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Eve Tushnet

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Last updated on: March 28, 2009 at 6:47 pm by Eve Tushnet

2009-03-28T18:47:00-04:00 Eve Tushnet

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SISTERHOOD IS POWERFUL: So while we’re kicking around gay-marriage compromises, we get this one:

That brings us to our alternative proposal: The revisionists would agree to oppose the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), thus ensuring that federal law retains the traditional definition of marriage as the union of husband and wife, and states retain the right to preserve that definition in their law. In return, traditionalists would agree to support federal civil unions offering most or all marital benefits. But, as Princeton’s Robert P. George once proposed for New Jersey civil unions, unions recognized by the federal government would be available to any two adults who commit to sharing domestic responsibilities, whether or not their relationship is sexual. Available only to people otherwise ineligible to marry each other (say, because of consanguinity), these unions would neither introduce a rival “marriage-lite” option nor treat same-sex unions as marriages. Their purpose would be to protect adult domestic partners who have pledged themselves to a mutually binding relationship of care. What (if anything) goes on in the bedroom would have nothing to do with these unions’ goals or, thus, eligibility requirements.

(more)
Which gets this response, in comments at the Independent Gay Forum (and the main blogger there picked this comment out as worthy of posting on its own):

Another half-baked idea that goes into the reject pile. It seriously debases same-sex relationships to the level of friendships and blood relations.

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Which I’ve heard before in gay-marriage discussions, a lot, and which breaks my heart. So here’s a post I think you can agree with in toto even if you think gay marriage is the quintessential grape-scented marker of justice.

First, I’m not endorsing the Anderson/Girgis compromise. I see problems with it and I see good points. This post isn’t about that.

Nor am I going to repeat my cri de coeur on behalf of sacrificial friendship. We desperately need to revive our understanding of, respect for, and willingness to sacrifice within friendship. But in this post I’m going to focus on the idea of “debasing … relationships to the level of … blood relations.”

Because I don’t think it’s a great idea to denigrate our unchosen loves, our familial duties, in order to exalt our chosen ones. I think it’s honestly quite awful to denigrate the love between sisters, brothers, comrades in arms (no, click that link), any tie we don’t choose and which nonetheless requires intense sacrifice from us.

I get why people don’t want to think of siblings and beloveds in the same breath. We move around so much, you know? It’s really hard to know how we could be responsible for a sibling a hundred miles away, even if we wanted to be, whereas we expect a spouse to move with us. We view employment in the career of our choice as a much better reason to move than employment near our families-of-origin. And I am not trying to argue that this privileging of choice over unchosen origin is wrong in all cases.

(There’s a subtext here, of course, that LGBT people have often been rejected by their families of origin; their only family is their “chosen family.” Note here, though, that the “chosen family” includes friends as well. I thought AIDS taught us that friends too will stand by you and suffer heartbreak with you even when your own parents will not. …But I said I wasn’t going to talk about friendship.)

What I’m trying to say is this: 1) We used to know that brotherhood and sisterhood were powerful, beautiful, unique and real relationships. That’s how adelphopoeisis happened. That’s how we came up with the idea.

And 2), maybe more importantly: Wedlock is about making chosen relationships more like unchosen ones. Of course we’ve gotten far away from this ideal, both legally and culturally. But we still have this sense that the wedding vow is a choice to forego future choices. We still try to talk as if we are choosing to become bound; we are choosing to be faithful, choosing not to leave, choosing not to stray.

If marriage is about making chosen relationships more like unchosen ones… why would we ever think that denigrating unchosen relationships, families-of-origin, would be a good way to defend marriage?

My own answer is that the “culture of commitment” is basically a culture of personal will. Think about the different connotations of “commitment” (personal choice) and “fidelity” (adherence to preexisting standards).

But seriously, this post is not about getting you to agree with me on that explanation. It’s just about ridding the world of arguments for gay marriage which require denigration of unchosen loyalties, unchosen loves, and unchosen responsibilities. Those arguments are bad for gay marriages, let alone for anyone else’s relationships.

And finally 3), most importantly of all: I want to think about how we can strengthen friendships and families (families made by vow and families made by flesh) in a mobile society. If you care about this stuff and have any ideas, comments, anything at all, please email me so we can talk. I hope to post soon with specific ideas along these lines.

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, they are warm; but how can one be warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.

–Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

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