A Conservative Case for Gay Marriage

[question everything]

By Bret Stephens, the WSJ

As conservatives debate the subject of gay marriage, maybe they should pause to consider their view about the other kind of gay marriage. You know the one: He works mind-boggling hours and only comes home once his wife is sure to be asleep. He beams at the sight of an old college buddy. Two years into the marriage, she starts murmuring to her closest friend that he just isn't very interested in her, that way. Five years later he starts acting out in odd ways when he drinks. And he drinks a lot.

(snip)

I'll go out on a limb and wager that, nine times out of 10, we're talking about a human tragedy, or rather two tragedies, his and hers. That is what happens when deceit and self-deception are the foundation of any relationship, marriage most of all. Now and again, the private tragedy becomes a full-blown public catastrophe. As in: Larry Craig, Jim McGreevey, Ted Haggard, you know the list. So—are conservatives for this kind of marriage? Would they, for themselves, choose to share their life, and their bed, with someone toward whom they never had and never will feel a physical attraction?

(snip)

I have a crazy theory; see if you agree. It's that gay people generally want to lead lives of conventional respectability. So much so, in fact, that many are prepared to suppress their sexual nature to lead such lives. The desire for respectability is commendable; the deception it involves is not. To avoid deception, you can try to change the person's nature. Good luck with that. Or you can modify a social institution so that gay people can have what the rest of us take for granted: The chance to find love and respectability in the same person... How odd that the same people who argue that the distinction between "marriage" and "civil unions" has no practical difference should also insist on maintaining the distinction. If all they are doing is taking a bold stand on behalf of semantic purity, what's the point? And if they are trying to preserve a privileged status for traditional marriage, won't that encourage gay people to continue to seek straight marriages?

(snip)

On the matter of gay marriage, the reality we find is millions of Americans who want to participate in all the institutions of American life, from politics to the military to marriage. What is there not to like? Conservatives spent the 90s worrying about the Balkanization of U.S. politics by every group that wanted to emphasize its differences. Here you have exactly the opposite trend. Finally, take a look at the photograph that goes with this column. It's a picture of happiness, respectability and pride. Does that look like the end of Western Civilization? Or does it look like the fulfillment of America's basic promise, the pursuit of happiness, honest, unembarrassed, at nobody else's expense?



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