Don't rain on my gay parade: Equality and the future of marriage

First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought. --Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
     President Obama's recent statement - his personal support of same-sex marriage and rejection of civil unions, putting him in stark contrast with Mr Romney - has given everyone a lot to think about. While I am not ignorant of the campaigning dynamic going on in such an unambiguous admission, neither am I interested in it. Rather, I am interested in the question it raises for the future of American society. Should we, like the President, embrace homosexuality as equal under the law in all respects? Or should we, like the soon-to-be Republican candidate, embrace the preservation of traditional, monogamous, heterosexual marriage?
     First, a preliminary philosophical observation. Always and in every society there is an Other (a group generally viewed as outside the accepted circle of good, God-approved individuals) who is denied social equality and legitimacy. We see a long list of Others in our society's history. Women, visible minorities, religious minorities, disabled persons, subcultures, and so on.

     Some societies perpetuate these prejudices and preserve social and legal inequality. This is done by squelching the voice of the Other and preventing it from being heard as a valid point of view. In some societies prejudices increase because of economic rivalry, a historical wrong or sociocultural resentment. However, as a democratic society evolves, these prejudices have generally been eroded by other more enduring values and principles.
     In a democratic society it is inevitable that, once they are considered persons and citizens with the right to vote, the voice of the Other will be heard. That voice will complain of the prejudices endured and their manifestation as gross legal inequalities. It is always in the legal arena that any issue in inequality will first come to a head.
     A democratic society will invariably increase legal equality of non-destructive preferences and behaviors, whatever these may be, and regulate or ban preferences and behaviors that hurt those besides their practitioners. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859. This ranges from sexual self-determination to the use of narcotics to ethnic background to religious belief/practice to protesting to riding a bicycle without using a helmet. Our legal courts are charged with seeing the basic trajectory of our country and, when it is time, creating or altering laws to increase equality and decrease destructive acts.
     Legislation in a democratic society cannot be coterminous with morality. In the United States we expect to enjoy personal freedoms, even if we do not always follow the status quo. We are allowed to live in peace with differing views and practices on many subjects. We understand the difference between morality and law - no wonder that so many moral people break laws on a regular basis without a single pang of guilt.

     You don't see pornography or other sexually explicit entertainment outlawed, do you? People who see homosexuality as immoral almost certainly view these other practices as immoral - and many others, too. However, it doesn't matter how many people believe watching porn is wrong. Laws are not written based on what the majority believe is moral or immoral. Laws have to do, as I said already, with stopping people from hurting others, and granting equality to groups disenfranchised in older generations. It is unethical to write a law stopping someone from doing something just because you think they shouldn't. That's called bigotry.
     Therefore, there is no basis whatsoever to outlaw minority practices unless they are destructive to others. I have the right to believe an act to be immoral but I do not have the right to impose my view on others. I have the right to believe an act to be moral but I do not have the right to require others to do it, or to see things the same way. A democratic society believes in free thought, which stands and falls on free speech, which stands and falls on free action - so long as my free action does not impinge on the rights of someone else.
     Only if gay marriage is destructive to others, therefore, can there be any basis for outlawing it. Otherwise it's simply a clear-cut example of an oppressed minority finally having an opportunity to receive equal treatment under the law - the constitutional right of the GLBT community as much as it is mine or any heterosexual person.
     So, does gay marriage hurt others? I don't think that it has ever hurt me. No gay or lesbian has ever hurt me by simply being the way they are, much less hurting me by committing themselves to each other in monogamous, life-long union. I can't see how that could ever hurt me. Am I missing something here?
Here are some possible arguments of how homosexuality and gay marriage could be destructive to others:

1. God will punish the entire society for its immoral conduct. The biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is the chief example supporting this argument. However, if you read the story carefully, you'll note that Abraham only has to find ten righteous people in the whole city to save it. As long as heterosexual marriage is resolutely preserved, then, I can't see why even the most superstitious person would worry about being turned into a gigantic salt shaker. 
2. Homosexuality will be approved by society so it will harder to convince our children that it is wrong. Exposure to a different idea or way of life is not the same as actual harm. If it was, we could not stop until we had a morally homogeneous society, and this conception runs contrary to every fiber in my democratic body.
3. Gay marriage will lead to gay adoption. Let's assume it does, or will, eventually, given the view of democratic society I outlined above. I've never heard of a study showing that a child raised by a gay couple is more likely to have some serious psychological trauma, or be abused, or anything else. Again, it's pretty clear that the horror of the idea of kids being "raised gay" is a result of moral prejudice. Such prejudice is the right of anyone, but by no means can it determine the direction of new legislation.
4. Gay marriage will lessen the validity of heterosexual marriage and lead to the destruction of the institution of marriage, raise divorce rates, corrupt society because the family unit no longer passes on valuable moral teachings to children, etc. I say, there's some truth in that. But the bigger truth is that Western society lost that battle almost one hundred years ago with the legalization of birth control methods as part of the early feminist movement and the liberation of women to be more than baby factories.

     The fact of the matter is that marriage isn't primarily about babies anymore. Society has changed, for better or for worse, and there's no going back. To try to salvage an obsolete notion of marriage is hopeless. In fifty years no one outside of extremely conservative religious groups will even bother. I can visualize the Catholic church continuing to maintain strict policies against both contraceptives and gay marriage for maybe that long, but not much longer. American society, meanwhile, will continue to develop and update its laws to reflect its nature - assuming the political scene is fixed sometime before the Union of States utterly dissolves. If you want a society that considers marriage to be primarily about progeny, you'll have to go to some other part of the world (not Europe). But I predict as their populations stabilize and the middle class becomes wealthier, as health care quality and availability increases and infant death mortality drops, the urge to define marriage in terms of procreation will weaken and ultimately fade.
     Folks, it's a brave new world out there, and we need to go and be part of it. Instead of pining for a lost era where black was black and white was white, we need to figure out how to make society work as best as it can.

Sex at school

     The other day I told my Creative Writing students, "Your job is to make your topic interesting. The only subject that's interesting by default is sex. No other topic is interesting until you make it interesting."
     The point I was making was valid, but I almost regret putting it that way, because simply mentioning sex in class gets them thinking about sex, rather than about writing. Case in point, right? It's such a powerful part of human existence. Those who treat sex casually are at war with the bulk of human societies and civilizations since the dawn of time.
     (I suppose I just enjoy being unpredictable. How often does a high school teacher mention sex? It's nice to be absolutely sure now and then that your students are actually listening to you.)

     Today I started the most ambitious instructional unit of my career -- sexual ethics. It's coming at the tail-end of a semester of ethics, starting with ethical issues relating specifically to young people, then environment, education, war and politics. It's been a great class. However, our school district has failed our students insofar as it does not require each of them to take a course on sex, sexuality and gender. This is my chance to fix that grievous error.
     Unfortunately I've only left myself two weeks to cover the material, so we'll have to move fairly quickly through some of the most controversial issues that will be raised this year. Homosexuality. Premarital sex. Age of consent. And once again, I think I will be able to hold my students' attention without too much difficulty.
     Of course, the challenge of an ethics course is to let the students arrive at their own conclusions instead of being told what to believe. Not only is it the ethical way to go about instruction -- as opposed to taking advantage of your position of authority and trust to preach your personal viewpoints -- but it will also result in a far more lasting impact on the way the students think.
     This is basically what distinguishes a teacher from a parental figure. Parents are keen to pass on their values and beliefs to their children. I, however, cannot adopt one hundred teenagers for 180 days, and repeat the process from scratch every year. For one, I'd probably kill myself. But the larger issue is the fact that they are not little mes, in any sense. Some might respect me and some might hate me, some will idolize me and others filled with disdain and scorn. Yet their background is not mine, their home life is not mine, their past is not mine, and although I can impact their future, it is not irrevocably tied to my own.

     Sex and sexuality is sort of like religion and tradition. It's hard to break away from your roots. Students learn math, English, history and science at school, but when it comes to sex, they come with a set of presuppositions, sometimes hardened by specific theological premises. In the United States, anyway. In more secular countries  -- Britain comes to mind -- would have many parents who tell their kids, "Think about it, and go with what makes sense." Americans are more dogmatic. And by extension, whereas in Britain a teacher could have a full curriculum about sex, that's not true in Oklahoma. It's safer to skirt the most important questions, lest an instructor call down some serious parental wrath.
     Still, I don't deny that I have an agenda. My devious plan is to get them to reflect on their own assumptions, the traditions they've inherited, the biases the embrace as part of their subconscious endeavor to be accepted by their peers. Strong opinions in controversial matters are part of the adolescent experience and the search for one's personal identity. I get that. But they can't stay teenagers forever.
     When I was a high school student, like them, I had strong opinions about many hot topics. Then I grew up. At university I experienced the process of letting go of my purported wisdom, and much to my dismay, I was wrong on pretty much everything. Is it egotistical to want my students to similarly reject the simplicity of their youth? Do I claim that a phase of intellectual rebellion is necessary to internalize one's values and thus ensure that one is not merely a creature of habit but an empowered individual?
     I suppose so. And frankly, if a teacher can get a kid to rethink what she thinks she knows about sex, then pretty much everything is up for grabs.