Chekhov's Mistress

Straight Not Narrow

by Bud Parr

I’ve returned to posting after a long winter of not writing very much, due mostly to my beautifully overwhelming new baby. My goal is to get away from Bush-whacking on this page, which is far too easy and common, and write about some of the other issues that the name of this blog implies. However, I have one issue that’s been in the press and on my mind, because it’s in the press, that I have to mention, and naturally, Mr. Bush is at the center of it.  I am confused about the issue of gay marriage; not confused about the issue, but confused about why it’s an issue, and why it’s such an important issue that we would need a constitutional amendment to save our society from it. Yeah, sure, there are politics behind it and all that, but why?



For an answer, I went to my trusty Economist Magazine, whose inimitably logical editors tend to be centrist (at their most neutral) and free-market libertarian (at their most political), and, importantly for me, they lay out arguments so that anyone can understand them. The Economist supports gay marriage and makes the case for it in the opinion pages of their February, 26 issue. They rightly accuse George Bush of being “in favor of unequal rights…“and “big government intrusiveness…” and claim that his call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is “difficult, drastic and draconian…” The Economists case for gay marriage rests, in short, on the simple idea of equality; “Why should one set of loving, consenting adults be denied a right in which, if exercised, will do no damage to anyone else?



They also point out my personal favorite flaw in Bush’s argument: This “fundamental institution” that he wants to preserve already has a greater failure rate than a New York City restaurant (my analogy, probably not technically correct, but you get the point). They go on to address the separation of church and state and the beneficence of marriage over civil unions.



I Agree with all of this and I won’t go through their entire argument, particularly since the article is available online at the link above, but I do want to point out what I see as one flaw (perhaps of omission): They counter the argument that marriage is about children by saying that it “often is, but not always, and permitting gay marriage would not alter that.” This seems to me to ignore the fact that gay couples, just as anyone else, have the right to adopt children, or even have children through fertility treatment or other means. I would think that, in light of this ability, the symbolic commitment that marriage represents would only strengthen families, and that is what this is supposed to be about. As a new parent, I can whole-heartedly attest to the benefit of having two people to raise a child, but there is no good reason why those two people have to be male and female.



Thanks Economist, but I still don’t understand why this is an issue. Why do we not understand that civil rights are for people, not necessarily one group, and that each group should not have to fight for what a bunch of straight, but narrow-minded, white guys have always enjoyed.



What is everyone so afraid of?

posted March 16, 2004

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