Snow Monkey Family Values August 10, 2006

Singing Bird inspired me to take a closer look at the recent court rulings against equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians in New York(pdf) and Washington (pdf).  As she points out, the legal reasoning that the courts used denies not only the legitimacy of same-sex marriages but also the legitimacy of marriages involving infertile heterosexual people.

The New York ruling includes the following passage:

First, the Legislature could rationally decide that, for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships. Heterosexual intercourse has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not. Despite the advances of science, it remains true that the vast majority of children are born as a result of a sexual relationship between a man and a woman, and the Legislature could find that this will continue to be true. The Legislature could also find…that an important function of marriage is to create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born. It thus could choose to offer an inducement — in the form of marriage and its attendant benefits — to opposite-sex couples who make a solemn, long-term commitment to each other. The Legislature could find that this rationale for marriage does not apply with comparable force to same-sex couples.

If one replaces “same-sex couples” with “infertile heterosexual couples,” then the logic is the same.  The majority opinion tries to rebut this point (essentially arguing that it would be too difficult and invasive to try to weed out all of the infertile heterosexual couples at the alter) but the dissenting opinion demolishes that rebuttal.

The Washington ruling sounds a lot like the New York ruling:

Therefore, we apply the highly deferential rational basis standard of review to the legislature’s decision that only opposite-sex couples are entitled to civil marriage in this state. Under this standard…the legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival of the human race, and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children’s biological parents. Allowing same-sex couples to marry does not, in the legislature’s view, further these purposes.

Again, the same logic could be used to deny infertile heterosexual couples the right to marry (despite the court’s feeble attempt to argue otherwise).

As an infertile heterosexual person who is happily married, these decisions make me mighty peeved.  Obviously, no court is really going to try to invalidate my marriage, but I don’t appreciate hearing gay marriage foes proclaim that the right to marry is founded on an ability to procreate that I don’t share. I’ve been a long-standing supporter of gay rights, but now I feel an even stronger sense of solidarity with gays and lesbians who are striving for their right to marry.

The bad news is that the New York and Washington rulings are setbacks in this effort.  The good news, however, is that the long-term prospects for gay marriage look sunnier: the public as a whole may oppose gay marriage, but young Americans are much more supportive of it.

[Edited to add: I’m sensitive about revealing my infertility, even on an anonymous blog, but I did so here as a political statement.]