This article is old, but the reasoning makes sense. It was published in The New Republic in 1989.

Here Comes The Groom
A conservative case for gay marriage.[/b]
By Andrew Sullivan

Last month in New York, a court ruled that a gay lover had the right to stay in his deceased partner's rent-control apartment because the lover qualified as a member of the deceased's family. The ruling deftly annoyed almost everybody. Conservatives saw judicial activism in favor of gay rent control: three reasons to be appalled. Chastened liberals (such as the New York Times editorial page), while endorsing the recognition of gay relationships, also worried about the abuse of already stretched entitlements that the ruling threatened. What neither side quite contemplated is that they both might be right, and that the way to tackle the issue of unconventional relationships in conventional society is to try something both more radical and more conservative than putting courts in the business of deciding what is and is not a family. That alternative is the legalization of civil gay marriage.

The New York rent-control case did not go anywhere near that far, which is the problem. The rent-control regulations merely stipulated that a "family" member had the right to remain in the apartment. The judge ruled that to all intents and purposes a gay lover is part of his lover's family, inasmuch as a "family" merely means an interwoven social life, emotional commitment, and some level of financial interdependence.

It's principle now well established around the country. Several cities have "domestic partnership" laws, which allow relationships that do not fit into the category of heterosexual marriage to be registered with the city and qualify for benefits that up till now have been reserved for straight married couples. San Francisco, Berkeley, Madison, and Los Angeles all have legislation, as does the politically correct Washington, D.C., suburb, Takoma Park. In these cities, a variety of interpersonal arrangements qualify for health insurance, bereavement leave, insurance, annuity and pension rights, housing rights (such as rent-control apartments), adoption and inheritance rights. Eventually, accordng to gay lobby groups, the aim is to include federal income tax and veterans' benefits as well. A recent case even involved the right to use a family member's accumulated frequent-flier points. Gays are not the only beneficiaries; heterosexual "live-togethers" also qualify.

There's an argument, of course, that the current legal advantages extended to married people unfairly discriminate against people who've shaped their lives in less conventional arrangements. But it doesn't take a genius to see that enshrining in the law a vague principle like "domestic partnership" is an invitation to qualify at little personal cost for a vast array of entitlements otherwise kept crudely under control.

To be sure, potential DPs have to prove financial interdependence, shared living arrangements, and a commitment to mutual caring. But they don't need to have a sexual relationship or even closely mirror old-style marriage. In principle, an elderly woman and her live-in nurse could qualify. A couple of uneuphemistically confirmed bachelors could be DPs. So could two close college students, a pair of seminarians, or a couple of frat buddies. Left as it is, the concept of domestic partnership could open a Pandora's box of litigation and subjective judicial decision-making about who qualifies. You either are or are not married; it's not a complex question. Whether you are in a "domestic partnership" is not so clear.

More important, the concept of domestic partnership chips away at the prestige of traditional relationships and undermines the priority we give them. This priority is not necessarily a product of heterosexism. Consider heterosexual couples. Society has good reason to extend legal advantages to heterosexuals who choose the formal sanction of marriage over simply living together. They make a deeper commitment to one another and to society; in exchange, society extends certain benefits to them. Marriage provides an anchor, if an arbitrary and weak one, in the chaos of sex and relationships to which we are all prone. It provides a mechanism for emotional stability, economic security, and the healthy rearing of the next generation. We rig the law in its favor not because we disparage all forms of relationship other than the nucelar family, but because we recognize that not to promote marriage would be to ask too much of human virtue. In the context of the weakened family's effect upon the poor, it might also invite social disintegration. One of the worst products of the New Right's "family values" campaign is that its extremism and hatred of diversity has disguised this more measured and more convincing case for the importance of the marital bound.

The concept of domestic partnership ignores these concerns, indeed directly attacks them. This is a pity, since one of its most important objectives--providing some civil recognition for gay relationships--is a noble cause and one completely compatible with the defense of the family. But the way to go about it is not to undermine straight marriage; it is to legalize old-style marriage for gays.

The gay movement has ducked this issue primarily out of fear of division. Much of the gay leadership clings to notions of gay life as essentially outsider, anti-bourgeois, radical. Marriage, for them, is co-optation into straight society. For the Stonewall generation, it is hard to see how this vision of conflict will ever fundamentally change. But for many other gays--my guess, a majority--while they don't deny the importance of rebellion 20 years ago and are grateful for what was done, there's now the sense of a new opportunity. A need to rebel has quietly ceded to a desire to belong. To be gay and to be bourgeois no longer seems such an absurd proposition. Certainly since AIDS, to be gay and to be responsible has become a necessity.

Gay marriage squares several circles at the heart of the domestic partnership debate. Unlike domestic partnership, it allows for recognition of gay relationships, while casting no aspersions on traditional marriage. It merely asks that gays be allowed to join in. Unlike domestic partnership, it doesn't open up avenues for heterosexuals to get benefits without the responsibilities of marriage, or a nightmare of definitional litigation. And unlike domestic partnership, it harnesses to an already established social convention the yearnings for stability and acceptance among a fast-maturing gay community.

Gay marriage also places more responsibilities upon gays; it says for the first time that gay relationships are not better or worse than straight relationships, and that the same is expected of them. And it's clear and dignified. There's a legal benefit to a clear, common symbol of commitment. There's also a personal benefit. One of the ironies of domestic partnership is that it's not only more complicated than marriage, it's more demanding, requiring an elaborate statement of intent to qualify. It amounts to a substantial invasion of privacy. Why, after all, should gays be required to prove commitment before they get married in a way we would never dream of asking of straights?

Legalizing gay marriage would offer homosexuals the same deal society now offers heterosexuals: general social approval and specific legal advantages in exchange for a deeper and harder-to-extract-yourself-from commitment to another human being. Like straight marriage, it would foster social cohesion, emotional security, and economic prudence. Since there's no reason gays should not be allowed to adopt or be foster parents, it could also help nurture children. And its introduction would not be some sort of radical break with social custom. As it has become more acceptable for gay people to acknowledge their loves publicly, more and more have committed themselves to one another for life in full view of their families and their friends. A law institutionalizing gay marriage would merely reinforce a healthy social trend. It would also, in the wake of AIDS, qualify as a genuine public health measure. Those conservatives who deplore promiscuity among some homosexuals should be among the first to support it. Burke could have written a powerful case for it.

The argument that gay marriage would subtly undermine the unique legitimacy of straight marriage is based upon a fallacy. For heterosexuals, straight marriage would remain the most significant--and only legal social bond. Gay marriage could only delegitimize straight marriage if it were a real alternative to it, and this is clearly not true. To put it bluntly, there's precious little evidence that straights could be persuaded by any law to have sex with--let alone marry--someone of their own sex. The only possible effect of this sort would be to persuade gay men and women who force themselves into heterosexual marriage (often at appalling cost to themselves and their families) to find a focus for their family instincts in a more personally positive environment. But this is clearly a plus, not a minus: gay marriage could both avoid a lot of tortured families and create the possibility for many happier ones. It is not, in short, a denial of family values. It's an extension of them.

Of course, some would claim that any legal recognition of homosexuality is a de facto attack upon heterosexuality. But even the most hardened conservatives recognize that gays are a permanent minority and aren't likely to go away. Since persecution is not an option in a civilized society, why not coax gays into traditional values rather than rain incoherently against them?

There's a less elaborate argument for gay marriage: it's good for gays. It provides role models for young gay people who, after the exhilaration of coming out, can easily lapse into short-term relationships and insecurity with no tangible goal in sight. My own guess is that most gays would embrace such a goal with as much (if not more) commitment as straights. Even in our society as it is, many lesbian relationships are virtual textbook cases of monogamous commitment. Legal gay marriage could also help bridge the gulf often found between gays and their parents. It could bring the essence of gay life--a gay couple--into the heart of the traditional straight family in a way the family can most understand and the gay offspring can most easily acknowledge. It could do as much to heal the gay-straight rift as any amount of gay rights legislation.

If these arguments sound socially conservative, that's no accident. It's one of the richest ironies of our society's blind spot toward gays that essentially conservative social goals should have the appearance of being so radical. But gay marriage is not a radical step. It avoids the mess of domestic partnership; it is humane; it is conservative in the best sense of the word. It's also about relationships. Given that gay relationships will always exist, what possible social goal is advanced by framing the law to encourage those relationships to be unfaithful, undeveloped, and insecure?

August 28, 1989, The New Republic.
copyright © 1989, Andrew Sullivan

This is a wonderful article, John, and I can't imagine why noone has replied to it. It's sensible, well-reasoned and challenging. I hope more of its target audience will read it (and say something). Come on, Jolly, you never shy away from a challenge, right?

I know a lot of the opposition is supposedly rooted in Scripturally based taboos (though the thousands of rules from way back when, ARE very selectively applied to say the least...Unless you are a member of a neighborhood stoning associaion, that is).

It's really intersting to see how much heat this issue generates. Hence kenny's thread about bringing the topic up at work. And everyone here has seen how some gay-related topic is guaranteed to be brought up (and run on for a dozen or so pages) at lesat once a month here in the Coffee Room.

Why do you think this is?

Ariel

My best guess is that, Bible-Shmible, it's because our feelings about our sexuality are so deeply rooted in our sense of self. Freud-notwithstanding, at least in terms of erotic sex, we were all pre-sexual at one point. Then some combination of hormones, genetics, and socialization brought us to our present orientation. It's one of those "multi-determined" phenomenon ("OVER-determined, uberbestimmt, in psychodynamic terms) with so much of taboo[/b] about it, that it's hard, if not impossible, to examine rationally.

What are other taboos which are similarly potent and arguably related to our collective memory and species survival? Try cannibalism and incest, for starters.

It's deeply emotional. That's why the arguments and side-taking cut across traditional political affiliations. Even the most reasonable people find themselves stunningly confused not only by the issues to be decided but by the intensity of their own personal response to it.

I myself have been quite challenged inside in my thinking about "gay-ness" (I remember when I still thought a fairy was like Tinker Bell :rolleyes: ) and have definitely evolved - and not without struggle. It's such a gut-feeling issue, and people HATE to be challenged about things like that which are just, just...(splutter sputter) so OBVIOUS! Which is why I have always taught my kids that the most dangerous word in the English language is precisely that: obvious.

Dangerous for creativity anyhow. And as it turns out here, also for justice.

Ariel

What is there to discuss? That the slippery-slope argument of non-married domestic partners is true? That additional wrongs are still wrong? That role models for gays are not other gays? That homosexual marriage won't ensure monogamy any more than heterosexual marriage?

The government uses laws to promote social engineering. Some see this as wrong, others see it as a way to promote a healthier society. Formal sanction of homosexual unions gives the government's imprimatur on that. I think that would be wrong.

thanks for bringing up this editorial, ja. i'm going to send it to my brother.

ariel, i guess i don't understand the gut-feeling issue part. maybe because i grew up in a home where being gay was a part of the family landscape.

i do, of course, gag on the idea of gay sex or participating in it--after all, i'm straight. but why that should translate into persecution of people who do things that turn me off i guess i'll never understand.

if all that anti-gayness is, at its heart, is gut-level revulsion for gay sex, then i think people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and evolve a little more. after all, if your best friend loves to eat okra, and you hate it, you don't deny him his civil rights, do you?

gryphon, where have you been? i sent you a couple of messages, did you get them?

pique posted: It might even be a gut-level revulsion based for many on a deeper than gut-level (ie.: unconscious) attraction. After all the either/or of sexual orientation is largely a fiction, being much more of a continuum , IMO. All those taboos inculculated in our formative years have to come at the price of considerable repression. Especially for males, who have special problems.

First, they're sexually more "superficial" (I mean in the sense of methodologies of arousal and release - how's that for a euphemism?). And yet for social and economic reasons, their sexuality - allied with dominence and aggression - has had to be unequivocably Male, capital "M". So a lot has had to be shoved under the rug, growing up, so to speak.

Interesting for all the parrallels uncovered in our upbringing this is an area where they differ radically. My father, artist or not, was a Humphrey Bogart, sexually traditional, "be a man" type. And for "sexually traditional" here, read sexually intolerant.

Ariel

Rather than promote homosexual unions, perhaps we should encourage leaving that lifestyle.

Love Won Out
It was a gorgeous spring morning...
Homosexuals Anonymous [/b]

'Tis no challenge.

Gay marriage does not work.

Even for gays.

Regardless of the 5-10% mark bandied about by gay activists, the actual number of gays varies a bit by region in the U.S., but it generally falls between 1-1.5% of the total population.

Of that number, less than 10% are engaged in a monogamous relationship, at any given time.

Those are the numbers given out by a gay[/b] radio show host in Los Angeles. I have not fact-checked them, so y'all are welcome to rebut them, but I suspect that they are true.

So this "yearning" for gay marriage, is not commonplace, but applies to only a very small sliver of our citizens.

Yet we are willing to rip an institution apart, that has served mankind well for centuries, in an effort to please the smallest of factions.

Let us look at some place where marriage has become strictly a governmental function, and same-sex unions are allowed - Scandinavia. Several major societal problems are developing. The birth rate is down, way down. Inheritance laws are a mess. Basic society is starting to have trouble funding all the myriad social programs, that are oftentimes taken care of within a good marriage.

Or let us look at the black community in the U.S., where marriage is apparently no longer encouraged, and illegitimacy rates now exceed 70%. It is a sub-section of society, where many of its members could not function without the financial intervention of the government.

Rather, I think we currently need to strengthen traditional marriage. I believe we need to make divorce much harder to obtain. And I believe that anything, repeat anything[/b] that undermines marriage, and the benfits it brings to society, should be discouraged.

If homosexuals want to enter into a contractual bargain, more power to them, live long, and prosper. But do not jerk the lynchpin from under successful society, because you are suffering from some minor non-recognition from most of your fellow citizens.

Yes, pique, I absolutely did get those messages. All that talk has made me get my maps out again. Come on summer!

gryphon,
note that none of those articles/pamphlets were written by gays about their own experience. and they are church publications.

religious groups are sadly misinformed and misguided if they think that one can "choose" one's sexuality. did you choose to be straight?

plenty of homosexuals have repressed their real feelings because they desperately want social acceptance and/or their church has condemned them to hell for following their innate preferance. these people are not happy. my uncle tried marrying in the 1950s and it was a disaster for him and his wife.

the gay people i know, (and i know many, many, many gay people), have said they would give anything to be straight. who in their right mind would choose to be gay in this society? it is hell. no need to wait for judgment day after death.

what these people need is compassion and acceptance for who they are, just as they are. not wrong-headed "compassion" to change them.

i can't believe that after all the endless discussions here about this that there is a man left standing who thinks homosexuals have a choice about their sexual preference!

and if you think that they should just squelch their preference and pretend to be straight, ask yourself how you would feel if homosexuality were the norm in this society, and your church demanded that you marry a man, gryphon! revolting thought? that's likely how a gay man feels about marrying a woman.

if gay people are such a tiny proportion of the general population, and so few of them are in committed relationships, then how on earth would a handful of gay marriages harm straight marriage as an institution in any way? it wouldn't. it wouldn't do a thing to straight marriage.

you are being irrational.

yes, but not until my knee is all better!

any thoughts of trying a new part of the country for your adventures? the rockies, maybe?

Many gays are quite accomplished at being invisible.
They began learning this survival skill at a very young age.

Further, many gays who are in monogamous relationships are invisible to the "gay scene" as they chose not to participate in any of it.

I would not expect very accurate gay demographic numbers for a few hundred years when the bigotry subsides and people feel safe.

I think the truth about gay people is quite boring, and unworthy of the current media interest.
Eventually people being gay will be considered about as intriguing a people having brown hair and will do little for Neilson ratings.

Yes they are. The first link Love Won Out is a series of books by former homosexual Joe Dallas among others. The second link is a short story about a couple who left the homosexual lifestyle. The third link points to a group whose byline is "A fellowship of men and women, who through their common emotional experience, have chosen to help each other live in freedom from homosexuality." I could just as easily linked another site which has interviews of former homosexuals, or even NARTH[/b] . Focus on the Family is a good site, though. Let's get something stright. No church can condemn anyone to hell. Only God can, and according to Him there is only one act that will do it: the rejection of Him. Not sex outside of marriage.

As far as being born homosexual, other factors besides biology are known to influence gender identity.

Gryphon,

The odds of someone actually changing from a strongly preferred sexual orientation to another is VERY slim. Jolly heard only 1-1.5 % of the population might be homosexual, but unfortunately this becomes a question of how you define homosexuality.

Some of the earliest research done were the Kinsey studies. They had a 0 to 6 scale I believe, which was a little flaky and you two can look it up, but 0 and 6 were constitutively hetero or homo sexual. Obviously there would be social bias towards being a 0 or hetero, but there was still a large population to the right of "bi-sexual" #3. Way more than 1.5%. 1-1.5% would be the 6's. But they had to never even consider a member of the opposite sex attractive. So if you're gay, and you look at a member of the opposite sex and think I wonder what it would be like too..., you're no longer a 6. Even if you find the thought repulsive, sorry, not a 6, Tough to be a 0 in todays society too because we're constantly bombarded with sexual imagery, so the scale is near useless now, but the data isn't.

Look at every society where homosexuality was no more taboo than heterosexuality, and then you'll find the real percentages. And Rome didn't fall because of homosexuality. Study other primates who don't give a hoot, or do.

So to find a few examples of people who think they were homosexual and now think they aren't, just doesn't cut it. Maybe they were misguided 2s or 3s on the scale, maybe they're full of it. But they weren't the people who scored 4, 5 or 6 on the Kinsey scale, and that 10% plus of our society deserves their rights.

Todd

I find it interesting that those writing in this thread against gay marriage are NOT commenting on the article I posted. They are basing their opposition on their own opinion about the good or bad of homosexuality itself and their assumptions about what gay marriage would do to the institution of marriage.

This tells me they do not see the issue for Amercian society as a political (not partisan -- the good political) and civil rights issue, but more a moral/social issue. And they wish to have the society validate their own views of this.

Jolly states (and has stated before -- he remains consistent) his belief that gay marriage will harm the institution of marriage. Others claim the same. So let me ask....

Just what specific harm will come to heterosexual marriages if gay marriage is allowed by the government? A numbered list would be helpful, along with justification of why you believe each individual thing will occur. (Note, I did not say allowed by the churches, etc., just by the civil authorities)

And, if you are married, how will your own marriage be damaged?

10% of the US population is homosexual?!

I too noticed that they weren't commenting on that excellent article, John! Whaddaya say, they didn't even read it?

Jolly, I DON'T consider that you met the challenge. I wasn't asking if your were up to another position statement. I wondered what you specifically thought of the specific points in the article above. You're not signing on the dotted line saying "I support homosexual marriages", to expose yourself to new ideas or take a balanced view of things.

Which to me, means saying: "well, yes, X is true, and Y makes sense, though I take issue with the notion that P follows Q..." etc. It would also lend your arguments more crediblity.

I realize that with faith-based issues it's easy to say in effect, "Well, I just know it's wrong." Why? "Because God told me," wearing a beatific smile on your face (if you could pull that off! )

But you know, there are those of us who believe we are seeing both the forest AND the trees, while simply disagreeing with you. At least in many particulars (some things, yes...that's for later).

And not just because we're insufficiently enlightened/blinded to understand God's true purpose for the human race.

Ariel

I haven't the foggiest idea how this could or will damage what up until now I considered my marriage.

Although the law recognizes my wife and I as legally married, I see that we are in fact only bound by a civil union between two consenting adults of the opposite sex regarding joint property. This union is, of course, subject to other civil laws regarding its eventual dissolution through death, mutual consent or breach of conjugal responsibilities.

Contrary to what I may have written earlier on this subject, the time honoured tradition of a Common Law arrangement appears as the rational and non threatening alternative for the sake of expressed third party concerns.

Ariel,

Do you read one mention of religion in my above statement?

That's funny.

I guess he could not act on it anymore.
But former homosexual?
Gimme a break.

I feel sorry for the customers of these books.
Gay in a world that hates them and makes them hate themselves.
I'd imagine there would be about 26 million potential customers for these materials and services.

Post edited.

Quite the hubris you have to tell a self-avowed "former homosexual" that he isn't.

An interesting side-light to the current gay marriage debate:

http://www.fed-soc.org/pdf/murraypaper.pdf

Here you go Gryphon,

You'll note the author refers to gays as queer, so this page isn't biased in favor of homosexuality. Realize too that if the questions are worded in a neutral way, each of these studies will likely under report homosexual preference due to social stigma and the self loathing of many homosexuals raised in a setting where they are taught homosexuality is evil.

http://www.campuspride.net/howmanylgbtq.asp

Todd

Ariel does not feel the John's posting of Sullivan's article was adressed on its' merits.

Well, ma'am, if I believe that gay marriages are a detriment to society, it would stand to reason that I feel domestic partnerships are not good for society, either.

This is the underpinning of Sullivan's article, which I reject.

I will look at the link later. I do not say fag or name-call homosexuals. In fact, that's the word I use, but I think the word queer is the new PC or hip term to now use for homosexuals. Which reminds me, last night in bed I was scanning the channels and the Bravo channel had that show Queer Eye For The Straight Guy on. Now I haven't been living in a cave, I know of the show's existence, and I watched about five minutes of it. Some guy was just finishing up yoga or aerobics or something (that's when I turned it on) and the homosexual guy talked for a minute or two and then said, "Okay, now this is the fun part when we get to go take a shower together." He grabbed his hand and skipped off. In another scene the straight guy approached another homosexual who greeted him by saying something like, "Oh peanut, you look so hot."
WTF?

Gryphon,

Don't mistake these TV characters for real people. (Yes, I know it is supposed to be a REALITY show....)

jf

So you wouldn't recommend that a guy and gal shack up because it threatens the institution of marriage and/or civil union.

What about if two gays just shack up? Surely that can't threaten any established institutions since it been the staus quo for so long.