Love=marriage?

Recent events in local politics have renewed a campus-wide debate on gay marriage. To call what has taken place at Duke a “debate,” however, is to use that term generously. Most of what I have seen (these pages included) resembles not so much preaching to the choir as it does joining in the ever-swelling chorus of self-righteous condemnation. Despite my personal support for gay marriage, the near unanimity of this position disturbs me almost as much as the obnoxious, dogmatic and utterly dismissive manner in which it is expressed. Indeed, listening to the discussion on campus, one is left with the impression that the only possible explanation for unorthodoxy on gay marriage is superstitious bigotry, if not downright hatred.

To indulge in such peremptory name-calling is particularly problematic for those who criticize the prejudice exhibited by a great number of those who oppose gay marriage. To be prejudiced is simply to pre-judge—that is, to judge before fairly considering the best arguments on each side. A principled stance in favor of gay-marriage especially requires that one consider such arguments (and invent them oneself, if necessary) in order to avoid simply substituting one set of unreflective beliefs for another. What follows is an attempt at just this kind of consideration, in the hope that it might modestly contribute to a more insightful and understanding dialogue on this important issue.

Let’s start with that nearly ubiquitous piece of sloganeering, “Love=Love.” Does this mean to say that any relationship, so long as it is determined by love, is entitled to be called marriage? Surely this wouldn’t include human relationships with animals or inanimate objects. If this comparison is offensive, keep in mind that it is the Love=Love people (insofar as we take them seriously) who give the offense, not I. Indeed, the Love=Love position seems to suggest that the only way society can respect the equivalence of gay love to heterosexual love is to lower or eliminate any standard of respectability for love more generally. This is an affirmative action of the heart. Surely there is a principled way to grant gay love the dignity it deserves while maintaining the discernment that makes dignity possible, but this would require a nuanced investigation of the meaning and purpose of love—a task beyond the scope of vapid tautologizing.

As far as I can recall, the pictures accompanying the “Love=Love” slogan fail to depict loving arrangements involving more than two people. The principled argument for such exclusion, I think, would roughly correspond to Aristotle’s argument against Plato’s communism. It is impossible to spread love without diluting it, i.e., to love everyone is to love no one. True love requires exclusivity, possessiveness and almost inhuman intensity of focus. It is at the same time the most selfish and selfless of phenomena, and its transcendence is always transgressive, anti-political and tragic. In “Romeo and Juliet,” for instance, Shakespeare could not have depicted romantic love in such an archetypical fashion within the context of a polyamorous arrangement.

It is also true, however, that Romeo and Juliet’s brief marriage ends in tragedy, and they nonetheless die a childless couple. Might this suggest that children and the long term stability required properly to raise them are not compatible with love in its purest, most intense form, in all of its selfish and jealous passion? More provocatively, in light of this suggestion, might we revisit the ancient Greek notion that the homosexual relationship between two males, in its physiological and psychological childlessness, actually allows for the most intense erotic, intellectual and passionate connection (i.e., the most intense love) possible between two human beings? Not only is homosexual love not inferior to the heterosexual variety, it is, at least in principle, positively superior! In acknowledging this, however, we must at least concede that, though marriage certainly requires a great deal of love, love and marriage are not unqualifiedly compatible at the extremes, and that children are the main complicating factor.

Turning now from love to the topic of children and marriage, it is interesting to distinguish among polygamous, hetero-monogamous and homosexual marriage. Polygamy is perhaps the most efficient from a procreative point of view, and therefore the most attached to the strictly primitive demands of biological necessity. Homosexuality, by stark contrast, is childless in principle, and is therefore the least attached to biological necessity while at the same time (arguably) the most open to the fulfillment of man’s transcendent, spiritual and erotic longings. Heterosexual marriage seems then to occupy a sort of middle ground, making concessions both to the beast and god in man, to society’s need for a stable environment for children and the individual’s need for a selfish love whose very enjoyment justifies concessions to society. There is perhaps more fragility and wisdom in the traditional Western notion of marriage than we are prepared to admit.

We should make this admission even if we intend to amend our current arrangements. Only by doing so will we be able to mitigate the damages of our innovations, even as we welcome the happy inevitability of a newer, more inclusive and more just society.

Darren Beattie is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in political science. His column runs every other Monday.