The facile libertarian argument that gay marriage is a trivial matter that affects only the parties involved is astoundingly blind to the complexity of human institutions and to the web of sometimes imperceptible meanings and practices that compose them. Equally specious is the central theme in attorney Theodore Olson’s legal challenge to California’s Proposition 8: that only religious belief or animus towards gays could explain someone’s hesitation regarding gay marriage. Anyone with the slightest appreciation for the Burkean understanding of tradition will feel the disquieting burden of his ignorance in this massive act of social reengineering, even if he ultimately decides that the benefits to gays from gay marriage outweigh the risks of the unknown.At the link:
. . . When a heterosexual couple or single woman (and occasional single man) makes use of someone else’s sex organs, biology is severed from parental responsibility no less than when a homosexual couple engages in that process.There's more. Read the whole thing.
This division of genetic and parental responsibility has been present throughout human history, of course. Orphans and abandoned children are raised by non-biological adoptive parents; divorce alienates one biological parent from the child’s household and sometimes replaces that parent with another adult. But these arrangements were considered outliers to the normal practice of conceiving and raising children, forced on the parties by sad necessity. However felicitous and loving a new family arrangement turned out to be, it did not challenge the understanding that the ideal route to a family was the shared conception of a child by a married man and woman. Likewise, the use of fertility techniques by heterosexual couples is still regarded as an exception to ordinary conception and child-rearing, and may not even be perceptible to outsiders. By contrast, every gay (and single-parent) conception by definition entails an absent parent; it is a visible affirmation of the social acceptability of severing genetic contribution from parenting. Every gay couple and never-married single parent raising a child trigger the same potential question as the couple in the “Family Values” ad: “Where’s the mother (or father)?”
A large number of people will respond: “Why does it matter?” . . .
The main answer to the “Why does it matter?” question is this: The institutionalized severing of biology from parenthood affirms a growing trend in our society, that of men abandoning their biological children. Too many men now act like sperm donors: they conceive a children then largely disappear, becoming at best intermittent presences in their children’s lives. This phenomenon is increasingly common among the less educated, and dominates in the black community. Too many children — including the great majority of black children and large numbers of children of struggling working-class mothers — are now raised in single-parent homes; many do not even know who their fathers are. The negative consequences of this family breakdown for children include higher rates of school failure and lack of socialization. Moreover, in a culture where men are not expected to raise their children, boys fail to learn the most basic lesson of personal responsibility and self-discipline.
If parental status is a matter of intent, however, not of genes, absent fathers can say: “I never intended to take on the role of that child’s parent; therefore I’m not morally bound to act as a parent.”
. . . gay parenting creates a single-sex home as a matter of deliberate engineering, not accident or unforeseen chance.) The sole argument potentially remaining for persuading fathers that they should raise their chidren — that children need two parents in the home — is easily disposed of: My baby momma is living with her mother.
Family breakdown in the inner city and the phenomena of almost fatherless communities, leading to fatherless children killing each other are not "gay issues". And the increased risk of child abuse where children are not living with both biological parents has not (to this point) been closely linked to family issues in the gay community (data on gay parenting are limited in this regard).
But the devastating social problems found in neighborhoods without many fathers are indications of the fragility of civil society. Marriage is the primary social institution through which the larger society reinforces the idea that "manliness" encompasses developing the skills and values necessary for men to become full-time, committed "family men" and fathers. The young men in the inner city who are abandoning their children typically have a much different idea of what "manliness" entails. One which does not place much value on "women as people". Bitch.
Compare to "The Magnificent Seven" (1960, when fatherhood was just starting to be devalued):
Don´t ever say that again about your fathers. They are not cowards!The young people in Chicago's South Side are choosing markers of manliness other than family responsibilities. Re-defining marriage in a way which will reinforce the idea that "sperm donor" is a standard, desirable family role for men does not help the situation in the inner cities of America. I am sad for all the little kids in our low-income community who live in chaotic, ever-shifting family situations. While a minority of the parents of young school-age kids here are married to each other, most of the kids in our little town differ from the totally fatherless kids more prevalent in the inner city because they usually know the identity of their fathers. And many of those in fatherless homes (at least by my observation) sometimes see their fathers -- often when Dad wants to show off his kids to his "homies".
You think l am brave because l carry a gun. Your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility for you, your brothers, your sisters and your mothers.
This responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. lt bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground.
Nobody says they have to do it. They do it because they love you and they want to.
l have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm, working like a mule, with no guarantee what will become of it – this is bravery. That´s why l never even started anything like that. That’s why l never will.
But Dad does not really act like a Dad. I cringe when I hear one of these visiting "baby daddies" and his "homies" listening to the most vile, nihilistic, misogynistic kinds of music from the warped inner city culture in the presence of their young children. It appears to me that these children are not the highest priority of many idealistic social engineers.
I have also heard of one child in town who is being raised by a lesbian couple. Perhaps re-defining marriage so that they could have their relationship legally recognized as marriage would satisfy their understandable desire to feel like they are not significantly different, as parents, from a Mom and a Dad.
And perhaps this would, someday, somehow, make up for the damage to the lives of the children "fathered" by the far larger number of current and future "sperm donor" dads whose "baby mommas" are, or will be, living with their child's Grandma or Auntie, or with a succession of friends and relatives or with a new boyfriend. These dads would have the perfect justification for steering clear of the difficult, "two-person" job of raising a child. Preferably, a "two-woman" job. Because, you know, women are better with kids. Some American and British feminists, along with a prominent strain of socialist thought, support the concepts of "sperm donor dads" and families led by women as ideal, as long as the sperm donors participate in paying the bills.
Maybe "mainstreaming" the idea of sperm-donor dads will be good for kids in general. But I don't think so. History is on my side. And historically, there has never been a successful culture which featured gay marriage. Even in cultures where homosexuality and bisexuality were thought of highly. The idea that same-sex marriage would inspire straight couples to marry has not worked out in European countries which have legalized same-sex marriage (except for, in a couple of cases, a short-term uptick in marriage among older couples). And same-sex marriage has not even been particularly popular among same-sex couples where it is legal.
Do you favor legal recognition of same-sex marriage? Are you willing to accept the probable consequence of promoting more of this kind of thing in order to be fair to same-sex couples who want marriage re-defined in a way which will reinforce the idea that there is nothing particularly desirable about kids having a mother and a father? Are you willing to take a little responsibility for inadvertently helping to perpetuate inner city violence in almost-fatherless communities? What about the increased incidence of child abuse faced by children without both biological parents in the home (with the possible exception of same-sex households, about which we have no significant, controlled data)?
Do you think that "social programs" can make up for redefining marriage to support the idea that fathers are optional? Do you believe that eliminating differences in the behavior of men and women is the ideal? How would this intellectual position translate to real life in the inner city?
Many liberal educators (and the people they had educated) were shocked a few years ago when science destroyed the concept that gender is simply a "social construct", by demonstrating significant differences in the brains of men and women. This led to the shocking headline on TIME magazine cover that Men and Women are Different. Academics in the social sciences still haven't quite adjusted their political theories in light of this information. But the idea of gender as a "social construct" never really caught on in the inner city. Do you think that legalization of same-sex marriage will lead men and women to act more like each other in these neighborhoods, or to more sexually polarized behavior?
Do you think that young gang-bangers (who probably turned to gangs for social networking because they didn't have an involved father) can be made to understand that the "sperm-donor" role is only a good thing for gay parents -- not for them? Will they understand that Candidate Obama's message that an absent father leaves a "hole in the heart" of his child only applies to guys like them?
Do you have any solid data to back up your dreams that re-defining marriage to include same-sex couples would benefit society more than it would hurt society over a period of decades? Or do you think that laws should always be made primarily on the basis of promoting "equality" without regard to necessity, utility, efficacy or collateral damage to innocent parties, like children? How, exactly, would you explain your intellectual views on the interchangeability of mothers and fathers to these kids? Or to their absent fathers?
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