Defending Traditional Marriage (From What?)

February 2011

On NPR today it was announced that Indiana had taken another step to defend traditional marriage. I’m always so taken with the code words and framing of the Right. Some very smart people are spending a lot of time coming up with phrases for the politicians to repeat, and repeat and repeat. The very smart people on the Left — and this dualistic view of Left and Right is a problem for me, Right just sounds so “Right” — don’t seem inclined to create their own rhetorical demagoguery though in their defense some of their phrases have either been coopted (see G.W. Bush quoting M.L. King) or sucked dry of all their meaning (see Orwell’s Politics and the English Language).

Words like “equality, “ “democracy,” “fairness,” even “love” seem to have lost their connative and denotative meanings. One would think that words playing to our better angels would resonate more than those that play to our fears and insecurities but that does not seem to be so. Inspiration — the breath of the spirit — seems almost always to be negative no matter how well masked it is in positive sounding words. Which brings us back to the interesting phrase “defending traditional marriage.”

This noxious phrase brings up several issues at once. Defending against what is the primary one. Reminds me of some home schooling Christians we know — wonderful if parochial people — who go to great lengths to protect or defend their charming children from anything in the broader culture that might provide a counter to their own beliefs. I can understand not exposing children to the pernicious consumer capitalism of commercial TV and malls and fashion magazines — they have daughters. Or to adult literature. I should not have read Naked Lunch at 14 nor should I have trolled through Ulysses for the good parts (Molly’s) though I can still smell those kidneys frying. These things I understand and approve of and we did much the same in raising our daughter.

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My partner points out that I sound as though protecting our child from things I don’t like is ok whereas I simply don’t approve of what others do. That isn’t the case. Through the course of raising our daughter we were always aware that in some major sense she belonged to the world more than she belonged to us. We knew that not only was it impossible to “protect” her from the world, it would be wrong. She inherits the world we created — or what is left of it — and that means the whole world in all its radiant light and deep darknesses together. I also don’t believe that doctrine or dogma especially as inculcated into the young is a genuine bulwark against darkness or excess. Our daughter knows our values — real and espoused — and has to measure them and our parental expectations against her own inner lights. Which is exactly how it should be. Do we run the risk that she will become a Republican Evangelist? Of course we do but it probably won’t be in rebellious reaction to her parents’ political and religious proclivities.

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But what I don’t understand is the underlying sense that these things that we believe — and pass to our children — are so fragile or unappealing that any exposure to how the other XX% lives will immediately seduce the children to the dark side, perhaps forcing them to adopt such heresies as Manichaeism or Pelagianism. Why is traditional marriage threatened by civil unions or gay marriage? Does it somehow cheapen my marriage — and after 24 years together we still are not — to have a lesbian or gay couple marry? How can that be? I know the arguments that gay marriage will lead to people marrying animals — goats are often mentioned for some reason, scapegoating perhaps. But marriage even in the states where the age bar is too low for my tastes assumes or requires consenting partners. A goat is chattel — much like women in some traditional societies — and not only can’t consent but is under the power and control of its “owner,” at least to the extent goats can be controlled. I just don’t think marriage to animals is the issue though perhaps the real concerns are buried therein, perhaps it reflects the fear of some kinds of sexual activity that are as old as the hills themselves. Once we recognize two men in a sanctioned relationship we are forced to confront exactly — and perhaps pruriently — how this loving couple consummates their relationship. And that once we sanction such outré sexual behavior bestiality and pedophilia can’t be far behind.

This brings me close to my main point and hardly original thought but first a minor digression about the relative success of the “traditional” marriage. We all know the varied and multiple reasons for the alarming lack of marital success in the last few decades and that the amazing celebrations of 50 years of marriage are quite likely a thing of the past. So even as the institution itself is in decline we ramp up our last ditch efforts to bolster it in the face of change. Surrounded and bombarded by change on all sides, much of it incomprehensible, we cling to whatever bits of wreckage are still floating. (The fact that weddings are a huge commercial enterprise requires an essay all on its own.) If two adults want to put the state’s or the church’s imprimatur on their relationship for whatever reason, have at it and good luck to you both.

Back to my slowly evolving central point — which may be the hidden central point of all these essays — how we view human beings and how those views are expressed politically and in public discourse. If we think human beings are innately evil with impulses that must be kept in check by some form of coercion either by the state or some form of moral authority — and never the twain shall meet — that creates a certain world for us to live in. There is plenty of supporting evidence for that point of course. But having raised a child and observed her diverse peers at every stage I can’t say I think people are born evil. I return again and again to what Dorothy Day — or perhaps her mentor Peter Maurin — said: We have to make it easier for people to be good. How this is done begins with recognizing the dignity and sanctity (another code word) of each human person. Namaste, as the Buddhists say.

In another essay I mention that the success of a huge global consumer goods company based here rests at least partially on a corporate culture that trusts the employees. Not a radical approach and one that gets a lot of lip service but rare in practice and increasingly difficult in these days of multiculturalism and diversity. If I don’t understand you and your values it is hard for me to trust you. Obviously the trust comes with understanding that there are valid values different from our own and with some work toward mutual understanding. The fruits of that work may be that I see you and I are more alike than different even if you are a Mets fan and I the Yankees.

All of this assumes that both you and I are able and willing to engage each other without fear or the filters of doctrine and dogma. Not an easy place to get to but important to at least try to get there. And once we begin to try, begin our own journey down the road of mutual clear regard we have to expect some setbacks and difficulties. We all cling to our own beliefs and preconceptions for a variety of “good” and potent reasons. Changing those beliefs even in the face of present reality is painful and one can feel adrift, cut loose from our moorings to a comprehensible world. Obviously I am talking about hard work here, deep insightful work of the kind done in psychodynamic therapy. To merely decide that from this day forth you will no longer think of Jews as avaricious, or Blacks as shiftless or the poor as somehow deserving their fate is simply to substitute one filter for another which is why loving thy neighbor as thyself is for most of us sinners a minute by minute pursuit of a lifetime — or two. But the strength of spirit of that work is worth every moment of backsliding. Once in the habit it becomes almost self-correcting and self-generating like the famous Jesus Prayer in the Way of the Pilgrim.