The sexist argument against marriage equality

There's a code that the opponents of same-sex marriage use, that, at even just below the surface, should offend almost anyone with a modern sensibility. They argue that a family is best when marriage is a man and a woman. Beyond the "tradition" argument (which is saying "this is the way it's always been, this is the way it should always be", which basically saying "it's right just because it is," just as slavery was once tradition, or women not having the right to vote was once tradition), they argue that a family is raised best when it has a mother and a father.

First off, marriage is not for procreation. Nowhere on the marriage license do you sign a contract to say you will produce children. No one is given a fertility test to make sure they can have children before marriage, and who doesn't swoon when an elderly couple finds each other and marry each other long after their child-rearing years?

And for those couples who do have children, who is to say to the estimated one million children that are being raised by couples in a same sex relationship, you don't deserve to have married parents? I would think all children would benefit from the stability of marriage. Few would argue that.

No, there's a deeper sexism to this. Why do parents have to be one male and one female? Surely to create a child, you do need certain physical parts, but as I mentioned previously, one million children were produced by other means. So beyond creating children, what is it?

The argument is that a child deserves a mother and a father. And herein lies the subtext. So the idea is that there must be a woman to play the part of the mother and a male to play the part of a father. The subtext is that a woman should play a certain role, i.e., cooks and cleans and changes the diapers, and the man should play a certain role, i.e., who goes out and earns the living, and comes home to expect dinner on the table. After all, if the woman started doing father's work, like going out and earning a living and coming home to find her hubby already had dinner on the table, then why couldn't you have a lesbian couple where a woman stayed at home at took care of the kids and the other went out and earned a living and coming home to find dinner on the table? And that would just be weird, no?

The answer is, that's actually the best way to do it. Studies have shown that heterosexual couples do best when they don't assume such gender roles, and that the role of parents are divided evenly between the two along areas of interest, not necessarily along lines of gender. And since same sex couples don't have such predefined roles, they tend to split their roles along where they're most comfortable, and tend to be even more successful at it than heterosexual couples.

Can you just imagine the scene otherwise?

A woman walks into the nursery. She finds her husband changing the baby's diaper.

"What are you doing?" she asks, looking puzzled.

"Oh, you were busy, so I'm changing the baby's diaper?"

"You're what? That's my job."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, marriage is between a man and a woman."

"Right."

"And a child needs a father and a mother."

"Right." He's trying to figure out where she's going with this.

Showing with her hands on one side, "Well, so a man is needed to do the role of the father, " and moving her hands to the other side, "and a woman is needed to do the role of the mother."

The man pauses for a second before it hits him. "Oh my god. I'm destroying marriage! What do I do?" he asks.

"I don't know... do something manly!"

"Uh, uh, get in the kitchen and make me something to eat!" he points the way out.

"Okay!" she runs out. Then runs back in, looking at the baby. "Uh, I'll change the...."

"Um, I'll go mow the lawn or something," and he walks out.

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No, the answer is, it doesn't take a man and a woman to raise a family. Just love. And as long as someone takes out the garbage, does it really matter who?

Why Iowa is already protecting marriage

When discussing the weak arguments against same sex marriage, opponents often point to the fact that in countries that do support same sex marriage, the number of heterosexual couples that are cohabitating but not married increased. They make the weak argument that this was caused by same sex marriage.

In essence, they see a relationship between events X and Y, and therefore X causes Y. The argument is that because same sex marriage was allowed, that led to more heterosexual couples eschewing marriage, so X causes Y. Of course, they never give an explanation of what mechanism two guys getting married may cause to a man and a woman down the street not to get married.

I will give you a detailed explanation of that mechanism.

In a relationship between X and Y, there are three possible reasons for it: X causes Y, Y causes X, or some other factor causes X and Y. Indeed, in this case, some other factor is causing both.

We're actually starting to see the effects of it in our country, even though in same sex marriage is illegal in all but a handful of states. You see, no country or state merely wakes up one day and says "Oh, let's allow same sex marriage." It's typically a long drawn out process. First, they start realizing gays are people too and start to give them equal protections. Then they realize same sex couples are people too and they should deserve rights too. But not marriage. So they start to hand them rights piecemeal, say the right to see their partner in the hospital. And then slowly they add in more rights after that. And maybe after some long drawn out period, same sex marriage.

And therein lies the problem. Essentially, they start to develop this "marriage lite". Most places that do this reserve that right only to same sex couples. But sometimes not. But some of the rights that were traditionally granted only to married couples may be opened up to just anyone, for fear of a right-wing backlash that the government might be favoring gay people, or perhaps not to be in violation of the Defense of (inequal) Marriage Act. For example, the FDIC recently revised their rules that trust insurance be only for "qualifying" family members (which included spouses). To open that insurance to same sex partners, they had to open it to anyone a person designates. Another instance of "marriage lite" was created.

And eventually, this "marriage lite" gets extended to heterosexual couples. And if heterosexuals can have many of the rights of marriage without marriage, many will indeed take it.

Now say you have a case like Iowa. Same sex couples in Iowa previously had almost no rights. They were for most purposes "strangers under the law." Then the courts came in and decided they could get married. They never had time to create a "marriage lite" in Iowa. If straight couples want the rights of marriage, they have to get married. End of story.

Now many would argue this was disruptive, that it wasn't through the legislature and it wasn't the will of the people. But there's a huge benefit to it too: There's nothing to diminish heterosexual marriage either. Had they gone through the legislature, they probably would have needed to create this "marriage lite" and have the same problems the other states do.

My point being that same sex marriage doesn't diminish heterosexual marriage. Treating same sex couples as less than equal does. Same sex marriage isn't even in the equation. In fact, the process of creating a "marriage lite" is what does it. Same sex marriage merely often comes after.

So if you want to "protect marriage", don't treat anyone as less that equal. If you do, we are all harmed.