Meanwhile, in a national backwater, a court heard a case of nearly transcendent import, a case that might very well shake the nation. Some say that nation would be shaken loose from its sacred ground and lose all its roots, while others would say that a nation conceived in and watered by liberty from time to time needs to have old prejudices shaken down from its branches.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has just heard a suit about same sex marriage. In a few months, the SJC will return with a ruling. It is possible that they will declare Massachusetts constitutionally bound to allow people of the same sex to marry. And then the deluge. Every other state will forced to recognize marriages performed in Massachusetts. The mind fairly boggles.
Among the many memorable exchanges between lawyers and judges was this one:
" 'Not at all, your honor,' Yogman said. 'Adoption is one thing. Marriage has many other responsibilities and benefits associated with it other than child-rearing.' "
Perhaps marriage does have "many other responsibilities and benefits"1, but the main thrust from those thoughtful conservatives arguing against same sex marriages is that child-rearing is the crucial component.
James Q. Wilson wrote not so long ago that, " What is distinctive about marriage is that it is an institution created to sustain child-rearing. ... The role of raising children is entrusted in principle to married heterosexual couples because after much experimentation--several thousand years, more or less--we have found nothing else that works as well. "
Did I say "thoughtful"? It seems to me that, after several thousand years, people continue to have and raise children in all sorts of arrangements - including, but not limited to, "married heterosexual couples". In fact, we are here today, having this discussion, because our ancestors - one-hundred-thousand years or so of Homo Sapiens and a few million more of primate social structures - somehow managed to raise children to procreative adulthood. I'm not sure what other measure of success we should apply to child-rearing in and of itself.
The arguments against same-sex marriage revolve around precisely this point: child-rearing is important. Which is not in question. All societies, like any institution, are concerned with perpetuating themselves. The crucial aspect of carrying a society forward to the future involves the structures surrounding making, having, and raising babies. Change those and you change the society. None of this is in argument.
But then the intellectual (or aristocratic) conservative argument has always been: I like the society that allows me to be the person that I am, the very crown of creation, therefore, preserving unchanged the devil I know intimately is to be considered the greatest possible good.
If marriage needs to maintained in a form that is more or less familiar to conservatives, then let us take them at their word. Marriage is about raising children. Therefore, marriage should be reserved to those who will raise children. Why should we let couples of any orientation freeload upon all those benefits that marriage confers unless they agree to perpetuate the society that offers those benefits?
1 I now have pretty good insurance - which was the entire impetus for getting married after eight years of co-habitation. That's the benefit. If we were a little richer or a little poorer or had a child we might save on taxes, so there's another possibility. But what else do I get? What else do I owe?
Posted by Martial