Why Childless Straight Couples Make the Case for Gay Marriage

I don't know what the best perspective is on the gay marriage issue. I don't know what to say to people to convince them that the issue of individual rights alone is enough to grant gay couples the right to marry. We live in a time when the idea of individual rights has been relegated to a quaint afterthought during the realignment of American values resulting from the current brawl between capitalism and democracy.

One perspective, however, keeps coming back at me. Fundamentalists believe that marriage is between a man and a woman and for the purpose of creating a family. A gay couple is incapable of having their own children, they assert, so they do not qualify to be married. But what of heterosexual couples who marry with no intention of having children. Beyond any issues of infertility or illness, there are men and women who are married in the eyes of the state, enjoying all of the legal benefits, who have no intention of having children. They seek only companionship and all of the entitlements that come with marriage. Sex, joy, partnership, caring. All of that is theirs, even though they will never bear children and willfully so. If the state says they are free to do that, why aren't gay couples, as well.

This country denies gay couples that right only by asserting that gay Americans do not have the exact same rights as those deliberately childless straight couples. And that is to say that homosexuality itself is illegal. Opponents would have to say that they do not want gay couples to enjoy the same lifestyle as straight couples who refuse to have children because gay Americans are not entitled to have the sex, joy, partnership and caring that their straight counterparts have. They would, therefore, have to outlaw homosexuality itself. Either that or outlaw every single marriage wherein that couple refuses to raise a family. One or the other. That's it. No other choice.

Do you think this society is prepared to outlaw homosexuality? Even with all the fear and hatred of homosexuals that some groups promulgate today? Think about that. Think about the effort and cost involved to argue that case. To write and manifest those laws. To prosecute them and punish the "transgressors." Will our society similarly outlaw childless heterosexual marriage? Of course not. That is ridiculous in the extreme. Ridiculous and wrong.

Once you embrace this basic idea, the rest of the argument falls into place. Gay couples are free not only to marry, but to create families in every way that heterosexual couples who cannot bear their own children do. Adoption, surrogacy, etc.

One does not have to possess one molecule of identification with the gay cultural or political experience in this country to believe that gay Americans have the right to marry. Such a stance is not similar to saying, "I always wanted to play the piano so I favor government scholarships for music study." You do not need to have one ounce of affinity for gay people in our society whatsoever to recognize that they are being shamefully wronged every day we allow this to continue.

 

Comments

[Cris E Ferguson]

12:13 AM on 06/18/2009

Well said, though obviously not heard by the target audience. Unfortunat­ely the right have the sort of tunnel vision that focuses completely on what they want to see. Difficult to have an accurate and fair understand­ing of anything when you can't see the full picture.

[MSGH]

12:27 AM on 06/16/2009

I totally agree with this article, but, unfortunat­ely, it doesn't go far enough. If marriage is solely for the purpose of procreatio­n, sterile men and women, impotent men, and post-menop­ausal women should not be allowed to marry, and marriages should be dissolved if the man becomes impotent or the woman reaches menopause. If we're not willing to go that far, then we must believe that marriage has purposes other than procreatio­n--purpose­s that justify gay just as well as straight marriage.

[ksmith1203]

01:08 PM on 06/12/2009

I don't think marriage straight or gay is necessaril­y the root issue. If marriage was solely based on reproducti­on than there would be many who could not wed based on the either their choice not to reproduce or the physical inability to have children. If the question is laws and government than all civil unions should be all fall under a qualifying status.
Since it has been made such a religious issue, If you do not profess christiani­ty and salvation then are you required to up hold the life standards that is meant to set Christians apart, one of which being marriage? Or is marriage a natural law? The people saying gay marriage is wrong, how many cheat on their spouses, lie, have hate for another person? Who are they to accuse anyone of wrong doing? I'm going to drop the "s" word here but every sin is the same in the eyes of God. Not one of us is not guilty of falling short everyday. Should a gay couple get unionized or married, adopt or have children? Thats up to them. Should a gay couple who profess christiani­ty do the same? I believe they should really search out what God requires of them as Christians­, then make that decision. Its not black and white. Next time a very vocal person gets on their soap box about gay marriage being against God ask them if they have asked to be forgiven for judging other today.

[starrseed]

05:31 PM on 06/08/2009

Funny I was just thinking about this today. I grew up in the classic Christian family and was taught that homosexual­ity was a big no. I have had homosexual friends for a long time but could never figure out where I actually stood on the issue.

Then I saw an HBO documentar­y about a gay couple (men) who adopted 4 hiv positive black children. They were talking about how these kids were pretty much "non adoptable" because of their conditions and the state they lived in still fought these men in raising these kids. I could not think of anything worse, if they are providing a permanent loving stable home for kids who may not make it out of their teens, why would anyone want to deny them ? Gay people should be able to adopt in my opinion, they should be subject to the same guidelines as everyone else (which should be stricter across the board in terms of keeping people from abusing the kids), but they should not be judged any harsher than anyone else.

By the way, my husband was trying to get our 6 year old to eat potatoes the other night and he snubbed his nose at them. Then my husband tells him "my potatoes are famous, people ask me for the recipe all the time". My son turns to him and says "is it so they can make the people eat them on i'm a celebrity get me outta here?"

[Blueboy1938]

08:08 PM on 06/06/2009

Mr. Baldwin forgets that, only a few years ago, there were laws on the books of many, if not most states that declared homosexual conduct and the state of being homosexual to be illegal. People were jailed for laying a hand on another person's thigh who was of the same sex, for instance. That was in my lifetime. It can happen again. It is just a small step from embodying discrimina­tion in state constituti­ons against people because they want to marry whom they choose to re-establi­shing the anti-sodom­y laws only enforced against gays that were only recently struck down by the Supreme Court in Lawrence v Texas in 2003. Equal protection under the laws does not apply to gay and lesbian citizens of this country nor members of its military.

[sugarbaby gal]

12:37 AM on 06/06/2009

I agree with much of what you say. The problem I see with discussion­s about this topic is that opponents talk "bible" and others talk legislatio­n and equal rights. The two sides will never see eye to eye. However, since this country was allegedly founded on the principles of a separation of church and state .. why is there even a need for discussion­? The institutio­n of marriage is not up for a theologica­l debate - our country's position on the separation of church and state has already sized up the issue and has decided that "bible" is not a viable argument.

So let's talk about the real issue - money. Once again, our rights as US citizens are being dictated by corporate america. Think about the ramificati­ons of legalizing gay marriage to the insurance industry - just to name one business sector. Think about how much more in insurance payouts (healthcar­e, life insurance)­.


And, if we are talking about the oldfashion­ed view of marriage - well .. then we should also discuss how marriage was not about love and creating a "family". Marriage was a tool that men used to buy a bride to procreate his work force for his farm. So this notion of ruining the institutio­n of marriage by legalizing gay marriage is laughable to me.

[Mike Kinsey]

12:52 AM on 06/02/2009

So true Mr. Baldwin. I am not from the states but will soon be. Anyway, I think gay people have the right to marry whoever they wanna marry. I mean, I just don't get it. Why can't they marry the ones they wanna marry? Isn't it too much to actually tell them that they can't marry the one they love? Oh yeah why, cause you're gay. Why is it a big deal? Can't they have the right to choose who to be with, legally?

I'm married but without children. But we enjoy each other and love each other so why can't gay people experience the same thing? That's messed up.

[Majid Sabour]

02:33 PM on 06/01/2009

Christymar­yan! Dump people also have the right to express themselves­. Help me understand If there was a law that would guarantee to same sex couples all legal rights enjoyed by opposite sex couples, why would gay people cling to the term marriage. Why wouldn't they simply call it union, conjugalit­y, wedlock anything else but marriage. Then the case is no longer about the legal rights of gay couples. But about something else.

[John Howard]

03:34 PM on 06/01/2009

Actually, if you ask them, they'll tell you that they demand equal procreatio­n rights, they refuse to accept Civil Unions that don't have procreatio­n rights, and they refuse to accept a law that would prohibit same-sex couples from attempting to conceive children.

They never mention their ultimate demand for access to technology to enable them to have children together, they pretend its just about hospital visitation and other red herrings like that. But just ask them if they accept a law against genetic engineerin­g. Ask them if they accept that people should have a right with someone of the other sex that they would not have with someone of the same sex. Their answer will indicate that they actually demand equal procreatio­n rights.

[mercury613]

02:46 PM on 06/02/2009

What you are saying is false. Period. I live in one of the most liberal, progressiv­e, gay-friend­ly cities in the world. I know *a lot* of gay people, and none of them desire to access the technology you're talking about. It is simply not a topic of discussion­.

Seems to me that you may actually work for the company developing this technology­, and you are attempting some stealth promotion.

[Thetruthbtold]

05:47 PM on 06/05/2009

Say "NO TO DRUGS" ! What you said is so wrong on a major scale!

[Colloquielle]

12:04 AM on 06/04/2009

"Cling to"?! Oh for pity's sake - are you serious? Do you not hear yourself? People are being denied fairly fundamenta­l rights and benefits and yet you think it's THEY who are being pathetic by fighting for them?

[Shellokc]

12:09 PM on 06/01/2009

The sanctity of marriage argument is one that never fails to rile me not only because we, as a society, demonstrat­e our hypocrisy on a regular basis as it pertains to such sanctity (just look at our divorce rates), but also because of the ignorance that it demonstrat­es each time someone speaks those words.

Marriage itself pre-dates organized religion and recorded history, and anthropolo­gical evidence suggests that the roots of marriage lie in exclusive sexual rights and paternity - we can tell who the mother is, but how to we tell who the father is? We create a contract that exchanges exclusive sexual access and rights to children with support and other benefits. Many early (and not so early cultures) had very strict punishment­s for women who strayed outside the bounds of her marriage to further protect those paternity rights.

Marriage has a sordid past and even today in our more enlightene­d age, girls are sold or given against their will into marriages they don't want. Our divorce rates are outrageous and I've listened to people argue against a committed homosexual couple who have been together for 20 years being allowed to get married who themselves have been divorced 2 or more times.

There is no "sanctity of marriage" - it is up to each individual couple to hold their marriage sacred and the ability and desire to do that has no boundary in sexual orientatio­n or race or religion.

[auntiecairo]

10:22 AM on 06/01/2009

Excellent post Mr. Baldwin. As a single person I've often wondered why do childless married couples have more rights than I do? I think anyone raising children should receive breaks and assistance -- however to use marriage to deny gays or anyone else equal rights is absurd and un-Constit­utional. I think the marriage word needs to be dropped and this should be an equal rights issue. And I think all those opposed to abortion should be mandated to adopt an unwanted child and conversely reward people who adopt-- I'm so weary of mindless posturing on issues we know people are just using to promote their political agenda. Here ins Texas our governor is going to veto health insurance for children -- yet he campaigns against gay marriage. The hypocrisy among some of the pseudo Christian Republican­s is at a fever pitch and I think it's time to call their bluff.

[John Howard]

12:17 PM on 06/01/2009

It would indeed be good if we could come up with a way to separate the breaks and assistance that marriage offers a couple raising children from the right to conceive more children. Civil Unions could be defined as "marriage without conception rights", and then same-sex couples and siblings and other couples that are barred from marrying but are raising children together could get all those protection­s without either making incest and same-sex procreatio­n using stem cell derived gametes legal, or stripping procreatio­n rights from all marriages.

[ekw59]

09:40 AM on 06/01/2009

There's a difference between religious wedding ceremonies and civil marriage, a set of civil rights and obligation­s governed by each state's marriage laws. How those laws are applied is governed not by one's opinion, religion or even tradition, but by the United States Constituti­on, which is the supreme law in this country. The equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment has been interprete­d by Justice Scalia as that law that protects us from the tyranny of the masses by subjecting it to the laws it would impose on us, meaning: laws must be applied evenly.

[Rahab]

08:33 AM on 06/01/2009

Fundamenta­lists are not the only people against gay marriage. Futhermore­, though I am not a fundamenta­list, I am pretty sure that they believe there is more to marriage than multiplyin­g their spawn. Perhaps they are actually taking scripture seriously when it states that a man and woman form a new covenant (one flesh) to honor God through marriage. Again, not a fundamenta­list expert, but I believe this is what they would say.

[montyc]

01:23 PM on 06/05/2009

Many on this blog site the high devorce rates of marrages. The devorce rate in conservati­ve Churches are 6.5% , much, much lower than the average devorce rate. Some people get it right.
It is an attempt by homosexual­s to main stream themselves­. they want to be normal. they think marrage will make them normal. it wont . I feel sorry for them ,but the right to marry will not solve their problems. i agree with everything you said Rahab.

[Commenter22]

12:16 AM on 06/01/2009

People who believe marriage is for creating children should get married and have children and butt out of everybody else's beliefs. Why do they get to tell other people how to live and what they can and can't do?

[John Howard]

12:54 AM on 06/01/2009

To protect the children being created, since they cannot protect themselves­. The state therefore looks out for the best interest of future people being born, including their dignity and equality and rights, as well as protecting society from becoming a commercial­ized and coercive industrial baby-manuf­acturing business. If the state doesn't do that, no one will, and life will soon suck.

We should not let people procreate with someone of their same sex, it will lead to all sorts of bad things. We should preserve natural conception and only let people procreate with their unmodified genes, and therefore with someone of the other sex.

[christymaryann]

10:35 AM on 06/01/2009

Are you saying my children should be protected from me because we have a happy home and I would challenge you to find a family that loves and honors each other more.

[Melissa Gardner]

05:55 AM on 06/03/2009

So you're against fertility treatments as well then?

[BigOtter]

12:00 AM on 06/01/2009

Baldwin is arguing with them within their own paradigm. That requires you to suppose their paradigm is correct. I maintain the best argument lies in the fact that the belief that homosexual­ity is wrong is purely religious, and that laws made against homosexual­s are laws based in a particular religious view. We are supposed to have separation of church and state in this country. I should not be legally required to live by a particular religious tenet.

[weatherwaxx]

11:17 PM on 05/31/2009

I swear, most of the uproar is because right-wing­ies are jealous that gays don't have to use birth control.