
Well, I do feel better now.
Your sister in supporting personal and political freedom;
Dorothy
P. S. The whole argument is somewhat irrelevant for me, since I have long since lost the desire to be married to anyone of either sex, but do have concern for those who follow and for myself as a citizen desiring equality under the law.
Jeff, great post, and I am glad to see your reference to Ross Douthat’s “integral sensibility.” I think too often we integralists reflexively place a conservative or traditional view as “lower” or “earlier” on the developmental scale, with a progressive or liberal view further along the developmental arrow. However, I think it is important to see that there can be either a conservative or liberal perspective on politics and culture from the tip or leading edge of the arrow. On this note, for integralists interested in religion, tradition, culture, and politics, I would heartily recommend Ross’ recent book “Bad Religion,” which discusses the role of traditional religion with somewhat of the integral sensibility you mention. Most importantly, it allows us to see that Tradition (as opposed to traditionalism) is not something merely to be placed as “blue” or lower in the developmental scale, but can be fully compatible — or at least friendly — with an integral world view.
On the broader subject of same sex marriage (SSM), I am struck how the debate has conflated what really are two different issues — SSM as a civil law issue and as a religious issue. Of course, the current issue (certainly as it is before the Supreme Court) is about what the civil law should be, though I think these two aspects are often merged when people talk about SSM and in their minds. As integralists, I think it is key to make the distinction. While having equality in marriage as a civil matter in developed countries is one thing, from an integral perspective, we have to wonder about the effect of SSM within traditional religion. After all, what happens to the so-called “conveyor belt” of moving people from a red to blue center of gravity in the developing world (to oversimplify using the colors as we often must do for simplicity) if blue traditional religion in the developing world starts to incorporate the sensibilities of liberal, western modernity. I don’t raise this to take a position on SSM within religions, but only to note that the liberal modern/post-modern mind cannot even entertain such a thing, while this would be crucial for consideration to from an integral view. I think this is part of Ross’ point — that we just don’t know of the effect.