Anti-gay marriage law overturned in CA.

[ysobelle]

The thing I don't get, and that NO conservative has yet to explain logically, is how allowing gay and lesbian couples to get married affects heterosexual marriages. Will two men getting married somehow make my parents, who will celebrate 50 years in a few weeks, suddenly get a divorce? And how is allowing stable same-sex couples who've been together for decades somehow a worse influence on the idea of marriage than a celebrity marriage that lasts days, if not mere hours?

Comments

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

This article addresses that question in an interesting way, by examining the difference between attitudes as one between two ideals of family: the Inherited Obligation family (living within the circle of people you were born into, and having your role be defined by your position therein) and the Negotiated Commitment family (what a lot of us call the "family of choice," the community of friends and relatives that we choose to depend on). The pertinent extract:

Same-sex marriage. The husband/father and wife/mother roles in the Inherited Obligation model are timeless, unchangeable, and necessary. Someone has to be the husband/father and someone has to be the wife/mother. Same-sex couples just can’t cover both roles, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.

But no comparable difficulty exists in the Negotiated Commitment model. A child has needs, and the parents have to negotiate a plan to meet those needs. Whether the parents are a mixed-sex couple or a same-sex couple - or even a single parent with a lot of committed friends - the problem is the same.

If the government recognizes same-sex marriages and same-sex couples as parents, then it is tacitly siding with the Negotiated Commitment model of marriage and parenthood, and undermining the Inherited Obligation model. This is why conservatives believe that marriage needs to be “defended” from same-sex relationships. But from the Negotiated Commitment point of view, “defense of marriage” is nonsense. How a same-sex couple negotiates its relationship has no effect on the negotiated relationships of mixed-sex couples.

It's a fascinating article, and well worth the read.

[kylecassidy.livejournal.com]

would that model than suggest that roles in opposite sex couples (i just got an email from the american family association that uses "s_x" every time they say "same s_x") be likewise enforced? that men have to work and women have to stay home? it seems that a significant percentage of heterosexual relationships are "negotiated commitment" already.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

Based on the article, I'd say that people who ascribe to the Inherited Obligation model would be more likely to hew closely to traditional gender-coded roles (he works, she stays home). Of course, financial circumstances might dictate otherwise, but if you are living in a community of family, there's always a grandmother or aunt to watch the kids. (And I'd also guess that the woman still does the majority of "domestic" work.)

The article talks about the circumstances that led to the development of Negotiated Commitment groups: when the kids grow up, they leave home -- which forces them to 1) be outside their family safety net, 2) make up a new "family" of friends where they are, and incidentally 3) meet and get to know people who aren't part of their family mindset. That's one of the big threats for someone who ascribes to the Inherited Obligation model -- the kids will go away and we'll "lose" them.

I come from a family that skews more IO, but I tend to live more NC -- I live in an urban area, my parents live in the country; I stay at home with my children, but I also work from home (freelance). Though I love my family, I often feel I share more interests and a more common outlook with my group of friends.