Slate.com had a piece a while back regarding the short term data trends following the legalization of gay marriage. According to the piece, in states that legalized gay marriage there is an immediate uptick in the marriage rate which captures gay couples that have waited for a long time to get married followed by a normalization of marriage rates that tracks the rate of heterosexuals marrying. Divorce rates among homosexuals have tracked the heterosexual rates as well. While the data stream is relatively short given that legalization is a recent phenomenon (Massachusetts was the first to legalize gay marriage in 2004), the data suggests that marriage equality does not impact the general rates at which persons marry. The only notable effect appears to be that the number of marriages goes up simply because gay couples can and do get married. The study obviously cannot track the wrath of an Old Testament God, but I suspect we are no closer to being turned into pillars of salt with marriage equality than without it.
So what is the big deal about marriage equality? The question is a wholly normative one that results in the unpleasant intersection of two norms common to the American experience. On the one hand we have the notion of freedom and equality under the law that has been enshrined as a norm in the American experience. This norm causes us to embrace the expansion of personal freedoms. In effect, it is the libertarian impulse in American life. In essence, the libertarian impulse, whether causing a person to complain that the government shouldn't take something that he or she has "earned" or causing a person to complain that the government shouldn't tell us who we can and cannot marry, is the same. On the other hand, Americans, like any other social beings, establish value and identity through group identification. Hence, the conflict with the social conservatism of, typically, evangelical religious groups and evangelically religious-minded persons.
A third factor is the changing cultural experience of Americans. When I was in high school and even college, an admittedly long time ago, homosexuality was a slur to be hurled. Few persons outside of those who were gay or grew up with gay friends, relatives, or acquaintances would have thought twice about calling someone a 'fag' or describing something unpleasant as 'gay.' I certainly used the terms with the regularity of my peers to express derision, displeasure, or derogation. Like many persons, for me things changed along the way for cultural reasons as much as anything.
I needn't document the heroic efforts of LGBT activists to fight the prejudice levied against gay persons and to publicize the commonness of being gay. In my own experience, I became more aware of the prevalence of gay persons in society as more persons came out. In addition, I like to think my attitudes matured somewhat as I myself matured. I also had a particular experience that altered my understanding of the struggles gay persons faced and changed my perspective forever. I was working for a small law firm and one of the partners asked me to witness the signing of a will. We had to witness the will in a hospital room because the person who made the will out was dying of AIDS. The dying man's partner was at the signing, but he could not openly discuss his relationship with his dying beloved in the hospital because it was a Catholic hospital.
I witnessed more than a will signing that day. First and foremost, I witnessed two persons in love at the very end of their relationship who could not share the simple act of a kiss or a hug or just holding hands. This outraged my sense of justice but more importantly tugged at my humanity. I walked out of the room a battered soul, thinking "who gives a shit if two men love one another?" They ought to be spared the indignities of conventional morality (which was clearly immoral in this instance) and be allowed to love freely, to show their affection openly, to spend the last days of their lives together as they wished. In such moments of greatest vulnerability the comfort of love is often the only bulwark we have that can assuage the terror and fear of leaving the world. These two men, consenting adults, decent human beings, were denied the comfort that any other heterosexual couple would and does expect. It became clear to me that no religious argument could ever convince me that two persons of the same sex should ever face impediments to their love, that allowing them to celebrate their love publicly, to enjoy the same rights and respect heterosexual couples have, would be in any way socially or morally deleterious.
While this was a watershed moment for me, I experienced what so many persons have experienced in the last 15-20 years or so as homosexuality became more public and more regular. I developed acquaintances and friendships with gay persons. I saw openly gay persons in public life, in business, and in social circles. The one thing that became manifestly clear is that all of the gay persons I met were in fact, shocker here, just persons like any other. Their sexual orientation was immaterial. I care deeply for some gay persons, I dislike some gay persons, and I don't give much thought to most gay persons in the same proportion as persons who are not gay. In effect, I came to view gay persons as persons whose sexual orientation was simply another attribute like brown hair or blue eyes.
And so I asked myself amid the furor of politics surrounding the equality of marriage movement, what is the big deal about gay marriage? Nothing. There is no big deal about gay marriage. Gay marriage does not erode or diminish the 'institution of marriage' as is often stated by those who oppose it. In fact, gay marriage actually makes the 'institution of marriage' stronger as it finally and irrevocably clarifies that marriage is about a voluntary, loving relationship between adults. If we preclude same-sex couples from marrying, we actually diminish marriage because we accept that marriage is not about love and commitment. Gay persons are as capable of love and commitment as heterosexuals. The only thing that should matter when determining who is legally allowed to marry is whether the persons wishing to marry have reached the legal age of majority and possess the legal capacity of self-determination. Once this threshold is met, there can be no valid reason for denying any two persons the right to marry.
Conservative religious types can cling to antiquated notions of morality and certainly have the freedom to do so in our republic, but they ought not to be able to use antiquated notions of morality to preclude consenting adults from exercising their freedom to love each other and to formalize their relationship with the marriage contract. The world will not end if gays marry. It has not ended in the states that allow gay marriage and it will not end if gay marriage is allowed everywhere in the United States any more than the world ended when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia. To suggest that gay marriage portends doom for the 'institution of marriage' is simply wrong. The only thing gay marriage might portend doom for is a normative stance that is patently immoral. The norms that matter in America are freedom and equality under the law. If this conflicts with a norm derived from religious teaching then the religious norm must give way. Gay marriage is about equality, freedom, and respect. If this dooms us, I accept this doom willingly and with open arms.
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