Conservatives and gay marriage

I’ve been wrestling this afternoon with how to respond to National Review’s editorial that is dismissive of efforts to extend marriage to gay couples. This passage in particular has vexed me:

Few social goods will come from recognizing same-sex couples as married. Some practical benefits may accrue to the couples, but most of them could easily be realized without changing marriage laws. Same-sex couples will also receive the symbolic affirmation of being treated by the state as equivalent to a traditional married couple — but this spurious equality is a cost of the new laws, not a benefit. One still sometimes hears people make the allegedly “conservative” case for same-sex marriage that it will reduce promiscuity and encourage commitment among homosexuals. This prospect seems improbable, and in any case these do not strike us as important governmental goals.

Both as a social institution and as a public policy, marriage exists to foster connections between heterosexual sex and the rearing of children within stable households. It is a non-coercive way to channel (heterosexual) desire into civilized patterns of living. State recognition of the marital relationship does not imply devaluation of any other type of relationship, whether friendship or brotherhood. State recognition of those other types of relationships is unnecessary. So too is the governmental recognition of same-sex sexual relationships, committed or otherwise, in a deep sense pointless.

And here’s what vexes me: This conservative defense of heterosexuals-only marriage — and it is the best one they’ve got — basically amounts to social engineering.

Yes, social engineering. That’s a phrase you often hear coming from the mouths of conservatives who argue against affirmative action or against tax structures that place a heavier burden on the rich than the poor. Government is wrong when it tries to fashion society to fit some predetermined ends.

Except, apparently, when it comes to marriage.

The affirmative action comparison is especially telling here. When it comes to race, conservatives argue that minority groups shouldn’t be given state- or institutionally sanctioned privileges — access to jobs or education — because, well, that’s unfair to everybody else who doesn’t get those privileges. It doesn’t matter that folks in those groups were historically excluded from education and jobs, creating a sort of cultural quicksand that has mucked up the prospects of future generations. History be damned.

Except, apparently, when it comes to marriage. Historically, we’re told, marriage has always been between one man and one woman — and this history is important to preserve. And heterosexual couples must be given exclusive access to state-sanctioned privileges — on taxes, in particular, but also on many other day-to-day benefits — and it’s OK that it’s unfair, because of the children.

This ignores, of course, that post-menopausal couples are allowed access to civil marriage, as are heterosexual couples who have no intention of reproducing — facts that seem to make this conservative argument for heterosexuals-only civil marriage a lie. It also ignores that kids are raised in a variety of situations, not all of them featuring married heterosexual couples. Ah, conservatives respond, but a committed heterosexual relationship is the very best set of parents for kids. It’s been proven scientifically!

Perhaps. But even granting — for the sake of argument — that that’s true, that still leaves conservatives in the position of arguing for heterosexuals-only marriage on social engineering grounds. Never mind that plenty of good people survived and even thrived in blended families, with single mother or, yes, gay parents. Never mind that gay adoptive parents tend to take care of kids — with medical issues, or who are racial minorities — who would otherwise be left at the mercy of the foster care system. Only the theoretically optimum style of child-rearing — and I say “theoretically,” because we’ve all known some shitbag still-married parents — will get the respect, recognition and support of the state. And everyone else can go lump it.

Social engineering.

What’s funny about this is that heterosexual couples have been pairing off and raising children for thousands of years, long before government got into the act. Somehow, humanity survived and thrived. Yet now conservatives — folks who usually argue that government should leave us alone to do our own thing — now suggests that the government must defend an institution that survived fine without it.

The ludicrousness wouldn’t be so irritating were it not for National Review’s arrogant dismissiveness of the rights of gay couples to be able to care for and support each other. “State recognition of the marital relationship does not imply devaluation of any other type of relationship,” the magazine says — but it clearly does.

Thanks to my upbringing and college years, I have a number of friends who are opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds. I won’t try to argue with them, frankly; I do believe that religious grounds are insufficient as a foundation for public policy.

National Review, though, deserves little respect for the case it is making. As I said: When it comes to affirmative action and tax structure, conservatives decry social engineering. When it comes to marriage, they embrace it. It’s funny — actually, it’s not — that in each case, the conservative position protects the power and privileges of people who have always had it.