Abstract principles aside, would redefining marriage have the positive effect of reinforcing traditional norms by increasing the number of stable, monogamous, faithful sexual unions to include many more same-sex couples? There are good reasons to think not.
First, although the principles outlined above are abstract, they are not for that reason disconnected from reality. People will tend to abide less strictly by any given norms the less those norms make sense. And if marriage is understood as revisionists understand it - that is, as an essentially emotional union that has no principled connection to organic bodily union and the bearing and rearing of children - then marital norms, especially the norms of permanence, monogamy, and fidelity, will make less sense. In other words, those making this objection are right to suppose that redefining marriage would produce a convergence - but it would be a convergence in exactly the wrong direction. Rather than imposing traditional norms on homosexual relationships, abolishing the conjugal conception of marriage would tend to erode the basis for those norms in any relationship. Public institutions shape our ideas, and ideas have consequences; so removing the rational basis for a norm will erode adherence to that norm - if not immediately, then over time.
This is not a purely abstract matter. If our conception of marriage were right, what would you expect the sociology of same-sex romantic unions to be like? In the absence of strong reasons to abide by marital norms in relationships radically dissimilar to marriages, you would expect to see less regard for those norms in both practice and theory. And on both counts, you would be right.
Consider the norm of monogamy. Judith Stacey - a prominent New York University professor who testified before Congress against the Defense of Marriage Act and is in no way regarded by her academic colleagues as a fringe figure - expressed hope that the triumph of the revisionist view would give marriage "varied, creative, and adaptive contours . . . [leading some to] question the dyadic limitations of Western marriage and seek . . . small group marriages."90 In their statement "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage," more than 300 "LGBT and allied" scholars and advocates - including prominent Ivy League professors - call for legal recognition of sexual relationships involving more than two partners.91 Professor Brake thinks that we are obligated in justice to use such legal recognition to "denormalize[] heterosexual monogamy as a way of life" for the sake of "rectifying past discrimination against homosexuals, bisexuals, polygamists, and care networks."92
What about the connection to children? Andrew Sullivan says that marriage has become "primarily a way in which two adults affirm their emotional commitment to one another."93 E.J. Graff celebrates the fact that recognizing same-sex unions would make marriage "ever after stand for sexual choice, for cutting the link between sex and diapers."94
And exclusivity? Mr. Sullivan, who extols the "spirituality" of "anonymous sex," also thinks that the "openness" of same-sex unions could enhance the relationships of husbands and wives:
Same-sex unions often incorporate the virtues of friendship more effectively than traditional marriages; and at times, among gay male relationships, the openness of the contract makes it more likely to survive than many heterosexual bonds. . . . [T]here is more likely to be greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman. . . . [S]omething of the gay relationship's necessary honesty, its flexibility, and its equality could undoubtedly help strengthen and inform many heterosexual bonds.95
Of course, "openness" and "flexibility" here are Sullivan's euphemisms for sexual infidelity.
Indeed, some revisionists have positively embraced the goal of weakening the institution of marriage. "[Former President George W.] Bush is correct . . . when he states that allowing same-sex couples to marry will weaken the institution of marriage."96 Victoria Brownworth is no right-wing traditionalist, but an advocate of legally recognizing gay partnerships. She continues: "It most certainly will do so, and that will make marriage a far better concept than it previously has been."97 Professor Ellen Willis, another revisionist, celebrates that "conferring the legitimacy of marriage on homosexual relations will introduce an implicit revolt against the institution into its very heart."98
Michelangelo Signorile, a prominent gay activist, urges samesex couples to "demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution."99 Same-sex couples should "fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely[, because t]he most subversive action lesbians and gay men can undertake . . . is to transform the notion of efamily' entirely."100
Some revisionist advocates, like Jonathan Rauch, sincerely hope to preserve traditional marriage norms.101 But it is not puzzling that he is severely outnumbered: other revisionists are right to think that these norms would be undermined by redefining marriage.
Preliminary social science backs this up. In the 1980s, Professors David McWhirter and Andrew Mattison, themselves in a romantic relationship, set out to disprove popular beliefs about gay partners' lack of adherence to sexual exclusivity. Of 156 gay couples that they surveyed, whose relationships had lasted from one to thirty-seven years, more than sixty percent had entered the relationship expecting sexual exclusivity, but not one couple stayed sexually exclusive longer than five years.102 Professors McWhirter and Mattison concluded: "The expectation for outside sexual activity was the rule for male couples and the exception for heterosexuals."103 Far from disproving popular beliefs, they confirmed them.
On the question of numbers of partners, it is important to avoid stereotypes, which typically exaggerate unfairly, but also to consider the social data in light of what is suggested in this Article about the strength, or relative weakness, of the rational basis for permanence and exclusivity in various kinds of relationships. A 1990s U.K. survey of more than 5,000 men found that the median numbers of partners for men with exclusively heterosexual, bisexual, and exclusively homosexual inclinations over the previous five years were two, seven, and ten, respectively.104 A U.S. survey found that the average number of sexual partners since the age of eighteen for men who identified as homosexual or bisexual was over 2.5 times as many as the average for heterosexual men.105
So there is no reason to believe, and abundant reason to doubt, that redefining marriage would make people more likely to abide by its norms. Instead, it would undermine people's grasp of the intelligible basis for those norms in the first place. Nothing more than a Maginot line of sentiment would be left to support belief in sexual fidelity and hold back the change of attitudes and mores that a rising tide of revisionists approvingly expect same-sex marriage to produce.
Nor is legal regulation the answer; the state cannot effectively encourage adherence to norms in relationships where those norms have no deep rational basis. Laws that restrict people's freedom for no rational purpose are not likely to last, much less to have significant success in changing people's behavior by adherence. On the other hand, traditional marriage laws merely encourage adherence to norms in relationships where those norms already have an independent rational basis.106 Preliminary evidence suggests that same-sex couples in jurisdictions that legally recognize their unions tend to be sexually "open" by design. The New York Times reported on a San Francisco State University study: "[G]ay nuptials are portrayed by opponents as an effort to rewrite the traditional rules of matrimony. Quietly, outside of the news media and courtroom spotlight, many gay couples are doing just that . . . ."107 The argument from conservatism is very weak indeed.
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B. What About Partners' Concrete Needs?
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