Marriage for the "Well Behaved"

I started reading The Liberal Coalition when I ran across that big dust-up at the League of Liberals. (Minor Aside: I think TLC is a better acronym than LOL.) I've thought about joining a group blog, and TLC is looking mighty fine.

Jeff's "Idiotic Quote of the Week" caught my eye. He quoted a letter to the editor written by a buttmunch. Here's an excerpt:

In the rush to give rights to gay men and lesbians, I think that heterosexual rights are being overlooked. No doubt the majority of homosexuals are and will be well-behaved, but as our society becomes more accepting of them there will be those who test our tolerance. It's one thing for homosexuals to leave their messages seeking partners on the walls of roadside latrines (as they currently do), but quite another to openly solicit sex. We should have the right to be free from their lewd solicitations, and not be exposed to their indecent signs, acts and gestures as they offer themselves to others.

I was immediately reminded of William Raspberry's article "Tale of a 'Stigmaphobe'". He had read Michael Warner's book "The Trouble with Normal." Warner had criticized Andrew Sullivan's claim in his book "Normal" (hence the name of Warner's book) that gays would be better accepted if they behaved more "normally," especially in public -- i.e., behave in a way that doesn't make straight folk feel uncomfortable. I must first admit that I have read neither of these books. I'm commenting only on Raspberry's assessment of them.

Raspberry believes that Warner views marriage as "governmental regulation of sex -- and gays in particular should be leery of it."

That comment reminded me of a certain neo-conservative philosophy about hetersexual marriage, which I'll get to in a moment.

Raspberry had accepted Sullivan's "behave yourself" view until he read Warner's book. Sullivan was of the opinion that gay people would be more accepted if they would only behave "more respectably." Marriage was seen as one way to encourage such "respectable" behavior. Raspberry not only took another look at the way he preferred that gay people behave, he also looked at what he had considered more acceptable behavior he wished to see in black teenagers.

Two things struck me about Warner's thesis. The first is how completely I had embraced the Sullivan notion that gays and lesbians would be okay if only they behaved more respectably -- and that marriage might be a way of encouraging that better behavior. The second was, for me, more startling: the degree to which stigmaphobe describes some of my own attitudes regarding racial acting out. Warner himself doesn't mention race in this regard. But is there any appreciable difference between Sullivan and others wishing that gays would behave more "normally" -- at least in public -- and my own wishing that black teenagers, for instance, would act more "respectfully" -- toning down their swearing and loud conversations, muting their boomboxes or deferring to grownups?

Raspberry had one of those "gotcha" moments. He wondered how much of his concern was for the teenagers, and how much was for himself. In a similar vein, how much of Sullivan's hope that marriage would encourage gay people to behave "more respectably" was really about his wish that if they do, "normal" people would be less likely to view him and other gay people as, to use Raspberry's words, "members of a deviant group?"

Marriage has long been used and recommended as a means of controlling the sexual behavior of straight people. I find it interesting that so many conservative and religious-right ideologues have cited ostensible promiscuity, especially male promiscuity, on the part of gays and lesbians as how gay marriage would debase the tradition of marriage, when the same examples of straight male promiscuity have been cited as a reason to support straight marriage. Marriage has been seen as a way to channel male sexual wanderlust in a supposedly constructive manner towards one woman and the offspring he has with her. This is an underlying theme behind marriage promotions in welfare reform. Marriage has even been seen as a buffer against male violence.

This "marriage as buffer" argument has been described and derailed in the 1999 American Psychologist article, "Deconstructing the Essential Father," by Louise Silverstein and Carl Auerbach. My own critique of the article was published by Feminista, and later reprinted at XY Online. While I agreed with the assessment that "a wide variety of family structures can support positive child outcomes," I did not care for the way the researchers ignored established primary caregiving mothers who are already doing the bulk of the work in raising the children.

"Decon" was written as criticism of neo-conservative fatherhood ideology promoted by fatherhood and "traditional" marriage ideologues, primarily David Blankenhorn and David Popenoe. Fathers' rights activists had pitched a collective fit when this article first appeared. They misunderstood it, believing that it denigrated fathers when in fact it was actually highly supportive of them. The main misunderstanding rested with misinterpretations of the word "essential," which fathers' rights activists and Wade Horn in particular took to mean "not important." Horn may have been a bit miffed that Silverstein and Auerbach had snubbed him in their article. He wasn't mentioned at all.

Horn took the researcher's use of the term "essential" to mean that dads were not necessary. The researchers actually had referred to the concept of essentialism; that is, the idea that there are biological sex differences between women and men that create a difference in parenting methods and emphases between the genders. All feminists are familiar with the theories of supposedly "innate" biologically-based behavioral characteristics of women that led to the notion of the separate spheres. Other supposedly "innate" biological sex differences revolve around men -- that they are hard-wired for aggression, violence, male wanderlust and male sexual jealousy and proprietorship.

The researchers described what they called the neo-conservative view of "the civilizing effects of marriage" as follows:

a. Because a man's contribution to reproduction is limited to the moment of conception, active and consistent parenting on the part of men is universally difficult to achieve. b. The best way to insure that men will consistently provide for and nurture young children is to provide a social structure in which men can be assured of the paternity, i.e. the traditional nuclear family. Without the social institution of marriage, men are likely to impregnate as many women as possible, without behaving responsibly to their offspring.

Anthropologists disagree regarding the level and range of innate versus learned sex-based differences in behavior. Nonetheless, marriage has been and is being used by neo-conservative ideologues as a means of controlling straight sexual behavior. Not only has "strengthening marriage" become code for "prevent women from divorcing their husbands," it's also been used to pair up unmarried straight couples based solely on the fact the woman bore the man's child out of wedlock. Marriage isn't likely to control infidelity. People inclined to hop in the sack with anyone in sight are going to do it whether they are gay, straight, married, or single. Marriage will not cure poverty. Men are not so governed by their "innate" wanderlust that they cannot resist raping a young, lovely woman who visits them in their hotel rooms. Being unmarried does not translate to promiscuous behavior and popping babies out every nine months, despite very common and hateful stereotypes to the contrary. I do find it interesting that the same concerns about promiscuity in gays and lesbians that would supposedly debase marriage is turned into a means of controlling male wanderlust when it comes to straight marriage. Unmarried gay men are not overwhelmed by an innate urge to leave "messages seeking partners on the walls of roadside latrines," openly solicit sex, and make lewd solicitations, indecent signs, acts and gestures. Who's to say that a straight married man will not openly solicit sex, make lewd solicitations, etc.? The whole argument is ridiculous and self-serving.

As Raspberry had wondered, how much of gay marriage supposedly "normalizing" gays was more about the concerns of the members of the supposedly "normal" group? As I wonder, how much of marriage reform for straight people is really about appeasing the politicians and ideologues that promote it? Marriage promotion is form over substance.