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December 06, 2003
More on gay marriage By Tom Smith Catholic bishops on gay marriage. I find myself moving to the position that gay civil unions may be OK, but not marriage. As much as anything, I object to the idea that marriage is just an exercise in self-realization. It may or may not be that. On a deeper level, I object to the anti-realist underpinnings of institutional revisionism, that it's all about what we feel, what our perspective is, etc., etc. If gays are going to form permanent unions, secure certain legal advantages, create a stable environment for raising children, and so forth, it would be a new thing, and it should be housed in a new institution. An ancient institution should not be "reformed" willy-nilly to accommodate the new thing, on the mere hope this would cause more good than harm. As I argued before, assuming a civil union statute could be drafted to secure legal benefits for gay unions, and it's hard to see why one could not be, the insistence that gays be allowed to marry is just an attempt to secure the prestige, the valorization of the ancient institution for relationships that ithat nstitution decidedly excluded. I also am cynical enough to think that well-meaning softie conservatives such as David Brooks underestimate the strand within the gay left that really would like to undermine marriage as such, which really is about hatred of most of the existing social order and would love to see one of its pillars knocked down. [Update] If marriage is just a matter of self-realization, and not recognition of or dependant on underlying biological reality, then by strict analogy, should a biologically "male" person be able to identify himself legally as a female? Shouldn't you be able to claim the right to be female in the eyes of the law, whatever your biological sex, because you thought you could self-realize better as a female. Shouldn't you a fortiori be able to do the same with race? I might be biologically white, but want to identify and self-realize as a black. Shouldn't the state have to recognize this posture of mine, by the same reasoning they have to recognize gay marriage? |