06/29/2007
The Weekly Standard, Vol 12, Issue 28 04/02/2007
This is an article that is a shortened thesis of author's book The Future of Marriage. The claim is that marriage is a pro-child institution, perhaps the best pro-child institution that humans have ever created, and that this institution is declining. The problem for the author is that it seems that growing acceptance for the decline of marriage is correlated with beliefs that Same Sex Marriage (SSM) is acceptable as well. Author uses cross-cultural surveys that ask questions like the following:
1-People who want children ought to get married
2-One parent can bring up a child as well as two parents together
3-Married people are generally happier than unmarried people
4-It is all right for a couple to live together without intending to get married
5-Divorce is usually the best solution when a couple can't seem to work out their marriage problems
6-The main purpose of marriage these days is to have children
7-A child needs a home with both a father and a mother go grow up happily
8-It is all right for a woman to want a child but not a stable relationship with a man
9-Marriage is an outdated institution
The author wants to consider these questions as, generally, addressing the decline (or strengthening) of the institution of marriage. The issue for the author is that the countries whose populations generally agree to 2, 4, 5, 8, 9 also show support for SSM. This means, author concludes, that these ideas all go together, much like teenage drinking goes with teenage smoking, though perhaps neither causes the other-- they 'come in a bundle'.
The second argument author uses to support that SSM is generally related to the decline of the institution of marriage is that various leftist-socialists-poststructuralists who are generally against the institution of marriage are all for SSM, since they think that SSM will push traditional marriage off of its pedestal and open up a multiplicity of possible relationships.
REPLIES:
Rauch, Jonathan - Family Reunion
Democracy; A Journal of Ideas, Issue 5, Summer 2007
Rauch reviews the book by Blankenhorn The Future of Marriage and agrees with much of what author tries to prove about the history of marriage as an institution, and it's meaning as an institution. Rauch claims that Blankenhorn might appear to view marriage is a multidimensional personal, sexual, public, and child-bearing relationship, but Blankenhorn's main objection to SSM is that it hurts the child-bearing part. Rauch claims Blankehnorn needs to keep biological parents raising the biological child as the most central feature of marriage in order to get the argument he has to have any teeth at all. Since this is clearly not the sole, and perhaps not even the only central aspect of marriage, this argument falls.
Secondly, Rauch paints Blankenhorn as telling us we only have two choices. Go towards the 'bundle' of ideas that reinforce traditional marriage, or go toward the bundle of ideas (that include the permissibility of SSM) that deinstitutionalize it. Rauch claims this is a false dilemma. Why can't we blend and mix policies? Rauch predicts that we will be able to do this.
Carpenter, Dale - Blog
The Volokh Conspiracy
March 27th posting, and subsequent
Carpenter argues in a number of ways. He claims that while Blankenhorn is trying to avoid talk of causation, namely that is SSM causing the other beliefs about marriage to rise, that Blankenhorn is subtly sneaking causation into the mix. Of course claiming causation would be fallacious since correlation does not imply causation. Blankenhorn, in a side Blog (The Family Scholars Blog), seems to agree with him that he is in fact talking about causation, not correlation. [why?!?] Carpenter rightly discusses that correlation cannot prove causation, and that SSM comes after the rise in the other beliefs detrimental to marriage, so causation, unless it is somehow backwards, is impossible.
Secondly, a major argument of Blankenhorn's is that several liberal thinkers are all for SSM since it will deinstitutionalize it. Carpenter replies with several liberal thinkers that are worried that SSM will re-institutionalize marriage. Carpenter thinks that, probably, neither result will actually occur.
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