It’s extremely depressing to see a magazine that has long championed federalism and states rights support a Constitutional Amendment that would shred such principles. But it is not too surprising. Their fundamental argument, in so far as they have one, is procreation. Here’s the money section:
Traditionally, marriage has been understood to be ordered to procreation. This ordering was not, in general, understood in a narrowly instrumental way. The tradition did not insist that “the purpose of marriage is to raise children.” Married couples were never required to have, to want, or even to be capable of having children. Elderly couples could marry. Infertility was not held to be a valid ground for annulment. Still, there was a link to procreation. Impotence was a valid ground for annulment, because it meant that the couple could not effect the behavioral conditions for procreation; that it could not unite in the total, including biological, sense required of true union. It was understood that the ideal setting for the rearing of children was the marriage of their parents.
That ideal could not always be achieved. Tragedy could leave a child parentless and in need of adoption. Children could be born outside of marriage. These realities did not challenge the culture-wide commitment to the ideal, just as the recognition that adultery exists does not bring the virtue of fidelity into question. The widespread practice of divorce and remarriage did, however, challenge the ideal. So have such seemingly marginal developments as the rise of sperm banks. Gay marriage would cut the final cord that ties marriage to the well-being of children.
I’m not going to rehearse all the arguments here. But I will point out that NR has essentially conceded in this passage that every link to procreation in legal marriage has been gutted already, except the abstract but practically inconsistent association of heterosexuality and procreation. Yet they are not proposing an amendment to make divorce or multiple re-marriage or sperm banks illegal – something that clearly would restore the ancient links between marriage and procreation. Their view is that although heterosexuals have severed the link between procreation and marriage, homosexuals should not be allowed to enter the institution on the same terms. Why? I can’t see a real argument, except that somehow admitting gay people would make what is already true too explicit. Fromthe point of view of National Review, a civil marriage regime which allows the most shameless, intentionally childless, days-long, Green Card, Vegas chapel, heterosexual marriage is worthy of more legal and social protection than a long-term faithful and loving gay relationship with kids. It’s good to see how they really feel about gay relationships.
THE SILENCE: But let me add something more. Go read the editorial. See if you can find in it a single reference to gay people’s lives or relationships or needs. If NR opposes civil marriage, what do they propose instead for gay citizens in loving relationships or with children? Domestic partnership? Civil unions? Private sector benefits? Does National Review even have a position on whether it is better for gay people to form solid relationships or live in bathhouses? Look hard. You will find nothing. Nada. Zip. Why? The most charitable answer is that what might be best for gay people simply hasn’t occurred to them. And why should it? Gays aren’t part of their world, are they? It seems to me to be important for those of us who have argued for equal marriage rights to take care, as we have, to look at the interests of society as a whole, especially its heterosexual majority. But it strikes me as equally fair that those who oppose same-sex marriage also take into account the gay citizens of this country, and what is best for them and their spouses and their children. The fact that the editors of National Review have not done this, and have yet to come up with a single constructive proposal to ameliorate the lives of gay people, is simply a sad testament to where conservatism still is on this subject.
The Dish 