Monogamy by the book
CommentsSeveral critics of my “Monogamous same-sex adultery” piece in the San Francisco Chronicle complained that I had taken the anecdotal evidence of a single Web site (despite the fact it was and remains linked to by prominent LGBT groups as a “marriage resource”) and used that to conclude that the entire gay and lesbian community doesn’t understand the tight connection between marriage and monogamy. Well, my friend Dan Blatt of GayPatriot has already found little mention of monogamy at gay Web sites, so I thought I’d check out mentions of monogamy in the leading gay-marriage books. I searched at Amazon for “monogamy” in several important LGBT books on the subject, and here is what I found:
• In Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People’s Right to Marry by the father of the gay-marriage movement, Evan Wolfson, mentions monogamy precisely once.
• In Why marriage? The history shaping today’s debate over gay equality by perhaps America’s most talented gay historian, George Chauncey of Yale, there are only three mentions of monogamy, two of them critical.
• In The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and my Family by Dan Savage (not a fan of mine), monogamy is mentioned eight times in 304 pages, all but two in a critical fashion. The book contains phrases like (and I couldn’t see the whole page just the phrase so I guess it’s possible he’s being sarcastic or critical) “the erroneous notion that monogamy defines marriage.” There’s also a quote from Yale academic Jonathan Katz saying that “same-sex marriage may, in fact, sort of de-center the notion of monogamy and allow the prospect that marriage need not be an exclusive sexual relationship among people.” And people think gay marriage won’t change - and hurt - marriage?
• Richard Mohr’s The Long Arc of Justice: Lesbian and Gay Marriage, Equality, and Rights contains no positive mentions of monogamy in 160 pages, but it does have this gem: “compelled monogamy is not an essential component of marriage.” Now, I know of no state or city that has literally “compelled” monogamy - but in most marriages monogamy is compelled by the commitment (”forsaking all others”) the husband and wife make to each other. Will that be equally important in same-sex marriages? Apparently not.
• Since Jonathan Rauch appears to understand marriage better than most of his allies, I was hopeful that his Gay Marriage: Why it is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America would be the exception. But it contains just six mentions of monogamy, of which only four are positive.
As the evidence builds that the “marriage equality” crowd does not understand the fidelity aspect of marriage - the Web site presented as a “marriage resource” that is hostile to monogamy; the lack of mentions of monogamy at same-sex marriage Web sites; the E-mails I received that were offended I would try to insist that marriage change gay couples, rather than the other way around; and now the gay-marriage books that are either hostile to or silent on monogamy, we’re getting to the point that someone on the other side is going to have to present some evidence that LGBT people actually do see the importance of monogamy in marriage. Otherwise, I think I’ve pretty much proven my case that the marriage equality movement has no idea what marriage is.
So we have to prove we can do it when It is a fact they dont? lol hilarious
Seriously?
You present yourself as a legitimate journalist, and yet you truly believe that searching for a single form of a single word [i.e.- you searched for "monogamy" but not "monogamous" or "monogamously-coupled" or "lifelong partner" or any other of the myriad possible ways the concept could be expressed] at Amazon.com [a non-comprehensive book text search through which, by your own admission in this article, you could not actually see the entire text of the books you claim to summarize fairly] constitutes thorough research that “pretty much proves” your case?
The vacuousness of this assertion is so evident that I found myself doing a double-take to see if I missed something. But no, it’s right there–a process that you try to pass off as “research,” yet which a half-distracted sideways glance would show to be insulting to the intelligence of your readers, were it not for the fact that you apparently actually believe it yourself.
You’re the student giving a speech in front of the class while unwittingly having his pants zipper down–you think the class is responding to your wit and insight, when the truth is they are laughing at you. Please take your assignment home and bring it back to us when it is real journalism.
Michael R.-
When you search on google for “monogamous” all variations of the word including the two you listed show up. Are you sure that’s not true at Amazon.com? If you do some more searches and show my results to be incorrect, I will certainly withdraw the argument. “Lifelong partner” does not always mean sexual exclusivity when used by a gay couple, if I remember correctly some of the liaisons I had when I was having gay sex.
No, this is a pit that comment threads fall into far too often; that is, someone makes an assertion and then others, rather than addressing the main point of the assertion, instead yap away at little supporting, non-central details. Then, they congratulate themselves at having supposedly dismantled the argument when, in truth, they merely distracted everyone from the main point.
Whether or not Amazon’s search engine operates with similar algorithms as Google is not the point. My main point is to ask how you, who present yourself publicly as a journalist, find it to be anything remotely approaching intellectual honesty to claim you know the thrust and intent of these books and their views of marriage when, by your own admission, you haven’t even read them!! Particularly since you must be bright enough to know that no author with writing ability worthy of publication will communicate any single concept via a single uniform, unchanging vocabulary selection, so a search for such a solitary vocabulary word is pointless. And to go further to imply that all of the authors chose the same constant word without variation is absurd.
To put it another way, could you imagine a staff writer for The New York Times submitting an article like that, claiming to be giving a fair representation of the books you mentioned having only done a single Amazon word search on each? He would be laughed out of the room by his editor and told to READ THE BOOKS!
And then the arrogance to put the burden of proof on me, your reader, when you have so obviously made such careless assertions based upon halfhearted research, is astounding.
Please, don’t get lost in details. Just answer this simple question straightforward and honestly with yourself and us: Do you really expect us to agree with you that your fly-over analysis of those books is adequate for a fair review even, much less the bold statement of “pretty much having proven” your assertions?
Again, I say (with mouth agape incredulously),
Really?
Michael R.-
Are you saying that these books do value monogamy? Or just that I haven’t proven my case successfully?
I’m not in the mood to actually buy all the books in question, so if you want to disregard this particular argument and focus on all the others I’ve made, that would be completely fine with me.
By the way, do you believe that sexual exclusivity is a vital part of a legitimate marriage, or is it fine in your eyes for each married couple to decide for themselves whether they will be sexually exclusive or if not, under what conditions they will have sex with others?
David,
I am not saying that they do or do not, because I have not read the books either. I just objected to your characterization of them that is not based on actually knowing their contents. But beyond that, and more significantly, you conclude the post by drawing a conclusion far beyond the scope of these few books you quote when you say, “I think I’ve pretty much proven my case that the marriage equality movement has no idea what marriage is.”
I suppose my reaction to what you have written comes from a different place than you might initially suspect. I am a gay man and a believer in the Bible, which (believe me) I understand presents a whole boatload of difficulties. However, I am determined to be sure my life aligns with truth to the greatest extent possible, which has led me on a very interesting path in recent years. Admittedly, after being kicked out of my church and ostracized by former friends simply for admitting to attractions that I had never acted upon a number of years ago, I pretty much turned away from anything having to to with churches or the people who made it clear they did not want me.
However, my faith is something deeply grounded internally, so no matter how far I ran from church, my faith was still there with me. So, slowly, I began the healing process of returning to where I need to be, and I readily admit I am still on that journey. For quite a while, someone who joined me on this journey was my partner. Initially, he and I got caught up in the sexual “freedom” that can be found among certain segments of the gay community, but as we grew and matured, we came to the conclusion that monogamy is a pretty restrictive concept with little wiggle room if the word is to have any meaning. So we re-committed ourselves to each other and never again allowed our bed to be shared with anyone else.
Sadly, my partner was taken unexpectedly when he passed away suddenly about 2 1/2 years ago. But, when and if I am able to meet someone who I can treasure so deeply again, that commitment to monogamy will be a deal-breaker for me from the start. And the thing is, my attitude is not nearly as rare as you portray it on this blog. Perhaps you don’t hear from lots of gay guys who truly believe in monogamy, but that is most likely because they are going along, working hard, contributing to their families and communities, and being faithful to each other; rather than those you seem to have interacted with who (at least in some cases) are undoubtedly talking loudly and publicly in part to assuage the guilt they feel for actions they know are harmful to themselves and disrespectful to others.
So I’ve just been frustrated reading your articles, on the one hand disagreeing with you on your conclusion about gay marriage, while on the other hand, feeling that I can agree with you on some of these key points like true exclusive commitment to one’s partner/spouse. But then I see you describe a caricature of the gay community rather than its reality, emphasizing the noisy crowd while overlooking almost completely the many, many gay men and women who do not live lives of promiscuity and who view marriage (whether it be gay or straight) as I do–the commitment of myself one man til death parts us. I kept that commitment faithfully when I first grasped the concept, and was faithful to my partner til the day of his death. And I will do it again if I am blessed with a relationship in the future, so yes, I and many other gay people do understand what marriage is, and we value and treasure it and believe it will be a good, moral influence upon the less-restrained members of our community.
On this point we find common ground, though: it is very problematic that the loudest voices from the gay community speaking into the public arena are those who hold the values of commitment lightly and emphasize freedom to the exclusion of morality. The gay community’s outspoken activists would truly do well to understand that open-mindedness and self-discipline are not mutually exclusive character traits.