by I have never done scholarly work on the issue of same-sex marriage, but I occasionally read work on the subject, in part because it intersects in contested ways with the subject of religious freedom, which is an area in which I work. The most common description of what is being sought and resisted, it seems, is “same-sex marriage.” Recently, though, and in scholarly literature, I more and more often see the issue described as one of “marriage equality.”
This is a pretty neat rhetorical move. Proponents of same-sex marriage (or, their critics might say, of legally revising centuries of received understanding and practice on a vital cultural institution in a major way) are not proposing anything radical or audacious. They are simply in favor of “marriage equality.” Really, now, who could be against that? Anyone who resists their position must be either against marriage or against equality. Seems positively un-American.
It brings to mind a local panel I reluctantly participated on about a year ago on “reproductive freedom.” (A phrase which suggests that someone out there is scheming to deprive people of the freedom to reproduce.) I declined the invitation several times, and finally agreed to participate only because the organizers (representing several . . . what’s the right term? . . . “progressive” organizations) said they really wanted the opposing view represented and they couldn’t find anyone else willing to do it. (I wonder why.) On the panel, the Planned Parenthood representative consistently described mine as the “anti-choice” position. That’s a pretty typical rhetorical move, of course. In similar fashion, a senior colleague of mine who has for years been a vocal (and, by the way, entirely secular) critic of what used to be called “assisted suicide” tells me that his opponents now adamantly reject that description. The real issue is whether we are for or against “compassion in dying,” or something of that sort– I forget what the exact preferred phrase is.
Sometimes I find these rhetorical shenanigans merely amusing. And I suppose that as long as there have been advocates there have been people who try to frame and phrase issues in rhetorically advantageous ways. “Pro-life” advocates sometimes describe their opponents as being “pro-abortion,” which also seems to me an unfortunate and misleading description. It’s true as well that usually there is no perfect or wholly neutral description. Even to describe the issue as about “same-sex marriage” may strike some proponents of a traditional or natural law view as unsatisfactory and even oxymoronic, because in fact (they may believe) marriage just is a union of a man and a woman: so “same-sex marriage” would be an ontological impossibility.
Conceding all of this, I still think there are relatively more and less fair, more and less incendiary, more and less question-begging descriptions. There are descriptions which allow people who disagree to engage more on the merits, rather than indulging in rhetorical free riding and demonizing. And with respect to one of the major social issues of our time in this country, I can hardly think of a better way to beg the question and rhetorically free ride than to describe the issue as one about . . . “marriage equality.”
I agree completely, but I’m not sure “marriage equality” is, for SSM proponents, merely an advantageous rhetorical construct. To some extent, framing the issue this way stems from a few common if unstated presuppositions– that the primary ontological unit in the universe is the individual; that individuals are ethically sovereign equals; that all choices are thus, as it were, created equal, such that no individual’s sovereign choices ought to be privileged over others’ different choices, barring, perhaps a showing of physical harm to others (again, some freighted ontology); that “marriage” and similar institutions represent simply sets of possible choices from which the sovereigns may choose; and that progress just is the liberation of such choices from the fetters of tradition and “institutions”. From this point of view, framing the question about “marriage equality” doesn’t seem all that arbitrary, no matter how many questions it begs.
I agree that many of the labels are strategic — e.g., “pro-life” is much more effective than “pro-restrictions on abortion.” I’m not sure that “marriage equality” is of a different magnitude of unfairness, though I guess it depends what “equality” is supposed to refer to. What if advocates referred to their position as “equal access to marriage?” Doesn’t that accurately reflect their position?
For reasons suggested long ago in a famous article by Peter Westen, I’m inclined to think that any label or description featuring the term “equality” or “equal” is likely to be question-begging, as well as tendentious. With respect to marriage, I believe the central question that divides people concerns (as a conference here at San Diego several years ago put it) “the meaning of marriage.” How should marriage be understood? People can address that question by presenting their political, pragmatic, ethical, cultural, philosophical, or theological views. Nobody really should or need to dispute that marriage, whatever it is, it should be “equally” available. But any description of the issue in terms of “marriage equality” or “equal access to marriage” tends to start right off by begging that question– i.e., the question of what marriage is or should be understood to mean or be– and then to gain rhetorical advantage from the irresistible (politically, culturally, and even conceptually irresistible) notion of equality.
I’m sure that often the choice of the label “marriage equality” or something similar does reflect the sorts of assumptions that Bill describes. But it seems to me that some or all of those assumptions are precisely what divide supporters and opponents of SSM. If that’s right, then if someone wants a genuine discussion or debate, they ought to argue for (or against) those assumptions; they should not start off by describing the issue in terms that already implicitly assume the correctness of one side’s views. The fact that even scholars increasingly seem to take the latter course, and sometimes to do so without any apparent consciousness of how they are begging questions and rigging the debate, seems to me a troubling manifestation of a serious lack of mutual comprehension, empathy, or even imagination (as with people who simply cannot imagine why anyone would oppose SSM except because of bigotry).
I’m happy that your speaking about it so everyone else can know! Will use for sure. To tell you the truth, took me a while to get it right, you have to reignite the place that first brought you together and also stop doing a ton of mistakes we all make naturally if you want to save your marriage