A Case for Gay Marriage

by Stephanie Sanders

Margaret sits alone in the waiting room of her local hospital, wringing her hands together with anxiety and pain. Her eyes cloud over in angry tears and she wipes them away with contempt. Jessica, her lover of over fifteen years, is dying in a room just down the hall. Doctors refuse to let Margaret see her: “You aren’t family,” they scoff, and shuffle away as quickly as possible without answering her questions. 
Brandon, Stephen, and their two children wait in line at a local half-way house, waiting to see if they will be able to get a room tonight. The previous week they had been living in a one-bedroom apartment and, having asked their landlord for a bigger place, were told no because they weren’t a family. Yesterday they were evicted for having too many people in such a small place.

Situations like these happen every day to gay couples and their families. For the most part in the United States, without the legal benefits of marriage, they have no chance of redressing these injustices. Yet in truth, the legalizing of gay marriage would be a benefit not only to the homosexual community but to heterosexuals as well – and in the bargain would help to strengthen the institution of marriage.

How can that be so? To answer that we must first define the institution and nature of marriage itself. What is it? Why is it important? Who is it for? I once took a class on marriage and family, and in the entire book it never once tried to define what marriage was. Why should it? Everyone knows the answer, so why do we need to define it? The problem we are facing today, though, is just that. Opponents of gay marriage argue that marriage is a “legal union between one man and one woman” (Shehan 12). But is that all? Is marriage simply a legal union, a contract, something void of feelings or emotion whatsoever? I doubt it. And with me are countless others who argue that marriage is for so many reasons a right that should be given to everyone in America. After all, are we not all entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Jonathan Rauch discusses this very issue in his book Gay Marriage: Why it is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America. In it he reminds us that marriage has many benefits besides legal ones. Marriage has a domesticating quality in young men; it settles them down and matures them, so to speak. Marriage also has health benefits: those who are married live happier, healthier, and longer lives than singles or partners in non-married relationships (23). Marriage is, in effect, about love and companionship, the comfort of knowing that someone will always be there to protect you and take care of you. Marriage strengthens society also by providing an expectation and context for the caring and raising of strong families. Children gain extraordinary benefits from growing up in a household where their parents are married. 

So it seems that individuals, children, and society all depend on marriage in one way or another. Why, then, should it be any different for homosexuals? It is time to discuss the question of who marriage is for. Until recently marriage has been seen as a sacred bond between a man and a woman only. Marriage (or so the argument goes) is something reserved exclusively for those who can procreate. But today that view has been called into question, and gays and lesbians around the globe are struggling for the chance to be able to enjoy the same sacred privilege that heterosexuals take for granted: the simple gift of being blessedly united to someone they love, to someone of their choice – to someone of the same gender. 
Activists against gay marriage argue that any potential harm to the institution of heterosexual marriage or to the traditional family unit – with a father and a mother at its head – outweighs all potential benefits for homosexuals. This is certainly an unbalanced and cruel argument, wholly contrary to legal and constitutional protections of minority rights against the unreasonable whims of a majority. The argument demonstrates how little esteem some in this country have toward its gay citizens. The clear message is that their particular needs are of essentially no importance (Rauch 69). 

In fact the arguments against gay marriage are full of holes and transparencies. Some argue that allowing it will be the destruction of marriage itself (George 1-4). There are others who argue that it would be the end of monogamy as we know it (Kurtz 1-10). Others fight it in the name of God, claiming that homosexuality is unnatural and sinful, that to allow or sanction such a practice would be perverse (Shehan 12). There is also the peculiarly specious argument that if a man is allowed to marry another man, then why not allow him to marry his dog? – what Jonathan Rauch calls the “anything goes” argument (123). Other voices, less shrill, suggest in civil unions an alternative that will make everyone happy. And then there are those who say that gays and lesbians don’t even exist: everyone is heterosexual; gays just need to be cured. 

As I have said, each of these points of view is flawed. The argument that same-sex-marriage will result in the downfall of either monogamy or marriage itself, for example, is based on the unfounded belief that all gay men are inherently promiscuous. In refutation of the assertion, Rauch cites new research suggesting that while gay men do tend to have more sexual partners in a lifetime than do straight men (not surprising given that gay men have had no expectation or hope of marriage, if not to a woman) they have many fewer – perhaps 10 or 20 rather than 250 – than previously estimated in studies completed in the 1960s, at the height of the free-sex era and before AIDS was an issue (Rauch 141-143). 

I will not attempt to refute the arguments concerning God’s intentions or the presumed relationship of homosexuality to bestiality. The question that faces us does not ultimately rest on agreeing with or even accepting homosexuality. Rauch says it best: “Whether to condemn, tolerate, accept, approve, or celebrate same-sex unions is your own business.[...] But the law’s job, at least its essential job, is to do none of those things. The law’s job is to give everyone a fair and equal shake” (102-103). The idea of gays being allowed to marry has nothing to do with God, or with who thinks what is immoral: it is about the law, about our Constitutional rights as Americans to be left alone in the exercise of private conscience. 

Robert George argues that our courts should not decide for the majority of its citizens on issues of such controversy. Regarding gay activists and their cause he complains: “Where they have won, they have won in the courts. Where the issue has been settled in the court of public opinion, they have lost” (2). Be this as it may (never mind that public opinion – on this as on any other issue – is prone to change over time), is this not the way things are supposed to be? The courts were designed at least in part as a protection for the minority. They were designed to reach fair and reasonable judgment on questions under dispute. That is supposed to be what has sometimes made this country such a beacon of hope to other nations. Is it really fair to entrust the welfare of a minority entirely to the prejudiced or hostile vote of a majority? If this were true we might have never sought to abolish slavery.

Civil unions are in no way an acceptable alternative to marriage, and most heterosexuals know it. If marriage is in fact the best thing for individuals, children, and society, then it stands to reason that this is also true for gays. Why should they be denied this socially expedient rite? What real reason is there for keeping gays and lesbians from legal marriage? Is it really because they can’t procreate? If this were true, then the marriages of heterosexual couples who are sterile would be called into question. Is it because marriage exists only for the purpose of raising children? Certainly not since many gay couples are indeed raising children, many of whom are the natural offspring of one partner from a prior relationship. Is it tradition? We have overridden many traditions before this one – when we abolished slavery, as already stated; when we granted women the right to vote; when, for the purpose of safeguarding individual conscience, we wrote into our Constitution the separation of church and state. So what is it?  Why are gays excluded from marriage when there is no compelling reason for doing so? Is it simply that some prejudiced majority demands it?

In respect to the argument that gays do not really exist, I will pass over the plentiful research in the areas of twin studies and neuroscience (which tends to refute the argument) and focus instead on the myth that gays can be cured. If being gay really is merely a choice, and anyone “suffering” from such inclinations only needs meditation, faith, and God, then explain the overwhelming failure rate among those who try. Emily Pearson, in an issue of Sunstone magazine, tells a tale that seriously challenges the cure’s reality. She relates her life story: being raised a Mormon girl in Utah; suffering through her parents divorce, through the confusion and hurt of her father’s coming out as a gay man; then marrying an “ex”-gay herself, battling through her own terrible marriage and finally divorce. She relives being told by church leaders that she must make this marriage work, because only with her help would Stephen be able to fight his gay demons. After six and a half years of failed marriage, two children, and countless episodes of Stephen’s infidelity, Emily cut her losses. She now advocates against the practice of counseling gays to marry straights “for the good of anything” – especially since in her experience it is really only good for heartache and pain (42-48).

It is obvious why marriage for gays will benefit gays, but how will it benefit the rest of society? Marriage, as we have seen, is the glue that holds our society together. There is a significant part of the population that is denied that glue. This practice, if continued, will take an increasing toll on us all. One of the factors often cited as weakening the institution of marriage is our society’s increasing acceptance of heterosexual couples who decide simply to cohabit. These couples, while afforded the chance to marry, decline to do so for whatever reason. The rate of cohabitation is in fact on the rise, while the rate of marriages each year has been decreasing (Rauch 91). Instead of marriage these couples are choosing civil unions and common-law marriages, which have similar benefits.

As it stands now, in almost every state of our union, gay couples have no alternative to cohabitation. The example of thousands and thousands of gay couples can only increase the allure of cohabitation among heterosexuals. If gay marriage were legal, on the other hand, it could help over time to normalize marriage again by de-normalizing the alternatives for heterosexuals (Rauch 90). In a time when marriage needs all the help it can get, why does it turn its back on the people who are so ready to embrace it?    |

Allowing gays to marry, again, is not a moral but a legal issue. This is the mistake that gay-marriage opponents seem to always make. If Jessica and Margaret were allowed to marry, how would that harm the rest of society? Giving Stephen and Brandon the chance to buy a house, to live together there with their family, would not bring destruction all around us. The gay community is willing and ready to help make marriage the all-important American dream again if we would just give them the chance.  

References

George, Robert. “A Federal Marriage Amendment is Necessary to Protect Marriage.” 2004.
Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. InfoTrac. Ivy Tech Library, Evansville, IN. 4 Apr.
2007 <http://galenet.galegroup.com>.

Kurtz, Stanley. “Gay Marriage Threatens Families.” 2005. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. InfoTrac. Ivy Tech Library, Evansville, IN. 4 Apr. 2007 <http://galenet.galegroup.com>.

Pearson, Emily. “Irreconcilable Differences.” Sunstone Apr. 2006: 42-48.

Rauch, Jonathan. Gay Marriage: Why it is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America. New York: Times Books, 2004.