Summary
Title: Same-Sex Marriage: The Moral and Legal Debate
Author: edited by Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1573921297
Pro:
• Provides multiple perspectives from advocates on both sides - in their own words
Con:
• A bit dated by this point, but doesn’t suffer too badly
Description:
• Multiple essays on gay marriage from various perspectives
• Presents both the case against and for gay marriage
• Does not privilege one side of the gay marriage debate over another
Book Review
There are a lot of different arguments out there from a lot of different people, and in situations like this, it can be useful to gather some of those arguments together for comparison and contrast. This is exactly what Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum have done in their book Same-Sex Marriage: The Moral and Legal Debate. The two have edited numerous other books on contentious issues, all collecting the views from opposing perspectives in order to help readers get a better grasp of the real issues. This, like the others, is an impressive contribution to the debate.
The essays in this book include pieces from Henry A. Waxman, Jesse Helms, Cal Thomas, James Q. Wilson, William Safire, and Richard A. Posner. Writers make a case for or against gay marriage from the perspective of law, religion, philosophy, public policy, and more. Most of the contributors tend to come from a relatively academic perspective, causing the collection to have a drier tone than others, but that isn’t a reason to dismiss it. There is a definite advantage to having a collection of materials from many different viewpoints, especially if you are looking to save money and can’t afford to get multiple books from multiple authors.
There are also some interesting gems in here that you might not normally find in collections of articles on the subject, for example Douglas Carl’s piece on counseling gay couples to prepare them for what they face from the rest of society or Jeff Jordan’s attempt to argue that there is a strong philosophical argument to be made for discrimination based upon sexual orientation. Jordan’s idea is that when there is a difference of opinion about a moral issue in society, the state shouldn’t take sides — even if that means perpetuating prejudice and discrimination.
This brings me to my one criticism of the book: couldn’t the editors have found better representatives of the anti-gay marriage position? It is true that this book is several years old by this point and perhaps at the time no more sound and coherent defense of banning gay marriage could be found, but that seems difficult to believe. There is also a case for ensuring that the anti-gay marriage position is defended by real representatives of it, no matter how poorly they do it, but I wish a few better examples could have been included.
A good instance of how poor things get can be found in the essay from Robert H. Knight of the Family Research Council:
- “Marriage-based kinship is essential to stability and continuity. A man is more apt to sacrifice himself to help a son-in-law than some unrelated man (or woman) living with his daughter. Kinship entails mutual obligations and a commitment to the future of the community. Homosexual relationships are a negation of the ties that bind — the continuation of kinship through procreation of children. To accord same-sex relationships the same status as a marriage is to accord them a value that they cannot possibly have.”
What Knight says about kinship is quite correct — which is ironic because it actually serves as a defense of gay marriage. It’s not as though gay people are going to go “straight” simply because they cannot marry another gay person. Denying them the right to marry means that the continuity and stability created by marriage will be lost — and the entire community is poorer because of it.
The rest of what Knight says above amounts to nothing more than a complicated way of claiming that marriage exists for the purpose of having children, an obvious falsehood from a legal position because the state does not require couples to have children or to even be capable of having children before they are allowed to marry. If this is the best that the anti-gay marriage side can produce, then frankly there is no reason to fear them on any serious level because they have nothing serious to offer in the debate.
This book offers a nice balance of views, at no point preferring one perspective over others. If you’re looking for a basic introduction to the debate and don’t know where to start, then this is a great book to add to your collection.
