Sometimes, the issue isn't the issue - what this means is that the 'issue' being debated is, at least in some ways, a mask or a symbol for more fundamental issues. If we don't realize this, then we will fail to understand why apparently absurd arguments are being made: they are only 'absurd' if they are taken as being about the surface issue; when we look at the underlying issues, it makes sense.

In Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law, Martha C. Nussbaum writes:

If the public debate about gay marriage sometimes seems like a case of moral panic, we still need to ask what the panic is really about. [Stanley] Cohen’s research suggested that at a time of social change, people fear for the stability of their lives; the immediate occasion becomes a way of expressing a more personal and general unease.

We may conjecture, similarly, that if gay marriage seems threatening to many heterosexuals, it is likely to be because of some anxiety about changes in their own lives that is somehow associated with the growing toleration of same-sex relationships. The debate focused on this connection: something is going wrong with heterosexual marriage, and gays and lesbians are somehow to blame. What, then, is this connection likely to be about? [emphasis added]

It makes no sense to think that increasing acceptance of gays and lesbians, or even the legalization of gay marriage, could in any way be responsible or problems in heterosexual marriages. It’s an absurd argument, or at least it is on the surface. When we consider that perhaps the attacks on gay couples are really because homosexuality is perceived as a symbol of something deeper, something more fundamental, then things may start to make more sense...

If there is a connection between same-sex relationships and trouble for the institution of heterosexual marriage, it appears to be the indirect connection that is described by legal thinkers Andrew Koplman, Sylvia Law, and Cass Sunstein. Discrimination against gays and lesbians, they argue, is a form of sex discrimination, because what it is all about is shoring up traditional heterosexuality, including the patriarchial nature of traditional marriage.

Gays and lesbians are a symbol, in much of the public imagination, for sex without reproduction, for the decoupling of marriage from commitment to raising a family in the traditional way, which has certainly been a male-dominated way. [emphasis added]

It’s difficult to argue that bans on gay marriage are a form of direct sex discrimination, because no one gender is being singled out for inferior treatment. What this is, though, is a form of discrimination which relies upon the same assumptions about gender and gender roles which also lie behind more common and direct examples of sex discrimination.

Bans on gay marriage have roots in the same soil and are designed to achieve the same agenda. It’s not gays per se that are the target, but they are simply the latest and most public example of people refusing to abide by traditional norms for gender roles and sexuality. Growing acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual relationships threatens to further erode traditional assumptions about male power, male roles, and the male sense of self.

The connection between recognition of gay unions and the erosion of traditional marriage is that if sex is thought to be available outside of the marriage bond, women will have fewer incentives to embark upon marriage and child rearing, and may not wish to do so if marriage continues to be a largely patriarchal and unequal institution. In much of Europe, the birth rate has been falling alarmingly, largely, it is thought, because women have other opportunities in life and are unwilling to enter unions that will work to their disadvantage.

For many Americans, gay marriage is scary because it is a symbol of sex, and therefore women, eluding patriarchal control. This sort of anxiety about change that eludes control, and the loss of control over cherished values, can easily awaken narcissistic fear and aggression. We may tentatively conjecture that the panic about gay marriage is at least in part a panic about women eluding male control. [emphasis added]

People who are afraid of losing the ability to control others are people who are fundamentally hostile towards freedom. It’s true that religious conservatives are not seeking direct and personal control over the lives of all women or gays; what they are seeking, however, is a return to a time when traditional social norms and religious doctrines had a stronger, more authoritative role in people’s lives. Since religious conservatives also seek to be the interpreters and arbiters of religious morality, then would in effect assume indirect control over others.

Liberty can be a frightening thing because you have no assurances that when given the same freedoms as you, others will make the same “wise” choices as you. It’s not only possible, but in fact likely, that many will make choices you consider to be unwise or even dangerous. Given enough people making the same “unwise” choices, there might even be titanic shifts in society and culture.

That’s what has happened in America: increasing protections of personal liberty, starting in the 1950s and picking up speed in the 1960s, led to fundamental changes in American society. For the most part, these changes have been to the detriment of traditional religion and religious conservatives’ preferences. Many would therefore prefer a time when greater control over people’s lives could be exercised, which means that they prefer a time when people’s freedom to reject tradition and religion is sharply circumscribed.

 

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