Yes, I can imagine, and can even find slightly persuasive, arguments which assert that same-sex marriage buys into an individualization of sexual identity, disconnected from larger wholes like families, and thus can only further contribute to a culture which already plays into male sexual independence and irresponsibility, which is almost invariably to the detriment of women. God knows I have see almost nothing good whatsoever in the world of hook-ups, out-of-wedlock births, child-abandonment, and male infantilization which I see around me, even here on my fairly conservative and religious college campus. But then the Marxist in me speaks up: Really? It's the individualization of sexual identity which has played the primarily role in the breakdown of effective, sexual-responsibility teaching norms? It's the fault of women entering the workforce and asking for a little sexual parity, and the legal and technological tools they made used of to achieve it, which has given us family breakdown and the feminization of poverty? You don't think it might also have just a little bit to do with, you know...JOBS?Now, this speaks to me very closely, because the side of the argument against same-sex marriage with which I sympathise most is precisely the cultural one and what it signifies, that one’s sexual identity can be divorced so completely (no double entendre intended) from one’s social identity in ways which have reductively individualistic consequences as to allow for it. Regardless of one’s position on the implications of natural-law and virtue ethics, Dr Fox is doing yeoman’s work here following up on the work of Phillip Blond, in attempting to separate and sift through the detritus of both paradigm shifts: the way modern Americans think about (and do, so to speak) sex and the way we think about and do economics. He deserves a lot of credit merely for taking on this task. And the case he ultimately ends up making amending his former stance is a convincing one.
My oldest daughter will probably have one more year at home, and then she'll be heading out into the world. She appears to take her religion--our family religion--seriously. She also appears to like boys. And most importantly, she has confidence and ambition and some real intelligence leading her on. When I look at what surrounds her, and the sexual snares and family dysfunction that she already knows plenty about through her friends, I see, for certain, the negative consequences of the Sexual Revolution. But I also see the ravages of globalization and financial capitalism, which have eviscerated the socio-economic basis for the post-Industrial Revolution family unit (a family unit that was, for certain, itself a historical construct, but for good or ill it was a workable one, one which carried us through most of the 19th and 20th centuries in good shape), erected in its place a--in my opinion--deeply condescending and class-reinforcing and service-oriented meritocracy, and then provided plenty of porn and computer games for all the men (and women...but mostly men) who have found themselves unable to climb that ever-shifting and frankly corrupt ladder... Opposing same-sex marriage will not only not do anything to address this situation; it will--again, in the case of the arguments I myself at one time found persuasive--rather oblige me to buy into a ideology of marriage and female happiness that would prevent me from preparing my daughters for this unfortunate world as equals. I can't do that. And with that realization, the realization that I cannot wink at sexual inegalitarianism...my ability to articulate a case against same-sex marriage disappeared. Just like that.
But Dr Fox is right that the debate over same-sex marriage, and the question of the way in which we as a society treat homosexuals (and what sorts of contributions and responsibilities we will ask of them in return) is not going away anytime soon. He is absolutely right that we will still have arguments. My hope is that all of the arguments we have will be of this high calibre.
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