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April 05, 2005
I Am Trying To Make A Persuasive Case
For same-sex marriage*, that is. Because Megan McArdle isn't particularly persuaded by a couple of them. Her point, really, comes down to the law of unintended consequences. If we sanction same-sex marriage, she supposes, there will likely be consequences (possibly nefarious) that reformers do not forsee. Marriage has been man/woman in one form or another throughout the vast majority of history and across the vast majority of cultures, there's likely a reason for it because such systems are incredibly complex.
I'll grant that she's right, there likely will be unintended consequences if same-sex marriage is legalized across the board**. However, I think that even forseeing this, there's still a compelling case to be made for same-sex marriage. The temptation to make an argument from analogy using slavery as an institution that was common across most of history and most cultures is tempting, but I also think it's ultimately stupid. However, I see two main reasons to think that same-sex marriage should be legalized.
1) It'd be pretty hard to damage marriage as an institution any more than it already has been. There's a 50% divorce rate, inner-city marriage is practically non-existant, what sort of effect at the margin is allowing 3% of the population to marry amongst itself really going to have? I realize that I'm probably not the marginal case, and that there could be some marginal effect, but how large is that effect likely to be? To my mind, pretty small. Public housing and welfare affect far more people than same-sex marriage is likely to.
2) Even supposing there would be large-scale cultural upheaval and many nefarious consequences, is it really the government's job to preserve cultural outcomes? If the government is going to be in the business of marriage, it should at least do so in a way that maximizes the choice available to individuals? If we don't think that the government should enforce some idea of cultural stability with regard to indecency, drug use and whatnot, it's pretty inconsistent to think that government has a role in enforcing cultural stability through marriage.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
* Note: I say same-sex rather than "gay" because technically homosexuals and heterosexuals have exactly the same right to marry: everyone is free to marry one individual of the opposite sex. Homosexuals don't want to do this, and that's fine, I think they should be allowed to marry who they want, but they already have the same right to marry members of the opposite sex that heterosexuals do.
** Note: I think it should be done on at the state-level, and left up to the states as marriage always has been, but let's just pretend it happens across the board for this thought experiment. I think leaving marriage at the state level probably further minimizies possible unintended nefarious consequences.