Thanks for that link, enjoyed the article. Not a bad argument, but I found the central assumption weak, and it didn’t change my mind. Found this on the internet:
Bowling for Gay Marriage
I have found, in recent weeks, that the national debate on gay marriage has taken the form of a very poor bowler. Most attempts at rational argument end up in one of two gutters, and the results have no real impact. On one side, arguments about marriage from a religious point of view are over before they begin (and beside the point in the public arena), and on the other hand, endless speculation about the political ramifications of one position over another trivializes what is, for many people, a very personal and important issue.
So it was with great anticipation that I read
Adam Kolasinski’s Feb17 column (“The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage”). However, the resulting impact left too many pins standing for me to be satisfied. His conclusions do not follow from his arguments, and his arguments are based on questionable assumptions. If this is the secular case against gay marriage, I enter a motion for summary judgment.
A questionable assumption submarines Mr. Kolasinski’s argument in the very first paragraph. His second sentence states that “state recognition of marriage is not a universal right.” Assuming he meant “legal right” instead of “universal right” (even free speech isn’t a “universal right”), this statement is patently untrue. Marriage is an explicitly stated right of United States citizens. In Loving v. Virginia [388 U.S. 1 (1967)], the United States Supreme court said: “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival …” This oversight changes the entire course of the discussion; the “burden of proof” is now on gay marriage opponents, and not “gay advocates,” as is suggested in the fourth paragraph.
But even if we grant Mr. Kolasinski his premise, his argument that gay marriage does not meet this burden is specious. Most of his column focuses on the idea that the state issues marriage licenses, “Because … propagation of society is a compelling state interest.” This assertion is presented as a well-known fact without any hint of background or attribution. It simply isn’t true.
There is no official, public “reason” for marriage licenses. Antagonists have suggested that marriage “licenses” originated as a mechanism to allow states to to prevent interracial marriages. Others point to the fact that some states have marriage records that extend back to the late seventeenth century, suggesting that it all started as a bookkeeping venture. The Massachusetts SJC decision addresses this very question, and they create a laundry list of reasons for marriage licenses. They begin by suggesting that civil marriages “enhance the ‘welfare of the community’,” and then list reasons like bookkeeping, property distribution, and the welfare of children. In six pages of reasons, they do not once mention “the perpetuation of society” or anything like it.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (sort of the “defendant” in this case) does later suggest that “providing a favorable setting for procreation” could be a valid legislative rationale behind a ban on same-sex marriage (this may have been the origination of Mr. Kolasinski’s argument). However, a rationale for new legislation is a far cry from a reason behind an existing system. And the distinction is important because Mr. Kolasinski’s argument suggests that the marriage licensing system is some sort of intentional, well-functioning piece of social engineering that gay marriage would disrupt. This assertion, properly made, would require a great deal more historical evidence (or, really, any historical evidence at all).
And the proof is in the pudding: civil marriage is completely orthogonal to procreation. Mr. Kolasinski attempts to make it not so by sweeping aside the large number of childless marriages by declaring them too expensive to discover (sterile couples), too few to be bothered with (elderly couples), or too impossible to ascertain (couples who choose not to have children). He then blusters through a half-baked pseudo-scientific recounting of “empirical evidence” about children who grow up with gay parents, and finishes with a demonstration the circular nature of the procreative argument (good marriages focus on procreation because marriages that focus on other things are bad).
-snip-
bryanadamsblog.com/archives/2004/02/thrashing_some.html
(there are two more paragraphs, but my post is too long… at the end, he concedes gay marriage is a slippery slope to other unions, so argues that marriage licenses should be abolished altogether?)
