Do Gay Marriages Undermine Straight Marriage?

The South African parliament voted yesterday to legalise gay marriages: the first African country to do so. Clearly, this is an issue that provokes passionately opposing points of view in many, while doubtless leaving many others feeling fed up with it all and wishing they’d just get on with it. It is not my purpose in this brief comment piece to set out my own opinions on the matter. What I wish to open up is a different perspective on the charge that is often made by social conservatives – usually but not necessarily from a religious perspective – that gay marriages undermine traditional, straight marriage.

The argument, as put by such traditionalists, might run as follows: marriage is intrinsically the union – formally recognised by the state and the couple’s religion, if any – between a man and a woman. Marriage thus defined, and the family that it is also an intrinsic purpose of marriage to create and sustain, is the bedrock of social stability. It is the foundation stone, as it were, of the whole social edifice, which relies on profound bonds of altruism and mutual commitment – particularly in relation to the care of children and other dependents – in order to survive and prosper over against the forces of individualism, violence and other forms of selfishness (which a religious person might call ‘sin’) that risk otherwise to tear society apart and create chaos.

Marriage, so the argument goes, is already under threat from these forces and, particularly, from a hedonistic culture that has progressively ‘divorced’ sex from marriage and actively encourages the free expression of sexuality outside of marriage, thus leading not only to the break-down of respect for the privileged status of marriage in general, but the growing frequency of marriage break-downs and divorces. Defined as being by definition extra-marital, gay sex and relationships are inevitably viewed as being part of this free-for-all sexual culture and thus as one of the things that undermines marriage.

The condemnation of gay marriage, while often being coloured by sexual disgust, prurience or homophobia, is thus on one level simply derived from first principles and is, to that extent, circular: sex is intended for marriage; marriage is the union between a man and a woman; therefore gay sex and gay marriage are ‘wrong’ – the moral condemnation being wrapped up and confused with the epistemological denial, i.e. that gay marriage is a misnomer or contradiction in terms. It is possible to deny gay marriage on these cognitive or descriptive grounds without morally condemning it; equally, it is possible to have no such terminological scruples (‘why can’t a gay union be called a marriage if that’s what they want?’) while still harbouring unease about the moral and social implications of according the marital status to gay relationships. And it is this area of disquiet that I wish – very briefly – to touch upon.

I feel that there is a rather subtle way in which the legalisation of gay marriages can undermine straight marriage; but not in any external or philosophical sense (i.e. by undermining married partners’ faith in the uniqueness and importance of their mutual commitment), but rather from within the conceptual underpinning of marriage and the individuals’ self-image.

What I mean is that marriage – as defined and upheld throughout the Christian era and beyond – as inherently a union between a man and a woman bolsters and reinforces the very separation that is made between heterosexuality and homosexuality, and between an individual’s self-perception as straight and the uncertain terrain of their Other: the subconscious realm of impulses that contradict the coherence we try to give to our conscious selves. If marriage is reserved solely for heterosexuality, and if one has chosen to marry, one has also traditionally made a definitive, and indeed defining, choice to view oneself and be viewed by others as heterosexual. Now, if marriage can also be the place of homosexuality, this weakens the divide that straight marriage has placed between the different forms of sexuality, and between gayness and social legitimacy: ‘if homosexuality can be a part of marriage per se, should this change the way that I – as a ‘straight’ person – view my marriage and my sexuality? And if I - as someone who has always longed to get married to the one I love – have previously by definition assumed that meant I had to be straight, can I now express previously denied alternative desires, which are now able to find a socially accepted expression in marriage?’

I feel that in this sense, gay marriages could be said to undermine straight marriage. This is because they could cause people who have previously assumed they were 100% - or near enough – straight to question their sexuality and aspirations with respect to marriage. Gay marriage could in this way be said to undermine straight marriage because it challenges the very divide between gay and straight. That could ultimately be no bad thing if you believe it’s better to try to accept the truth, even if it hurts. Straight marriage could even emerge from this re-examination as a stronger force for the good.