Four FIRST GAYS, THEN POLYGAMISTS?

Four

FIRST GAYS, THEN POLYGAMISTS?

John Corvino

A common objection to same-sex marriage takes the form of a slippery-slope argument: “If we allow gay marriage, why not polygamy? Or incest? Or bestiality?” This argument is nothing new, having been used against interracial marriage in the 1960s. But what it lacks in originality it more than makes up for in rhetorical force: given the choice between rejecting homosexuality or accepting a sexual free-for-all, mainstream Americans tend to opt for rejecting homosexuality. Unfortunately, sound-bite arguments do not always lend themselves to sound-bite refutations. Part of the problem is that the polygamy/incest/bestiality argument (PIB) is not really an argument at all. Instead, it is a challenge: “Okay, Mr. Sexual Liberal, explain to me why polygamy, incest, and bestiality are wrong.” Most people are not prepared to do that—certainly not in twenty words or less. Many answers that leap to mind (for example, that PIB relationships violate well-established social norms) do not work for the defender of same-sex relationships, because same-sex relationships also violate well-established social norms. In what follows, I respond to the PIB challenge. But first, I wish to set aside two popular responses that are inadequate. Call the first the “We really exist” argument. According to this argument, homosexuality is different from polygamy, incest, and bestiality because “constitutional” homosexuals exist, but not constitutional polygamists, incestualists, or bestialists. Andrew Sulli- van writes:

Almost everyone seems to accept, even if they find homosexuality mor- ally troublesome, that it occupies a deeper level of human consciousness than a polygamous impulse. Even the Catholic Church, which believes that homosexuality is an “objective disorder,” concedes that it is a pro- found element of human identity . . . . polygamy is an activity, whereas

both homosexuality and heterosexuality are states.1

Sullivan is probably right in his description of popular consciousness about homosexuality. Yet traditionalists might reject the idea that homosexuality is an immutable given. At a June 1997 conference at Georgetown Uni- versity, “Homosexuality and American Public Life,” conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher urged her audience to stop thinking of homosexuality as an 30 JOHN CORVINO inevitable, key feature of an individual’s personality. Drawing, ironically, on the work of queer theorists, Gallagher proposed instead that homosexuality is a cultural convention—one that ought to be challenged. If Gallagher and her social constructionist sources are right, the “We really exist” argument must be abandoned. But whether they are right or not, there are good pragmatic reasons for abandoning this argument. “We really exist” sounds dangerously like “We just can’t help it.” To this claim there is an obvious response: “Well, alcoholics really exist, too. They cannot help their impulses. But we do not encourage them.” Though the alcoholism anal- ogy is generally a bad one, it underscores the rhetorical weakness of claiming, “We really exist” in response to the (rhetorically strong) PIB challenge. A second response to the PIB challenge is to argue that as long as PIB relationships are forbidden for heterosexuals, they should be forbidden for homosexuals as well. Call this the “equal options” argument. To put the argument more positively: we homosexuals are not asking to engage in polygamy, incest, or bestiality. We are simply asking to engage in monogamous, non-incestuous relationships with people we love—just like heterosexuals do. Jonathan Rauch writes:

The hidden assumption of the argument which brackets gay marriage with polygamous or incestuous marriage is that homosexuals want the right to marry anyone they fall for. But, of course, heterosexuals are cur- rently denied that right. They cannot marry their immediate family or all their sex partners. What homosexuals are asking for is the right to marry, not anybody they love, but somebody they love, which is not at all the

same thing.2

Once again, this argument is correct as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough—at least not far enough to satisfy proponents of the PIB argument. As they see it, permitting homosexuality—even monogamous, non- incestuous, person-to-person homosexuality—involves relaxing traditional sexual mores. The fact that these mores prohibit constitutional homosexuals from marrying somebody they love is no more troubling to traditionalists than the fact that these mores prohibit constitutional pedophiles from marrying somebody they love, since traditionalists believe that there are good reasons for both prohibitions. In short, both the “we exist” argument and the “equal options” argument are vulnerable to counterexamples: alcoholics really exist, and pedophiles are denied equal marital options. Indeed, traditionalists are fond of pointing out that, strictly speaking, homosexuals do have “equal” options: they have the option of marrying persons of the opposite sex. Traditionalists are usually si- lent on whether this option is a good idea for anyone involved, but so it goes. There is a better response to the PIB argument, one that has its seeds in the above two quotations by Sullivan and Rauch (whose contributions to this