Why I Think the Prop 8 Arguments are Wrong

[Brief Overview:

• I haven't commented on Prop 8 so far, the issues are complicated, and I don't want to be simplistic.
• There's an anti-Prop 8 and pro equality rally scheduled for Saturday in Anchorage at noon at the Atwood Building, so now is the time to comment.
• I found an article from a pro Prop 8 website that 'debunks' arguments for same-sex marriage.
• I took that article and give my reactions to the debunking.
  
  • Despite all the logical facade, the basic anti same-sex argument boils down to:

  • Same-sex marriage is not about civil rights. It’s about validation and social respect. It is a radical attempt at civil [I think he meant social] engineering using government muscle to strong-arm the people into accommodating a lifestyle many find deeply offensive, contrary to nature, socially destructive, and morally repugnant.

  • A second key factor is claiming that male-female marriage is the natural order of things and that marriage cannot be socially constructed. That argument seems to be contradictory. If marriage between men and women was not and cannot be socially constructed, then socially constructing same-sex marriage simply will not work anyway. Nature will win out. No need to spend $37 million to fight it.
    
• There's more, but I think those are the highlights.]
  
  Post Starts Here:
  
  Last week Jay noted that while I took pleasure in the historical event of Obama's election, I had not mentioned that the one civil rights landmark was marred by the passage of Propostion 8 in California and similar anti-gay marriage in a couple of other states.
  
  Since then, there have been anti-Prop 8 demonstrations in California and demonstrations are being planned for Saturday in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Anchorage's is at
  
  noon November 15 at the Atwood Bldg on 7th between E and F.
  
  And I still have not commented on this. In part, because it is probably the most divisive issue this election and such issues require particular care and tact if I'm to discuss it in a way that tries to present opposing views objectively. And since I find the anti-gay marriage argument ultimately lacking in merit, I'm hard pressed to do this well. Besides, what more can be said about this?
  
  Well, I started a long detailed look at the arguments I thought were being made. After several pages on biblical commandments, I realized I was writing a tract that no one was going to read. Then I switched tactics and started looking at some pro Prop 8 websites to see what they were arguing. One, essentially had no serious arguments for opposing gay marriage. It was as though it were so obvious they didn't need to say anything. But a second one did spell out ways to deal with arguments opposed to Prop 8. There was one particularly well written piece that went through argument after argument. I realized, wearily, that I was going to end up doing a long post after all. But so be it.
  
  Gregory Koukl's piece, "Same-sex marriage - challenges and responses" stands out because it doesn't mention religion and uses a logical argument that, with just a couple of exceptions, is free of blatant emotional appeal.
  
  I've taught enough graduate students to know that critical thinking is not a skill one necessarily acquires in the US school system, even after four years of college. And if you don't trust my judgment, just consider all the people who bought houses using sub-prime loans. So, I can't just link to this post and assume that even an educated reader will automatically see the problems in Koukl's discussions. So, hang on. I've given up trying to do this in just a brief synopsis. It's too complicated. Well, ultimately it comes down to some basic issues, but to really address the arguments I need to go into detail.
  
  I'll give brief quotes from his article and paraphrase the rest. You can go to the article itself to see whether I'm doing him justice.
  
  His overview of the problem has two points:
  

  First, changing the definition of marriage implies that marriage is just a matter of cultural definition.

  This would mean, he says, that all the rules about marriage would be overthrown - “It’s privileges, protections, responsibilities, and moral obligations are all up for grabs.” He says that polygamy will also be on the table.
  
  In a sense he is right - this is an ontological debate. Ontology is the field of philosophy that deals with the question of what is real. The basic responses are
  a. Realist Position: The truths of the social world are ‘out there’ in nature for us to discover
  and
  b. Nominalist Position: The social world is socially constructed. Humans shape and constantly reshape the concepts and the institutions they live in.
  
  Both these responses have generated adherents and detractors, are complicated, have situations where they obviously apply and situations where they don’t. One difficulty I see is the impossibility of separating out the physical reality from the social reality. For instance, motherhood and fatherhood are physical realities that are ‘out there’ in the sense that a child is the physical consequence of a sexual act of its parents.
  
  But is an adoptive mother not a mother? What is a family? Is it the American ideal of mother, father, and two point three kids? Is it the extended family of many cultures including several generations and aunts and uncles? Is it a blood relationship or a spiritual bond among people living together?
  
  Our formal upbringing and culture tend to favor the realist position. It is the ideology of mainstream natural science. But many critics of social conditions, such as the role of women in society, monarchy, slavery, the caste system in India, would argue that these institutions are socially constructed and institutionalize and justify a system that gives some people power and others little or none.
  
  By declaring unilaterally that marriage is a natural phenomenon rather than culturally defined, Koukl attempts to cut off the social construction option altogether. But, from my perspective, this is like declaring (but not proving) that his opponents’ basic assumption is wrong.
  

  Second, a marriage license for same-sex couples would be a governmental declaration that homosexual unions are no different than heterosexual unions in the eyes of the law.
  
  If so, then “marriage” is nothing in particular and can be restructured at the whim of the people. Even as I write, there are cases wending their way through courts in Utah challenging prohibitions on polygamy. Why not, if “marriage” is just a social construction?

  
  As you can see where he says “marriage is nothing in particular and can be restructured at the whim of the people” he is merely repeating his ‘realist’ argument from the first point. He then goes on to complain that:
  

  It will then be impossible to deny homosexuals full adoption rights. For the first time in the history of civilization a culture will declare that neither mothers nor fathers are essential components of parenthood; neither makes a uniquely valuable contribution. Same-sex marriage will deny children a right to a mother and a father.
  

  Ah, so his real gripe is that homosexuals would be able to adopt kids. He argues this later on - that kids need both a mother and father. I don’t disagree that having both genders as role models is good for kids. That may, under ideal conditions, be considered the best possible situation. But it doesn't mean that kids can't also have a great upbringing with two same gender parents. After all, there are also lots of single parent families without that. There are orphans who have neither. (So it would be better to leave them in foster care than to have gays or single people adopt them according to Koukle's arugment.) And other people - aunts, uncles, grandparents, good friends - can, and do, play those roles for kids. It isn’t a deal breaker.
  
  He then goes on to say, quite rightly, this is all very complicated. So he’s going to respond to common arguments for gay marriage and show their problems. What I’m going to do is look at his responses and show the problems with those.
  
  

  1. “We’re being denied the same rights as heterosexuals. This is unconstitutional discrimination.”
  There are two complaints here. First, homosexuals don’t have the same legal liberties heterosexuals have. Second, homosexual couples don’t have the same legal benefits as married couples.

  He argues that gays have the same rights everyone else has - to marry someone of the opposite sex. No one else has the right to marry someone of the same sex, so gays aren't discriminated against. He creates this bizarre analogy:
  

  Smith and Jones both qualify to vote in America where they are citizens. Neither is allowed to vote in France. Jones, however, has no interest in U.S. politics; he’s partial to European concerns. Would Jones have a case if he complained, “Smith gets to vote [in California], but I don‚t get to vote [in France]. That‚s unequal protection under the law. He has a right I don’t have.” No, both have the same rights and the same restrictions. There is no legal inequality, only an inequality of desire, but that is not the state’s concern.
  
  

  There are several problems with the analogy. Logically it fails because Jones could move to France and apply for French citizenship, but gays don't have an analogous option. Probably more important is the implication that homosexuality is a choice. My sense of this issue is that Kinsey's continuum of sexuality from totally straight on one end to totally gay on the other end is probably the most accurate reflection of people's sexual tendencies. So for people on the gay end, an 'interest' in French politics, isn't a whim or quirk, it is who they are.
  

  2. “They said the same thing about interracial marriage.”
  
  

  The difference here, he says, is that interracial marriage is about males and females. It was a mistake that has been corrected because skin color is irrelevant. He uses a clever analogy here.
  

  Consider two men, one rich and one poor, seeking to withdraw money from their bank. The rich man is denied because his account is empty. However, on closer inspection, a clerk discovers an error, corrects it, and releases the cash. Next in line, the poor man is denied for the same reason: insufficient funds. “That’s the same thing you said about the last guy,” he snaps. “Yes,” the clerk replies. “We made a mistake with his account, but not with yours. You’re broke.”

  I say this is a clever analogy because the logic in the example is clear. It had me stumped for a while. But then I remembered that when you have an analogy, there has to be correspondence between the example and the actual situation. That's the problem. This story is NOT analagous to the gay marriage situation. Why? Let's try to match the two.
  
  Who is the rich man and who is the poor man in the interracial situation and what is 'the money?" It's hard to say because they don't match. Let's set up the analogous interracial situation.
  
  A white (rich) man with a dark suntan comes into the county clerk's office to get a marriage license. At first the clerk says, "I'm sorry, but black men can't marry white women." Then he checks and finds out he's really a white man with a suntan. "Oh, my mistake, here's your license." Then the black (poor) man, next in line, is told the same thing. "But you gave the last guy his license." "Ah, because we checked and found out he was really white."
  
  He didn't get asked if he was a man. He got asked if he was black. The correction ultimately, when interracial marriage was approved, was not a simple, "Oh we made a mistake and you turn out to be qualified by our rules." No, it was, "We have decided to change our rules and now if you are black, you can get married to a white."
  
  The ban against interracial marriage was, like the ban on same sex marriage, based on tradition, it was said to be the natural order of things, and it was done within a power structure where whites had the power to exclude blacks, all supported by passages lifted from the bible to justify this power structure. It seems to me that this argument by the pro-gay marriage folks - banning gay marriage is analogous to banning interractial marriage - is, after all, a good one. Koukl tries, cleverly I admit, to distract us and say it still preserved the male-female part. That may be true, but it's irrelevant. The ban against interracial marriage was socially constructed and then socially deconstructed. Basically Koukl's argument that gay marriage is against the natural order of things is no different from what those opposed to interracial marriage said.
  
  Therefore, he argues that gays are not discriminated against, have no legal rights denied, because they have the same rights as everyone else - to marry someone of the other gender. They just choose not to. But this ignores the Kinsey continuum and assumes that you are either male or female, black or white, with no shades of gray. Kinsey's research, plus more recent studies clearly show that gender - with the ultimate example being hermaphrodites - is not a neat dichotomous issue.
  
  In the second part, he says that it may be true that gays are denied some entitlements, but says that's ok because entitlements are not guaranteed to everyone the way rights are, and with good reason, marriage is favored because it is the base of civilization. More on that below.
  
  3. “We shouldn’t be denied the freedom to love who we want.”
  
  Read this passage carefully. It's critical. Basically he says, gays won't gain any new freedoms with the right to get married. They can do all things married people do. There's only one thing they won't get - respect, societal approval.
  
  

  This [gaining new rights through marriage] will not happen because no personal liberty is being denied them. Gay couples can already do everything married people do – express love, set up housekeeping, share home ownership, have sex, raise children, commingle property, receive inheritance, and spend the rest of their lives together. It’s not criminal to do any of these things. ..
  

  Gay marriage grants no new freedom, and denying marriage licenses to homosexuals does not restrict any liberty. Nothing stops anyone – of any age, race, gender, class, or sexual preference – from making lifelong loving commitments to each other, pledging their troth until death do them part. They may lack certain entitlements, but not freedoms.

  Denying marriage doesn't restrict anyone. It merely withholds social approval from a lifestyle and set of behaviors that homosexuals have complete freedom to pursue without it. A marriage license doesn’t give liberty; it gives respect...

  Same-sex marriage is not about civil rights. It’s about validation and social respect. It is a radical attempt at civil [I think he meant social] engineering using government muscle to strong-arm the people into accommodating a lifestyle many find deeply offensive, contrary to nature, socially destructive, and morally repugnant.

  To me, this is the most revealing passage of the whole article for two reasons:
  A. Koukle essential reveals his underlying beliefs - he thinks gay marriage is deeply offensive, contrary to nature, socially destructive, and morally repugnant. This is a theological and emotional reaction to the idea of gay marriage. All the rest of this essay, I think, is an attempt to use non-religious, non-emotional methods to try to convince people who do not share his religious and emotional objections to marriage. They aren't his fundamental objection. They are just window dressing. This is the gut issue driving everything else: "I think gay marriage is disgusting." These are the same arguments that were made for banning interracial marriage. According to Wikipedia,
  
  

  The trial judge in the [Loving case - the one in which the US Supreme Court finally overturned the interracial marriage ban -] case, Leon Bazile, echoing Johann Friedrich Blumenbach's 18th-century interpretation of race, proclaimed that

  “	Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.

  
  All the elements are there - contrary to nature (God's will), socially destructive (interference with His arrangement), and morally repugnant (God sets the standards for what is morally right and He did not intend for the races to mix.)
  
  B. The second significant aspect of this one is that this strong opponent of homosexuality has basically said, "look, they've gotten everything they want - they can have sex, they can live together, they can play married, etc. He's basically ceded that homosexuality is legal and that in practical terms, gays have everything, relating to marriage type relationships, that non-gays have. Except societal approval of the arrangement. While the exception is a big one, to focus only on that and not see how far society's acceptance of gays has progressed would be myopic. Gays' progress toward total equality has moved much faster than did African-Americans. OK, I know the ultimate (at least in today's vision) legal prize still eludes, but a lot has been achieved.
  
  
  4. “Marriage is about love.”
  He rejects this altogether and says marriage is about children.
  
  

  On reflection, though, it's clear that love and marriage don’t always go together.

  In fact, they seldom do.

  If marriage were about love, then billions of people in the history of the world who thought they were married were not. Most marriages have been arranged. Love may percolate later, but only as a result of marriage, not the reason for it.

  Further, if love were the sine qua non of marriage, no for better or for worse promises would be needed at the altar. Vows aren’t meant to sustain love; they are meant to sustain the union when love wanes. A pledge keeps a family intact not for love, but for the sake of children.

  The state doesn’t care if the bride and groom love each other. There are no questions about a couple's affections when granting a license. No proof of passion is required. Why? Because marriage isn’t about love.

  
  
  5. “Marriage is constantly being redefined.”
  
  Well, it might appear that way, but however marriage has changed over time, there is still the basic pairing between a man and a woman. The reason? See 6.
  
  6. “Not all marriages have children.”
  
  No, he acknowledges, but that is the purpose of them.
  

  Clearly, not all families have children. Some marriages are barren, by choice or by design.

  This proves nothing, though. Books are written by authors to be read, even if large ones are used as doorstops or discarded ones help ignite campfires. The fact that many lie unread and covered with dust, or piled atop coffee tables for decorative effect doesn’t mean they were not destined for higher purpose.

  So, if you don't have children, your marriage serves a lower purpose. Unread books? Nice try, but some people get married with no intention of having children. And some people who have children, had no such intention.
  
  Clearly, there are examples, of marriages without love (#4), but not all marriages were intended to have children. Marriages were also intended to unite families and clans. The royalty of Europe betrothed children to create alliances. Sure, having children would probably strengthen those alliances, but producing competing heirs might also endanger the alliances.
  
  If marriage is not about love, but about keeping the loveless couple together to raise their children, then it would seem that not forcing gay men to marry women might increase the likelihood that marriages would stay together. Allowing gays to get out of the hetero marriage
  market - by allowing them to get a legally sanctioned same sex marriage - I suspect the divorce rate among male-female marriage would go down. Fewer children would be born into to families destined for divorce. In fact, while we're at it, the next logical extension here would be to ban all divorce.
  
  
  7. “Marriage is a social construction we can redefine as we please.”
  
  I've discussed this above. Kukle takes the realist position that marriage is a natural phenomenon that cannot be redefined by society. I think that if he really believed that, he wouldn't fear people making changes, since the natural human affinity for male-female marriage, the purpose to have children, etc. would 'naturally' guarantee the long term health and survival of marriage. Only if marriage truly were a social construction, could humans significantly change it. And he says this himself:
  

  If the definition of marriage is established by nature, then we have no liberty to redefine it. In fact, marriage itself wouldn’t change at all even if we did.

  So, it doesn't matter if we allow same-sex marriages.
  
  Well, maybe he doesn't believe what he says. The very fact that he is concerned about the future of marriage suggests to me, that deep down, he understands that it is socially constructed and that he wants to make sure that the present construction stays that way he wants it.
  

  Same-sex marriage is radically revisionist. It severs family from its roots, eviscerates marriage of any normative content, and robs children of a mother and a father. This must not happen.

  If male-female marriage is the natural state and humans cannot socially construct marriage, then how would same-sex marriage eviscerate marriage? But if he admits that marriage is socially constructed, then male-female marriage would no longer be 'natural,' but just a human construction. You just can't have it both ways. Sorry Mr. Koukle.
  
  OK, that's how I see it. I've felt a little rushed here to get this out today. If there are flaws in my reasoning please point them out.