Hell, Fire & Brimstone?

Hell, Fire, and Brimstone? You Decide.

by Todd May

There is a simple bedrock principle that defines a democracy: every citizen shall be treated equally by the governing institutions unless there is a good reason to treat him or her otherwise. Without this principle, there is no democracy.

Societies are democratic only to the extent that they endorse this principle. Democracies are not defined solely be majority will. If they were, then the majority could enact laws prescribing slavery for the minority. I suspect no reader of this paper would be tempted to call that a democratic arrangement. The defining democratic principle is a pretty minimal one.

There are many good reasons that a person might be treated unequally. For instance, someone who commits a crime offers a good reason to be treated less equally than others. Alternatively, one has reason to treat a minor, who has not yet achieved full mental development, less equally than others. However, barring a good reason, every citizen should receive equal treatment.

South Carolina is poised to pass a referendum that is an egregious violation of that principle. The anti-gay marriage referendum, which will be voted on in the upcoming election as a proposed amendment to the state constitution, would not only deny gays the right to marry, it would deny recognition of marriage in other states, deny the creation of domestic union arrangements, and eliminate common law marriage. In other words, it would treat gays, lesbians, and bisexuals unequally.

If the referendum is passed, it will constitute a significant step away from democracy for the state. South Carolina has not always been known as a beacon of democracy. It can ill afford to embrace another anti-democratic measure. Is it true that there are no good reasons to deny an equal right of marriage to gays, lesbians, and bisexuals?

Several reasons have been put forward to justify this denial. The three most often appealed to (aside from the canard that God hates gays) are: marriage is traditionally between a man and a woman; gay marriage is a threat to the institution of marriage; it will be bad for the children of such a marriage. Let’s look at the merits of each objection. The fact that an arrangement is traditional does not mean that it should continue. Up until the early part of the last century, it was traditional to deny women the vote. Would it have been reasonable to claim that such a denial should remain in place because it had always been that way? More recently, Americans of African descent were denied equal civil rights. Was the tradition of that denial a justification for its continuance? Tradition may justify certain things, but it does not justify unequal treatment.

The charge that gay marriage will destroy the institution of marriage is a puzzling one. After all, with divorce rates in the U.S. clocking around fifty percent, heterosexuals do not seem overly concerned with maintaining the institution, at least in anything like its traditional form. (Whether this is good or bad is another issue.) Moreover, in Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal, the divorce rate is significantly lower than in places like South Carolina. Studies in other countries have shown that gay marriage has no significant effect in divorce rates. (In fact, they show that they have an insignificant effect of lowering divorce rates.)

It is remarkable that legislators in Massachusetts who sponsored a bill to overturn gay marriage in the state wound up voting against their own bill. They stated that between the time of their sponsorship and the vote, they came to realize that gay marriage was not harming the state, and that gays and lesbians should be offered the same right to marry as heterosexuals.

Finally, the objection that gay marriage would harm the offspring is contradicted by the evidence. Studies have shown that the children of gay and lesbian couples do not fare any worse than those of heterosexual couples. Some studies have shown that the children of such couples are slightly higher achieving and slightly more anxious than those of heterosexual couples, but in neither case are the results significant. In fact, they are easily accounted for when one recognizes that “out” gay and lesbian couples are more often middle and upper middle class and that their children are more likely to endure a little extra anxiety in a culture that is bigoted against their parents.

There is, then, no good reason to violate the principle that, when it comes to marriage, gays and lesbians should be treated equally. There is only a prejudice of long standing. Whether South Carolinians can muster the courage to fight this prejudice between now and election day is uncertain. What is certain is that, sooner or later, the denial of equal rights to gays, lesbians, and bisexuals will be recognized for what it is, and will be a source of shame. Must South Carolina resist, as it has before, the movement of equality? Or can it, this time, rise to the task of democracy?

(For more information on the specifics of the proposed amendment, visit www.scequality.org.)