The Failure of the Procreation Argument
A common argument from those who oppose same sex marriage is that the purpose of a wedded union is [to] breed and make lots of little Cheerio-eating poop factories, and since gay people can’t reproduce, then same sex marriage is an empty gesture. But the thoughtful blogger at tongodeon is a series of tubes explores this argument and comes up with a different assessment:
Same-sex couples are not “darwinian dead ends” any more than adoption, grandparental and filial support, military and police self-sacrifice, intraspecies symbiosis, and other forms of altruism and social management are dead ends. Same-sex couples are neither uniquely nor de facto childless. Both same and opposite-sex couples are the full-time legal guardians of their own offspring and others’. But that’s OK, because even if this were true I don’t actually understand how this even matters. I don’t understand why an opposite-sex remarried partner’s past children count for more than a same-sex remarried partner’s past children. I don’t understand why the future children that a same-sex couple can’t have count for more than the future children that an infertile opposite-sex couple can’t have. I don’t even understand why a couple’s fecundity has anything at all to do with their legal recognition. The fact that same-sex couples can’t make babies but opposite-sex couples can seems to have about as much to do with marriage licenses as the fact that humans can make cars but dogs can’t has to do with drivers’ licenses. They can’t, but that’s not the reason why.
Here’s what I do know: right now there are thousands of same-sex families with parents who are the full-time guardians of their biological, adoptive, and foster children, and their partners’ biological, adoptive, and foster children. Do those children “deserve” to have the protection of two parents instead of one parent and the legal equivalent of that parent’s golf buddy?