Iowa
I don’t have much to offer in the way of substantive legal analysis of the Iowa marriage ruling (pdf), but here’s one bit from William Duncan’s summary of the decision (via Andrew) that squares nicely with much of what I’ve been arguing is at stake in this debate:
The court first held that same-sex couples are similarly situated with opposite-sex married couples even though they cannot have children together because they “are in committed and loving relationships, many raising families” and “official recognition of their status provides an institutional basis for defining their fundamental relational rights and responsibilities.” The court believed society would benefit “from providing same-sex couples a stable framework within which to raise their children and the power to make health care and end-of-life decisions for loved ones, just as it does when that framework is provided for opposite-sex couples.”
The real question, of course, is whether the very real “similarity” noted in that first sentence requires that homosexual and heterosexual couples be categorized under identical institutions. But like it or not, and no matter one’s views on whether a society should have an obligation to provide the sort of framework that the court thinks would be of benefit to society, that our society has such an obligation strikes me simply as an incontestable fact. If, then, this need is a real one, and if the proposal to use a trivial legalism like that of “civil unions” is (at least on its own) an insufficient way to meet it, then the challenge – and note that I intend this as a real challenge, not just a rhetorical question or an expression of hopelessness – for my fellow Christian and conservative skeptics of same-sex marriage is to lay an alternative groundwork for a broader cultural understanding of the proper nature of homosexual relationships, of the “fundamental rights and responsibilities” that attend to them, and of how the relevant sorts of human goods can be realized therein. But if not through the language of marriage, then how? And if not now, when?
Elsewhere: I’ve linked several times to this essay by Alan Bray, and if you haven’t read it yet you should do so now. Also, here and here are two pieces by Eve Tushnet that fall in the must-reading category, as well.
Filed under: marriage
[...] Iowa and Cosmopolitan Ignorance Posted on 3 April 2009 by nathancontramundi I have little to say about the today’s Iowa gay marriage ruling. I don’t think, in the history of Nathancontramundi, I’ve dedicate more than a few posts to the subject, mainly because I have nothing but convoluted thoughts on the matter. John, who links to the ruling and to a pretty solid commentary on the ruling, has some thoughts here. [...]
Long-time reader, first-time commenter. Anyway, you say something hear you’ve said a few places elsewhere, and I was wondering if you could clarify. You say,
“the challenge . . . for my fellow Christian and conservative skeptics of same-sex marriage is to lay an alternative groundwork for a broader cultural understanding . . . .”
My question: do you think this challenge is a duty (some?) Christians have now? (If it’s a duty or obligation of some sort, is it a political one? A religious one?) Or is this an opportunity that prudence says would be a good one to seize, but not necessarily obligatory? Or something else?
Hi Gary,
I think it’s a duty that’s especially important for Christians but not just confined to them, that it’s an instance where – for Christians, anyway – the political and the spiritual are inextricably intertwined, and that it’s one that’s very real in all times but especially important in ours. Does that answer your question? Does it make sense?
It makes sense to say that it’s a duty for Christians and others, but I don’t see why you think it’s a duty. If Christians (and others) have a duty to “lay an alternative understanding for a broader cultural” of same-sex marriage, then there should be an explanation of how they acquired that duty.
Perhaps the duty comes about simply because there are goods particular to same-sex marriage that have not yet been properly or sufficiently articulated and so not grasped by the populace. Thus, Christians and others have a duty to explain what these goods are simply on the grounds that good citizenship requires participation, and participation in this case takes the form of spelling out the goods of a kind of relationship that are currently ignored. (And that ignorance is bad because we don’t want to ignore goods, especially when we are aware of our ignorance of some certain goods.)
Do you have something like this chain of reasoning in mind? If not, how do you explain the existence of the duty?
Also, does this mean that the goods of same-sex marriage should not simply be articulated as “the goods of heterosexual marriage without procreation”? I’m assuming you’d say yes, but is your agreement based primarily on a practical point (i.e., putting things this way keeps same-sex marriages in the shadow of heterosexual marriages) or a principled point (i.e., there are goods of a same-sex marriage that cannot be realized in traditional marriages)?
I hope these questions make sense.
then the challenge … for my fellow Christian and conservative skeptics of same-sex marriage is to lay an alternative groundwork for a broader cultural understanding of the proper nature of homosexual relationships, of the “fundamental rights and responsibilities” that attend to them, and of how the relevant sorts of human goods can be realized therein.
In all fairness, I think conservative skeptics, especially of the Christian variety, don’t have a leg to stand on with regards to commenting on the proper nature of homosexual relationships. As we’ve moved from the discourses of man-on-dog action to Dreher’s pathetic worry that someone else’s right to marry whomever they love means that he can’t publicly complain about their full citizenship, the voices of conservative cultural critics are rightfully falling by the wayside. A far more fruitful project would be to reflexively ask why conservative Christianity has spent so much energy seeking to prevent their fellow citizens, family members, and friends from achieving full status as adult human beings. After ten years of contemplation of that question, then I *might* be interested in what a conservative skeptic of homosexual marriage has to say about the proper nature of said relationships. Until that day, I have little reason to expect that there is much in the arsenal of conservative thought that would allow for the full humanity of homosexuals.