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In "Beyond Gay Marriage," I have a lot to say about those in the gay community who see same-sex marriage as a step toward the abolition of marriage itself. I focus on a group of scholars and activists who now dominate the field of academic family law. Many of those scholars once bitterly opposed gay marriage. Today they formally support gay marriage, but only in so far as same-sex marriage can be turned to the purpose of unraveling marriage itself. According to Sullivan, I fail to acknowledge that these radicals have essentially lost the argument over same-sex marriage within the gay community, and have now been relegated to the fringes. According to Sullivan, making this radical fringe stand for the gay-marriage movement is a form of guilt by association — something like criticizing the agenda of the Democratic Leadership Council by attacking Al Sharpton. Actually, in "Beyond Gay Marriage" I specifically note that the radicals were once opposed to same-sex marriage. The trouble is, these erstwhile gay opponents of same-sex marriage have not been relegated to the fringes. On the contrary they have gained control of the discipline of family law, and from that perch they are already steering major legal reforms specifically designed to destroy the institution of marriage. That cannot be done from the margins. Sullivan would like to believe that the movement for same-sex marriage has pushed the gay community toward the center and right. That is wishful thinking. Proponents of same-sex marriage won the argument within the gay community because both sides realized that the right to marry would symbolize social approval of homosexuality. But that is very different than a genuine turning toward the ethos of marriage. Don't take my word for it. Listen to Gabriel Rotello, a prominent gay activist and author who hopes that same-sex marriage might reduce gay male promiscuity, but who has been frustrated by the attitude toward marriage within the gay community:
Sullivan's Al Sharpton analogy isn't fair, since Sharpton has never formally signed on to the agenda of the DLC, whereas anti-marriage gay activists have formally signed on to the gay-marriage movement. A better analogy might be Congressman Charles Rangel's support for a draft, which is actually an attempt to scuttle the Bush administration's foreign policy. But the best analogy is probably Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign — run on the agenda of the DLC. Clinton did turn out to be a bit more moderate than many in his party on some issues, but most of Clinton's moderation was for show. He brought Hillary Clinton into power, and salted the bureaucracy with leftists who turned federal policy on things like affirmative action and Title IX about as far away from DLC moderation as possible. Sullivan is campaigning for gay marriage on a Clintonesque platform of moderation. I don't buy it. Sullivan makes an important concession on the question of gay marriage and monogamy. He acknowledges that there may well be more adultery in male-male marriages than in straight marriages, and agrees that "it's fair to worry about that." Sullivan's answer to this problem is what it has always been — that there will be a net gain in monogamy because gay male marriages will be more than balanced out by strongly monogamous lesbian marriages. This misses the point — and in several ways. First, Sullivan wants to believe that the somewhat higher level of pro-monogamy views among civil-union couples is a sign that civil unions have changed gay attitudes. The far greater likelihood is that civil unions self-select for gay couples who are already slightly more monogamous. Even then, Sullivan doesn't mention one of my central points, that full gay marriage will have even lower rates of belief in monogamy than civil unions because many non-monogamous gays will marry for the benefits, without buying into traditional views of marriage. The deeper point is that the connection between marriage and monogamy only works because of our shared social consensus on the meaning of marriage. With all the changes in marriage since the 1960s we still generally take it for granted that marriage means monogamy. The danger to monogamy is not really from adultery in gay male marriages. The danger is that gay married men (and a significant number of radical lesbians as well) will publicly live by a sexually open conception of marriage. This new way of looking at marriage will be magnified by cutting-edge movies and television shows, and will not be counteracted by the fact that most lesbian marriages are sexually monogamous. It's not adultery per se, but the open belief that adultery is not, in fact, a crime against marriage that's the heart of the problem. As I show in the piece, even a relatively small number of practicing polygamists can effect a whole society's way of looking at marriage. It's not a question of balancing numbers of adulterous versus non-adulterous pairs. The problem is that if a culturally salient minority of married couples begin to tout a new conception of what marriage means, it will break apart our taken-for-granted cultural consensus about the connection between marriage and monogamy. But the most striking thing about Sullivan's response to "Beyond Gay Marriage" is his failure to address many of my key points. Sullivan tries to dismiss the slippery-slope argument by calling it a way of avoiding discussion of gay marriage itself. But I have plenty to say about gay marriage. It's actually Sullivan who has avoided a whole series of questions — about gay marriage, and about the slippery slope. Sullivan never really addresses the main point of the slippery-slope argument — that gay marriage, by redefining marriage on civil-rights grounds, will make it impossible to deny recognition to polygamists or polyamorists. Once homosexuals are given the right to marry on grounds of equal protection, how can that same right be denied to polyamorists? After all, polyamorists see themselves as having their own sexual orientation. So why don't all orientations get the right to marry? It isn't just a question of legality. In "Beyond Gay Marriage," I show how the movement for gay marriage has already led to increased social approval for polygamy and polyamory. The connection between gay marriage and polyamory is psychological and cultural, not just legal. Sullivan says nothing at all about what is probably the most important new point in my piece. Following professor Alan Hawkins, I argue that legalized same-sex marriage will bring about "gay marriages of convenience" between heterosexuals (women in particular), who will marry for the sake of financial and legal benefits. That may undermine the ethos of marriage more quickly and more profoundly than anything else. It is a crucial new point. I hope Sullivan will eventually address it. Finally, Sullivan is silent on my point about lesbian triple parenting leading to legalized polyamory. I have written before on this point, and Sullivan has never responded. Now I've shown that the law-school radicals are seizing upon lesbian triple parenting as a tool to undermine marriage. Radicals have also noticed the failure of conservative gay pundits to acknowledge the existence of the path from gay marriage to no marriage via lesbian triple parenting. Consider this passage from a 2001 law-review article by radical family-law expert, Paula Ettelbrick:
Ettelbrick and her fellow radical law professors want to see changes in the legal rules of parenting for lesbian-couple/sperm-donor-triads lead to legalized polyamory. These radicals are not marginal figures, and have every chance of succeeding. In some respects, they have succeeded already. Take this piece by another family-law radical, Nancy Polikoff. In it, Polikoff notes that the Law Commission of Canada has already proposed a package of reforms that stop just short of abolishing marriage. And Polikoff points to similar legal steps being taken in the United States. So the radicals themselves know what I said in my piece is true: that they are not on the fringes, but are fast making progress toward turning the movement for gay marriage, not in a conservative direction, but toward the ultimate abolition of marriage itself. — Stanley Kurtz is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. |
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