Summary
Title: Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America
Author: Jonathan Rauch
Publisher: Times Books
ISBN: 0805076336
Pro:
• Calm, reasoned text and arguments
Con:
• None
Description:
• Argument for the legalization of gay marriage
• Explains what marriage is and who it would be good for gays
Book Review
Gay marriage is, fundamentally speaking, about marriage itself. This might sound obvious, but it’s easy to forget because so many of the arguments appear to turn on the nature of homosexuality, homosexual activity, and the status of gays in society. However relevant some of these matters may be, we must keep coming back to the nature of marriage in order to ask whether “gay marriage” makes sense, and if it does, whether it is something which should be legalized.
That’s precisely what Johnathan Rauch does in his book Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America. Although everyone sees marriages all around, the debate over gay marriage has made it clear that defining the nature of marriage isn’t as easy as one might assume. This is probably because it carries with it strong public as well as private components. Some people focus on one to the exclusion of the other, with the result being a distortion of marriage which may serve some political agenda but which fails to address reality.
Rauch doesn’t make this mistake, however; with just a few words, he manages to capture what I think may be the essence of marriage in all its public, private, legal, social, and even religious senses: “To be married is to know there is someone out there for whom you are always first in line. ...[W]hatever else marriage may be, it s a commitment to be there.” Marriage, as Rauch explains, is one of the few social institutions or contracts which you don’t have to do anything to remain a part of; instead, you simply have to be — specifically, be there for the other person, no matter what happens.
This, in a nutshell, is the public and private nature of marriage. It’s private because it involves the intimate, personal relationship between two people. It’s public because it means that someone voluntarily assumes a responsibility which no one else must be assigned to — a spouse is a “social worker of the first resort,” someone who is there for you if you lose your job, suffer serious injury, become depressed, etc.
Consider most traditional marriage vows: do they say anything about having children, raising children, inheritance, or sex? No, they are primarily about being there for one another, no matter what may come: sickness or health, wealth or poverty, better or worse...until death separates them.
- “Being there when your partner is sick or in trouble, or when your mother-in-law is dying, is what marriage is for... “Benefits,” in fact, is not the right word for what is at issue here. Gay partners are not asking to get something; they are asking to be able to give something: a workday to tend to a sick partner, a hand at a mother-in-law’s hospital bedside, a shared home, a bequest.”
This is why one can speak for their spouse when they cannot speak for themselves. This is what lies behind most, if not all, the rights and privileges that are given to married couples and spouses. As Rauch explains, the law is telling married couples, “You have a unique responsibility to care for each other. Here are the tools. Do your job.” The law doesn’t say this to couples who are cohabitating or simply dating. The law doesn’t give these tools to people who aren’t married.
Why? Committing to care for another person, no matter what, is a difficult and serious thing to do. Romantic love doesn’t last forever, but the commitment must endure. Both legal statutes and community expectations are set up in a way to help ensure that the commitment can endure despite the weakness of “ordinary mortals,” despite the transient nature of romance and altruism, and despite all of the distractions and temptations of modern life.
