[Vision2020] Value Our Families

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>


------------------------------
February 20, 2012
Value Our Families By FRANK
BRUNI<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/frank_bruni/index.html?inline=nyt-per>

In the intensifying debate over same-sex marriage, what I sometimes find
hardest to understand is why so many opponents don’t see gay people’s
longing to be wedded as the fundamentally conservative, lavishly
complimentary desire it is. It says marriage is worth aspiring to and
fighting for. Flatters it. Gives it reinvigorated cachet, extra currency, a
sorely needed infusion of fresh energy.

If those seem like odd phrases to attach to what is sometimes called holy
matrimony, well, consider the unholy state the institution is in. Around
the time last week that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was vetoing a
same-sex marriage bill that the Legislature had passed, The Times published
a front-page story by Jason DeParle and Sabrina Tavernise reporting that
the country had reached an ignoble milestone: more than half of births to
American women under 30 happen outside
marriage<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/for-women-under-30-most-births-occur-outside-marriage.html>.
I doubt that a significant fraction of those babies’ parents are gay men or
lesbians forbidden to wed. No doubt the huge majority are straight people
who haven’t bothered to.

Those who do bother don’t make such an impressive go of it. Although
there’s dispute over the divorce rate in this country, most authorities
estimate that between 40 and 50 percent of first marriages won’t
last<http://www.virginia.edu/marriageproject/pdfs/Union_11_12_10.pdf>.
And practice doesn’t make perfect: the divorce rate apparently rises for
second and third unions, like Newt Gingrich’s with Callista, a supposedly
pious Roman Catholic woman whose devotion didn’t dissuade her from sleeping
with him while he was married to his second wife.

The religiousness of this country’s social conservatives is a selective,
capricious, hypocritical thing. Some Catholics who cite church teaching to
explain their opposition to same-sex marriage have broods much smaller than
they likely would if they let nature have its way. They’re using artificial
birth control, which, as we’ve recently been reminded, the church
officially rejects, a
stance<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/us/politics/birth-control-coverage-rule-debated-at-house-hearing.html>that
illuminates just how ludicrous some orthodoxies are.

It’s funny (but, then again, not): in the past, homosexuals were denounced
as sexual libertines who brazenly flouted society’s norms. Now many of us
are pleading to be yoked to those norms, only to be told by many Americans,
including many political leaders, that that’s not O.K. either. The only
possible takeaway is that we’re meant to be outliers forevermore, unworthy
of the experiences and affirmations accorded others.

Christie’s veto — considered alongside the fervent support for marriage
equality that Andrew Cuomo, the New York governor, and Martin O’Malley, the
Maryland governor, have shown — provides telling clues about how the issue
will shake out politically in coming years.

A Republican with designs on national office has to assume that even in
2016, a gay-friendly record would be a burden in the primaries, which tug
moderates far to the right. If Christie fantasizes about a future
presidency — or an imminent vice presidency — opposition to marriage
equality is probably the safer bet.

But has he risked his chances at a second term in New Jersey, which is more
liberal than the nation? Cory
Booker<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/cory_booker/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=cory%20booker&st=cse>,
the Newark mayor, who is frequently mentioned as a possible Democratic
challenger to Christie next year, explicitly reaffirmed his
support<http://newarknj.patch.com/articles/booker-disappointed-by-christie-gay-marriage-veto>for
same-sex marriage last week.

I don’t discount the possibility that a measure of conviction informs
politicians’ actions. But there’s usually calculation in the mix. Cuomo and
O’Malley are rising Democratic stars whose advocacy for same-sex marriage
suggests confidence that more Americans are moving in that direction. In
polls, large majorities<http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/first-time-majority-americans-favor-legal-gay-marriage.aspx>between
the ages of 18 and 34 support marriage equality, and when I talk to
parents of teenagers, many tell me their children simply don’t understand
discrimination against homosexuals. And their children aren’t permissive
across the board: many oppose abortion. They’ve grown up with more
evocative sonograms than once existed.

By this week’s end, O’Malley may be signing a marriage-equality law in
Maryland. The State of Washington just adopted its
own<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/us/washington-gay-marriage-legalized.html?scp=2&sq=washington%20same%20sex%20marriage&st=cse>.
Although either could be overturned by referenda later this year, the
legislative momentum is undeniable, and O’Malley’s words of support point
an interesting way forward.

He has framed same-sex marriage in part as an attempt to take proper care
of children in households headed by two men or two women by making sure
their parents have the same legal protections and responsibilities — the
same spurs to stability, however flawed — that heterosexual parents do. And
that exact logic was cited by a previously reluctant Republican in the
Maryland House who voted in favor of the state’s same-sex marriage
bill<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/maryland-house-approves-gay-marriage-measure.html>last
week.

Both politicians were talking about family values, two words that have
often been invoked in the argument against same-sex marriage. It’s time to
turn the phrase around. What gay and lesbian couples are asking is to be
recognized as families. And they’re just idealistic enough to hope that
everyone realizes how much value there is in that.

•

I invite you to visit my blog <http://bruni.blogs.nytimes.com/>, follow me
on Twitter at twitter.com/frankbruni and join me on
Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/frankbruninyt>
.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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