The decision of the New York state legislature to approve gay marriage will be seen by some as a symptom of an underlying disease called “moral relativism.” But this is a mistake that, I think, blocks our understanding of what is really going on. One need only look at the joy and satisfaction with which the decision was greeted by some to recognize that, far from indicating the disappearance of morality, the legislation is indicative of a strong moral order, and it is this order which is really at issue when we debate gay marriage.
Charles Taylor, in his A Secular Age, outlines the contours of what he names the Modern Moral Order (MMO). The MMO replaces pre-modern versions of social hierarchy with an “order of mutual benefit,” organized around the securing of rights for individuals and their ability to exercise these rights in exchanges that conduce to mutual benefit, particularly in securing for all “the needs of ordinary life.” The order does not aim at anything “higher” than this; it does not seek to replicate some transcendent form (Plato), nor conform to any religious command. Its progress consists in the extension of this order of mutual benefit to encompass as many persons as possible – and in theory, everyone. In its more robust forms, the political order is called upon not simply to protect rights, but bring more and more into effect the equality of persons it promises – Taylor calls this the increasing “intensity” of the order, as opposed to its mere “expansion” to more and more individuals. In this latter mode of “intensity,” the modern State is at its most “crusading,” for it does not simply seek a negative freedom but seeks to use laws to demand recognition of some good.
Assuming Taylor’s characterization is right, gay marriage may seem like a no-brainer, since the law enables individuals to enter into a mutually-beneficial exchange that securing a particular powerful element of ordinary life, marriage. The State has no interest in protecting any kind of transcendent order, including that of some supposed order of gender.
But if that’s true, why is the State interested in marriage in the first place? The common response is because of its interest in children, and so considerable time has been spent debating the effects of gay parents on children. But here is one place where I agree with commentators who suggest: the horse is already out of the barn. We already have a society where nearly 40% of children are born outside marriage, and where many others are the victims of no-fault divorce. That is, the connection between the State’s involvement in the sexual relationship of marriage and the raising of children is already severely strained – indeed, I have no doubt that the strain from these other factors is far, far greater than the strain that may be imposed by accepting gay marriage.
So, why is the State in 2011 interested in marriage? Here it seems we meet an internal inconsistency in the advocates of gay marriage: on the one hand, the common argument here is that “gay marriage doesn’t harm anyone else’s straight marriage” – which is to say, who I marry is a private affair. But if it’s a private affair, why is there any need for the State? “Sodomy laws” are not being actively advocated; the State is not currently seek to “ban” consensual homosexual intercourse. Why does the State need to be involved in approving a sexual relationship, given that the relationship can be broken at any time and given that the relationship need not serve to raise children?
Here, it seems to me, we meet up with the really crucial problem for the MMO, and that is its conception of sex as private, and yet extremely publicly important. That is, we exist in a social order currently that places enormous importance on sexual relationships in terms of “living a good life,” and only seems capable of bringing down public figures on these grounds, and yet sex is also understood as private and not subject to public regulation and debate. This “laissez-faire” attitude toward sex is, I submit, the second most-important incoherence in our society. (The first is the “laissez-faire” attitude toward property and wealth.) This incoherence then issues in incoherent laws. Abortion is certainly one – since the abortion debate is really about sex. Divorce is another. Now we have gay marriage. What we have in these laws purports to be the State being “laissez-faire” about sex – but in fact, the State is increasingly enforcing the idea that being “laissez-faire” about sex is (like, say, being laissez-faire about race) right. We have a right to have sex with and marry whomever we want, and the State must be around to enforce that right.
And so we might say that the real issue in gay marriage legislation is not “moral relativism,” but rather its opposite: a regime of moral order that strongly disciplines our social relations. Taylor emphasizes the ways in which the advent of modern social orders involves more – not less – disciplining of the order. The difficulty in this case (and this is where, it seems to me, the issue differs somewhat from abortion) is that the vindication of gay marriage by the State is not simply a matter of allowing certain persons to do certain things, but rather of enforcing the right of these persons to do these things. Will this demand the recognition of this right from everyone else, and from all other organizations in the society? The laws as currently written provide for “exemptions,” but one has to wonder how these sorts of exemptions will hold up over the long term, especially for organizations which in any way receive public funding (e.g. most Catholic institutions of higher education!).
But preoccupations with these matters will only distract us from what I think should be the central issue here: gay marriage is not a symptom of a disease called moral relativism. Rather, it’s a symptom, and perhaps not the most pressing symptom, of a MMO unprepared to deal coherently with human sexuality.
I think it is important to highlight how the state/polis has moved from a perspective of negative freedom to positive freedom. I think you make a case for how the state is promoting an apparent good in that it is promoting access and this would be in keeping with positive freedom.
The state has a vested interest in marriage and the family because marriage is not simply a private good but in reality a public good with impact on the larger common good of society. Persons being social and political beings are not simply private individuals. It is good that the state have an interest in the well being of families. There is a complimentary and corresponding relationship.
It seems at the end of the day the apparent “good” here is based on two basic premises namely: free choice or consent and do no harm. These appear to be the only basis for pursuing this type of social engineering. Though limited, these still constitute a concept of the “good.” Legally, if these provide the basis for pursuing gay marriage, other non-normative forms of unions will have to be given consent legally in society.
Yes it is true that marriage and sexuality are manifest in unhealthy and unreasonable ways that are contrary to the dignity and good of persons and the common good. This however, is hardly a sound logic for pushing this trend further.
VAThomist, if you had to be as charitable as possible to your opponent on this issue, as your namesake tried to be with regard to every issue he engaged, could you come up with another good besides free choice and do no harm?
Thanks for the excellent comment! Your comment helps me clarify. Opponents of gay marriage consistently state (rightly) that the state has an interest in marriage and that therefore something that is “detrimental to marriage” in fact harms the common good of the society. I agree with this claim. I think it also suggests that something like no-fault divorce is detsructive to the common good, and the state has an interest in protecting parties to marriage, because it has a stake in marriage as a permanent commitment.
The problem arise because this claim about “harming the common good” is incomprehensible to gay marriage proponents. What harm, they say, can possibly come from my decision to marry my partner? Indeed, proponents point plausibly to social benefits from such an arrangement, and in particular to individual benefits (a hallmark of the MMO). Thus, the burden on traditional marriage defenders is to demonstrate more clearly what “harm to the common good.”
But my point is that such a task is impossible, unless a normative account of sexuality, society, and human flourishing is put on the table. The potential demonstrable social harm that arise from gay marriage are almost certainly less than the (much more demonstrated) social harms that have already come from widespread childbearing outside of marriage and from widespread divorce. In essence, you rightly point out that we do have a “public” account of sexuality involving consent and non-harm – this is why public schools can teach about “safe sex,” for example – but such an account is woefully inadequate. Wendell Berry describes it as trying to call jumping out of an airplane “flying” by outlawing “hitting the ground.” I think unless Catholics are frank in acknowledging that gay marriage is just one of a number of related issues with our “laissez-faire” social attitude about sex, then the arguments will flounder in trying to demonstrate consequentialist social harm or in (more dangeoursly) being understood merely as a “prejudice” harbored against one group of people.
I actually was writing my comment before Charlie’s, and since I presume the goods he questions, I’ll comment, hoping VAThomist might add something.
On a charitable read, the further good at stake here in MMO understanding of marriage is something like affection and mutual support. That is, the “public good” is that we celebrate and acknowledge the relationship because it provides these goods, which we see as part of a good human life. If we celebrate heterosexual couples in this way, shouldn’t honosexual couples receive the same support and affirmation, since they pursue these goods in their relationships.
The difficulty here seems to me obvious: the goods we are celebrating are basically the goods of friendship. Which creates two problems. One, we don’t apparently provide this public recognition to other friendships, so why this one? And two, what we are being asked to celebrate here is a particular sexual relationship (which includes affection and mutual support), which simply puts us back to the point of my post: what account can we give publicly of celebrating sexuality, if we lack a coherent common account of the good of sexuality in human life?
I should clarify that do no harm and choice would be consistent with philosophical and legal arguments. Others that could be cited as David also points out, are the promotion of “affection and mutual support” and the desire that these as pertaining to homosexual couples, be recognized in broader society. In addition, there is the argument from equality. Why should homosexual couples not have access to the same rights and privileges as heterosexual couples? There is also the belief that this is a “civil” rights issue analogous with that related to race and gender.
Ultimately these questions come down to definitions of freedom, justice, harm, and what constitutes the good. There are clearly competing narratives at play.
David your point here: “unless a normative account of sexuality, society, and human flourishing is put on the table” illustrates a significant problem in ethics today. Alasdair Macintyre I believe has done a great job in addressing the problem of what he calls, “emotiveism” in his work “After Virtue.” There is no understanding of what constitues “normative.” Ethics has been reduced to subjective preference, choice and desire or what feels right. In such a world, there can be no normative. You might say then, “well we can agree on do no harm, it makes a person happy and it is a matter of consent” but you are left with the question of, why these?
Dave – would it be interesting to compare the concern Taylor and you point out with the MMO and the disciplining of sex with what John Milbank suggests? (Do they compare? I think so….) Milbank thinks that as our workplaces have become increasingly mechanized – to the point of seeing human beings as efficient social machines (i.e that the worker at Starbucks cannot creatively develop a new drink; that teachers must teach to the test, etc), that we therefore spend all our energy investing freedom in sex. Because it, and religion, seem private, we therefore rage about these issues, all the while not seeing that corporations and the state both are encroaching on freedom in other, more significant ways, including in the ways we incoherently regulate sex.
I saw some version of this argument in the book God is Dead and I Don’t Feel So Good Myself: Theological Engagements with the New Atheism, Andrew David, Christopher Keller, Jon Stanley eds (Eugene: Cascade, 2010). I’m sure he’s written about it elsewhere.
I apologize if this is a bit of a side issue, but this bit of your post struck me:
This “laissez-faire” attitude toward sex is, I submit, the second most-important incoherence in our society. (The first is the “laissez-faire” attitude toward property and wealth.)
Wouldn’t being “laissez-faire” about the set of attitudes that determine who we live with, who we have children with, how we love, etc. in fact be much more important to society and the person than the set of actions that who we exchange small green pieces of paper with and how many we have?
VAThomist– MacIntyre’s critique of emotivism is appropriate here, with two caveats. First, MacIntyre thinks it applies to moral problems beyond sexuality, of course – “I want a Corvette, and who is anyone to tell me I shouldn’t?” is also a big problem, on Catholic grounds. Second, it seems important to me to make sure MacIntyre’s critique of emotivism is paired with his insight that every morality involves a correlative sociology. Part of Taylor’s point with MMO is to make clear that the modern order is not simply “lacking morality” – this would lead straight to the relativism critique. Instead, the problem is that we have no account of the practice of sexual virtue. Thus, the problem here can’t be solved by recourses to axioms like “Marriage is a man and a woman, case closed.” Or any other axiom. The problem is a practical one, and it is not just the problem of LGBT folks. It’s all of our problems.
Jana– I’ll check that out. Certainly Milbank is totally right that (a) part of the reason we are so obsessed with sexual fulfillment in our society is because our workplaces are so awful (and we think we have no alternative), and (b) investing a lot of energy, one way or the other, in sexual culture wars is a nice way to distract us from where the problems lie. As ever, Wendell Berry in “Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community” basically puts all this together brilliantly.
DarwinCatholic– Thanks for the comment, and it’s important that “second most important” means it’s still really important!
That said, I think it is problematic to describe property and wealth as merely a matter of “green pieces of paper and how many you have.” It is a matter of who you work with, what sort of work you do (does it serve others?), whether you have enough to eat or pay your rent, wther you can afford health care for your child, etc, etc. The economy and economic actors have a kind of power in society – a power that is by and large not exercised in accordance with basic Catholic teaching – which is far more pervasive than even sexual issues. When I read the Catechism on marriage with my students, the vast majority of them want the same end result – a lifelong mutual marriage with kids – as the Church does, despite massive disagreements surrounding the “rules” that are meant to orient us properly to that goal. When I read the Catechism on property with them, they are appalled, and cannot imagine using their possessions in a way that is meant for anyone but themselves. (Ultimately, I’m with Pope Benedict on this, of course: the two things – use of property and use of our bodies – are intertwined with one another, and the logic of our society is haywire in being laissez-faire on one but not on the other – an ethic of gift is central for both)
Or of course I could point out that Jesus is pretty clear that no man can serve two masters, and he is not discussing sex there.
With regard to sexuality versus economic concerns, I agree there are degrees and distinctions in moral actions and their severity, but there seems to be a consistency in liberal theory that would say, “keep your laws off my body; keep your laws out of my wallet.” It should become clear that a Catholic moral framework rooted in a Scriptural, theological and classical framework is fundamentally at odds with liberal theory which places the right above the good and the individual above the common good. In a very real sense, I will argue that this type of thought is compromising the common good of society.
VAThomist– Exactly right about this tension – no sense that personal property or bodies are supposed to be oriented to the common good. Creates an illusion at atomistic individualism. Illusion results in incoherent action. Incoherent actions pile up and wreack havoc on the common good.
That said, I think it is problematic to describe property and wealth as merely a matter of “green pieces of paper and how many you have.” It is a matter of who you work with, what sort of work you do (does it serve others?), whether you have enough to eat or pay your rent, wther you can afford health care for your child, etc, etc. The economy and economic actors have a kind of power in society – a power that is by and large not exercised in accordance with basic Catholic teaching – which is far more pervasive than even sexual issues.
I’ll certainly admit that I picked an overly dismissive way of describing wealth — though to an extent it seems to me that we’re called my Christ’s more radical teachings to be rather more dismissive of wealth than we generally are.
That said, I guess I would tend to lean the other direction and see our attitudes to sexuality as having a good deal more power over society in the most basic sense. After all, our sexual relationships determine when new persons come into the world, who is charged with caring form them, who we own property in union with, who we are responsible for providing for (and who is responsible for providing for us), etc. I’d tend to see those are more important than who we work with, how much trouble we have paying the rent, or whether we have access to good health care.
Moreover, the sexual relationships that result in family structure (or dysfunction) have been key to societies throughout history — while the good and services that we squabble about the availability of in our current body politic weren’t even available to most people through most of history.
Thanks, David, for your post and further comments in the thread above. I know I’m late to the conversation. I think you make a very compelling argument when you describe the problems with a laissez-faire approach to wealth and sexuality in contemporary U.S. culture. But you said in your comment above:
When I read the Catechism on marriage with my students, the vast majority of them want the same end result – a lifelong mutual marriage with kids – as the Church does, despite massive disagreements surrounding the “rules” that are meant to orient us properly to that goal.
But do you only teach heterosexual students?
Because that’s the rub, right? The Church does argue that marriage promotes social stability. But when faced with GLBT couples who say they want a lifelong mutual marriage with kids, the Church says no.
I’d be interested in hearing a historian’s perspective on how the state became involved in marriage in the first place. My hunch is that it was not a deliberate, reasoned policy choice, but a “stumbling into.” Before liberal society, the local parish would record the sacrament; when church and state became separated, the state took over what was assumed to be a non-controversial registrar function that happened to make property transfers easier to manage. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I’d love to read what the historians say.
The state’s “stumbling into marriage” leads me to my main point. I’m sensing that as newsworthy events spotlight various administrative functions of government, people are beginning to wonder if the state should be involved in those areas at all. When Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton were basically tied for the Democratic nomination, there was a possibility that the courts would have to decide a race that was too close to call. I think many people paused to wonder why the state is involved in managing the essentially private issue of who would win the Democratic Party Inc. nomination. There’s some state interest there, but not a compelling state interest.
Just to clarify, I don’t make these arguments from a Rand Paul-style libertarian viewpoint. And in a moment, I’ll turn from the political to the moral. Rather, I think young people from across the ideological spectrum are concluding that the state administers aspects of private life simply because “we’ve always done it that way.” Habit is a poor rationale for state authority.
What does this mean in the context of the moral domain? If the state retreats from regulating marriage entirely, running elections for non-state entities, of permitting “homophobic” Boy Scouts from using the school gym, I think American civic life will be radically changed. As more of life is seen as a private affair, there will be fewer ties binding Americans together as one people. We Catholics, having spent the pre-Kennedy years trying to assimilate into the fullness of citizenship might be permitted to control our sacrament, but we’ll have to retreat back to the metaphorical ghetto in the process. A people that is not really connected to one another is a nation of strangers, a people that is less likely to display solidarity with the poor and the vulnerable. Instead of achieving it’s overall goal of liberating people, democracy will have sentenced the individual to isolation from any sense of community.
I’d be interested in hearing a historian’s perspective on how the state became involved in marriage in the first place.
Curt,
What you want to ask is how the Church became involved in marriage. Marriage didn’t start with the Church and then the state got involved. Marriage was officially recognized as a sacrament (the last of the seven) at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Marriage was purely civil for a minimum of the first 500 years of Christianity and only gradually became the province of the Church until things culminated in the 16th century (Council of Trent), when it was decreed every marriage had to be performed by a priest.
Thank you, David, for the astonishing and counter-intuitive history lesson.
I think it is important to remember that the sacrament of marriage is witnessed by the priest and the community. Marriage is made between the couple themselves whereas the Church and the community acts as the witness of this committment between a man and a woman. It is also important to note that transubstantiation was recognized officially later as well. It was also discussed at the Fourth Lateran Council and then the term became officially defined in the sixteenth century at the Council of Trent. This however does not imply there was no legitimate belief or practice prior to this.