GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

A June 10 report in the Health section of the New York Times headlined “Gay Unions Shed Light on Gender in Marriage” has led proponents of same-sex marriage to trumpet the news that same-sex marriage may actually be good for marriage as a whole. Comments about the article at the Web sites and print editions of the Human Rights Campaign blog, Marriage Equality News, the Washington Blade, the Volokh Conspiracy, the Huffington Post, Seattle’s The Stranger, and the comments section of this very blog have treated the article as the smoking gun that proves gay marriage is good for America after all.

It’s clear that the alleged differences pointed to in the article, that same-sex couples are “far more egalitarian” and “have more relationship satisfaction” are intended to show that admitting gay couples to the institution of marriage will help marriage altogether. Other very real differences that while perhaps beneficial, would clearly have no influence on straight couples, like the fact that lesbian couples often find their menstrual cycles in sync, or that gay couples frequently share an entire wardrobe of clothes, were not mentioned.

Now, if the experts cited in the New York Times article are reliable on ways same-sex couples are different that make gays look good, surely they are reliable on the ways same-sex couples are different that make gays look, well, less good. All three of the experts directly quoted in the article, Dr. Sondra Solomon, Dr. Esther Rothblum, and Dr. Robert W. Levenson have written other studies that the “marriage equality” movement would surely prefer nobody find out about.

For example, Solomon and Rothblum did a 2005 study together examining the attitudes toward sexual fidelity of couples that entered civil unions in Vermont – a status that provides all state benefits of marriage. More than 50 percent of the male-male relationships reported having arrangements with their partner that allowed for sexual activity outside the relationship. Do “marriage equality” advocates believe that Solomon and Rothblum’s findings about egalitarianism will spill over to the entire society but that their findings about sexual infidelity will not?

In addition, Levenson participated in a 2003 study that stated that compared to married male-female couples, both gay and lesbian couples reported more autonomy and more frequent relationship dissolution. I guess it’s possible that California same-sex relationhips have become more stable and interdependent now that the exact same rights and benefits the state grants are called “marriage” instead of “domestic partnership,” but I doubt it.

Now, it’s possible that some people want marriage to be more egalitarian as well as less monogamous and less stable. Personally, I want none of those things. As an Orthodox Jew, I expect any marriage I enter into to have a fairly traditional division of roles. But surely the expectation of the “marriage equality” activists in publicizing the article citing these experts is that undecided voters who want marriage to become more egalitarian should support same-sex marriage. My response is that their expectation is fine, as long as those voters also want marriage to be more sexually open and more likely to dissolve.

The other options are for gay-marriage activists to withdraw their argument based on the Times article, or to come up with some explanation why these academics are trustworthy in some of their research, but fraudulent in other parts of their research.

I’d like to close by citing Rothblum one more time. She said two years ago that these days the difference when a state grants marriage or a marriage-like status to same-sex couples is “largely symbolic,” which supports my question why the gay movement is spending millions of dollars on a symbolic issue in California when there are many, many actual and painful problems facing LGBT people, especially in states much less friendly than California, that we could be addressing. I have yet to hear a good answer to that question.

Several 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.

My article in the San Francisco Chronicle headlined “Monogamous same-sex adultery” received more E-mail reactions than anything else I’ve ever written. As I hoped, a few letter-writers insisted that gays and lesbians really do understand and value monogamy, which I’m happy about.

But what surprised me was the volume of mail from readers who confirmed that understanding the tight connection between marriage and fidelity is pretty rare in the gay community. These correspondents seemed proud to defend the right for open relationships be treated as legitimate marriages, and were deeply insulted that I would refuse to respect marriages that are sexually open as equal to those that are sexually exclusive.

For example, Richard Dupler from Oakland, California, wrote:

I’ve been with my partner 10.5 years. We just bought a house in Oakland, moving across the Bay from San Francisco. We have not been sexually exclusive, ever. The relationship has been open, and honest, from the start.

We are getting married August 17, and I doubt seriously that the sexual part of our relationship will change. Just because we’re calling it marriage, doesn’t mean we have to conform to widespread ideals and beliefs about marriage, we only have to follow the law. What works for some likely doesn’t work for others.

This freedom to marry, which we take very seriously, should also mean we are free to define that marriage the way we see fit.

Richard’s honesty is refreshing. As I predicted, some gay people are explicitly planning to refashion marriage in their own image instead of conforming their partnerships to the norms of the institution. What’s nice about Richard is he’s willing to tell you about it. How many other gays and lesbians are keeping their attitudes a secret out of fear of losing this debate? The last line in Richard’s E-mail, while chilling, only reinforces the need for people who care about the values and stability provided by marriage to vote for the California Marriage Protection Act.

Then there’s Rinaldo Massimo, who writes:

Marriage and the ways in which people live it is, to my opinion, purely dictated by personal experiences. Therefore I can say that I can live my “marriage” based on how I define that in relation to my needs and that of my partner. This is a choice and should be respected. We all know that marriage has been created for social construction and therefore monogamy is not something attached to marriage.

Many people have said it was ludicrous that I claimed that gay people sometimes use monogamy to refer to having only one spouse instead of only one sex partner. Well, I also got E-mails like this one from Joanne Firth (yes, some women have these attitudes too):

Look up monogamy in any dictionary, if you have one. I bet you’ll find the same definition. Nor is it a ‘gay’ definition. It’s the standard dictionary definition. It’s true that in the United States, many people tend to use the word to mean one sexual partner at a time, married or not, but that’s not what it means…. If you think those are “gay definitions” you are doing nothing but betraying your own ignorance of the English language and unfamiliarity with dictionaries.

She also told me:

To even use the term “proper marriage” grates on one. Everybody gets to decide for himself or herself, Mr. Benkof, what a proper marriage is. Whether or not you “philander,” as you so quaintly put it, is nobody’s business but yours. And, equivalently, whether or not any other married person in this world “philanders” is none of yours. I do not find “philandering” offensive.

And she wants us to let her redefine marriage?

I have lots more but this blog post is already getting long. As a nightcap, how about Milam Freitag, who wrote:

So what if a promise to be sexually exclusive is not an essential component of a someone’s marriage? The word “proper” you use smells of internalized judgment and cultural baggage about gay people not being normal and that someone smart like you holds the key to what is and isn’t “proper.” I don’t think it’s proper for you to add to the gay hate that’s out there, so maybe our ideas of proper vary. Whose idea of proper is the proper one?

Please note that all four people I quoted used their own names. When I say marriage will change when same-sex couples are admitted to the institution, I’m not only talking about secret arrangements where two lesbian couples wife-swap or a gay guy goes to the bathhouse with his husband once a month. The “marriage equality” advocates I quoted above are so open about their own non-exclusive relationships, or alternatively their attitude that such things are compatible with marriage, that they wrote me (and in some cases the Chronicle) using their own names. That cannot be a good sign.

If anyone still doesn’t understand what I mean when I say most lesbians and gay men have no idea what marriage is, I guess I can go over it again, but I’d rather just show people the four E-mails above and say Q. E. D.

My column on “Monogamous same-sex adultery” is in today’s (Thursday’s) San Francisco Chronicle. The piece is, in my opinion, both the most important thing I’ve ever written on marriage, and the most prominent placement of any of my marriage essays so far. The ideas were developed right here at GaysDefendMarriage.com, and I owe gratitude to everyone who participated in our debate about monogamy, especially John D, Mark Barton, Dan Dirksen, LAwaters27, Fannie, Andrea J. Essecks, Mary Magdalene, Tom Chatt, and Patrick. My ideas would have been far less polished (and worthy of such major national attention) without your help.

Most of the column’s points have already been covered at our blog, but I’ll nonetheless quote enough to give the flavor of an essay I’m really proud of:

My concern is not about the extent of extramarital sex in each community. It’s about the vast gulf in attitudes between gays and straights on whether a promise to be sexually exclusive is an essential component of a proper marriage.

A gay friend of mine, Los Angeles blogger Daniel Blatt, who believes in monogamy and sees the advantages to same-sex marriage, was taken aback when he searched “marriage equality” Web sites and found very few positive mentions of monogamy. When I helped Blatt with his research, I stumbled upon a Web site hostile to monogamy that is promoted as a marriage resource by several major gay Web sites.

If a straight organization such as the NAACP, the Union for Reform Judaism, or the League of Women Voters linked to a Web site hostile to sexual fidelity that argued that adultery was consistent with monogamy, their members would be in an uproar because those ideas do not represent their values. But those ideas actually do represent mainstream gay and lesbian values, which is why there has been no uproar. The way to assess gay people’s ideas is not through how they are portrayed in the mainstream media, where gays try to conform and be accepted. It is through the gay media, where they forget that anyone could be listening.

If you hear gay people objecting to the argument that same-sex marriage is fundamentally different from marriage, ask them if they consider sexual exclusivity (don’t say monogamy because they might answer using the gay definition) an essential part of a proper marriage. Feel free to ask straight people the same question. Then you decide based on what you hear.

When I have said that same-sex couples generally do not respect monogamy the way married couples do, and therefore I believe redefining marriage will change and thus hurt marriage itself, LGBT people (including frequent posters at our site) have generally had one of two reactions:

1) You are extrapolating from a very small non-monogamous sample to accuse the whole LGBT community of not respecting marital vows; or

2) You are greatly underestimating the huge number of heterosexual couples whose cheating and swinging is well known.

In response, I would like to clarify: what concerns me is not the small, or large, percentage of same-sex couples that have open relationships, nor the size of the swinging and cheating community among heterosexual couples. What concerns me is the attitudes of gay and straight people, respectively, on what marriage is.

I see very little evidence that mainstream non-gay groups like the NAACP, Jewish Women International, and Habitat for Humanity, or mainstream non-gay leaders like Oprah Winfrey, Nancy Pelosi, and Bill Gates, think getting married does not necessarily mean one is promising to stop having sex with outsiders. I see tons of evidence that the equivalent voices in the LGBT community see no necessary, inherent connection between fidelity and marriage.

For example, my gay friend Dan Blatt, who supports same-sex marriage, did a lot of research for his GayPatriot Web site and found that “marriage equality” Web sites say very little about monogamy.

But I am happy to be shown solid evidence that the LGBT community does, in fact overwhelmingly understand what marriage is. So I would like to challenge the leaders of the “marriage equality” movement to take the pledge listed below:

The Monogamy Pledge

1. I will not enter any marriage without a firm promise of sexual fidelity.

2. I will not honor any same-sex marriage as worthy of respect if it does not include sexual exclusivity in its wedding vows (“forsaking all others”) or in some other open proclamation.

If any 50 prominent, public, recognized leaders of the “marriage equality” movement (or at least seven of the eight top leaders listed below) agree to take the Monogamy Pledge, I will reverse my claim and stop arguing that the LGBT community’s attitude toward monogamy means they have no idea what marriage is.

Now, so far only about 10 percent of the several hundred gay leaders I have contacted about marriage have written me back, and only about 2 percent have been willing to directly answer hard questions. So I’m the wrong person to tell LGBT leaders about the pledge. Therefore I encourage supporters of same-sex marriage who think, correctly, that marriage should mean sexual exclusivity (surely Dan isn’t the only one) to contact people like Evan Wolfson, Jon Davidson, Mary Bonauto, Geoff Kors, Kate Kendall, Barney Frank, Joe Solomonese, and Robin Tyler (and others who are so eager to make the rest of society treat same-sex couples as “equal”) whether they are willing to take the Monogamy Pledge, and if not, why not. My sense is very few significant LGBT leaders see any essential connection between marriage and sexual exclusivity.

Many marriage equality advocates have reacted angrily to my Los Angeles Daily News piece about male-male non-monogamy hurting marriage and to the recent New York Times feature quoting a “married” gay man in Massachusetts saying most married gay couples are “for the most part monogamous, but for maybe a casual three-way.”

“Most gay couples are monogamous!” they said. “Straight people commit adultery too!”

But I recently discovered there is a rarely publicized gay definition of monogamy that does not match the way virtually every straight person uses the term. The thorough “marriage equality” Web site of the Partners Task Force for Gay and Lesbian Couples features an article on “Keeping A Sexually Open Relationship Intact” in its “relationship tips” section. According to the article, monogamy “properly means individuals who only marry one person (as opposed to “polygamy”), which does not describe sexual agreements.” In other words two men who get married to no one but each other, but nonetheless allow each other to have sex with a different man every night of the week are monogamous in this new (to me) gay sense of the term.

The essay goes on to give 15 specific suggestions of rules that gay couples can consider for making sure the sex outside the relationship isn’t completely unrestricted. For example: no sex with mutual friends, sex is permissible only when one partner is out of town, and my favorite, sex is permitted at home, but not in the bedroom.

I am not making this up.

Now, before anyone screams that this is one minority opinion on an obscure Web site, I want to point out that the date of the article is 2002. If an article on even a medium-sized Jewish Web site said that married Jewish women could stay monogamous by having sex with as many other men as they wanted as long as they don’t marry them, it wouldn’t last a week. There would be an outcry by Jews who are offended at the open approval of adultery. The “how to have sex with many people while you’re still monogamous” article appears to have been posted for six years.

Further, as far as I can tell the Partners Task Force has never been condemned by major gay and lesbian groups. In fact, several of them actually recommend it as a “resource,” such as Marriage Equality USA, the Metropolitan Community Church (!), the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Educators Network, and statewide groups in Kentucky, Washington, Texas, New York, and Wisconsin. Both PlanetOut and lesbian.com also link to the site. Even a group you would expect to value faithfulness and fidelity – the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry – lists the Web site with the “slutty monogamy” article as one of only two American same-sex marriage issue resources.

I think the idea that in six years nobody ever clicked on the article about how monogamy doesn’t mean sexual exclusivity and thought to complain or publicize the idea is simply preposterous. I’m not saying every group that linked to this Web site knew about its definition of monogamy, but certainly some did. And even if they never read about the strange definition of monogamy, lots of gays and lesbians browsed through the list of articles, and the one about keeping your sexually open relationship intact doesn’t appear to have batted any eyes.

As long as major gay groups are linking to the Web site featuring this article, in fact as long as the article remains up at all, I recommend that anyone – journalists, undecided voters, marriage defenders engaging in debate – ask gays and lesbians to clarify whenever they use the term monogamy, whether they main marriage to only one person or sex with only one person. That’s the only way we can have an honest conversation.

Secondly, everyone should give further consideration to my argument that same-sex marriage will change marriage forever, for everyone, and for the worse. This one example is compelling evidence that the gay and lesbian community generally does not value fidelity and faithfulness in the way married people have been expected to. After all, lesbians have a better track record on sexual exclusivity than gay men, but none of the lesbians who clicked to this Web site promoted by at least a dozen prominent gay organizations convinced the group to correct its misleading definition of monogamy or if they refused, blogged about how offensive the situation is. I believe the people who have always defined marriage should continue to do so, because there is too much evidence the LGBT community simply does not understand what marriage is.

UPDATE: I realized it was possible that the article I have criticized was one of many different perspectives on monogamy represented on the Web site in question, so I checked what other things the site had to say about monogamy. I found:

• an essay by an openly gay anthropologist disagreeing with President’s Bush description of monogamous marriage as “the most enduring human institution” by arguing that “few societies find it beneficial to restrict marriage only to this form.”

• a 1997 essay by a therapist that says “Gay couples are different from heterosexual ones, however, and several authors have noted that sexual exclusivity in relationships is optional, rather than required within long-lasting male couples.” Now, if I said that, I would be called homophobic and accused of representing the truth without proof. Yet this essay has been posted for 11 years without any apparent protest by the many LGBT people who had access to it, some of whom undoubtedly read it. Why is that? He goes on to criticize monogamy as “inadequate for male couples because of the complexity of male-to-male (sexual-predator-to-sexual-predator) relationships.” Do I really have to say that no mainstream Jewish, black, Asian, or Catholic Web site could get away with posting such an article for more than a decade?

• There are essays by politicians Ron Wyden and Thomas Keane that tend to support monogamy, but they are both married heterosexuals, so of course they understand what marriage is.

• The site quotes Gary who says “I would find it very difficult to be with someone who insisted that I be ‘monogamous.’ In fact, if would drive me crazy” and his partner Bob who says “I feel exactly the same way as Gary. I don’t want to base our relationship the same way heterosexuals do.” So why am I criticized for saying gay marriage will change marriage?

• There’s an interview with a lesbian couple, one of whom is a reverend who says “monogamy, sexual exclusivity” has been a “hard edge” for the couple.

• There’s a historical article without footnotes that makes some pretty bizarre claims such as that in Christianity, male-male marriages actually predated male-female ones, and that Western culture “did not view monogamy as essential to marriage” until the 14th century. Do I really have to ask if the same claim would go unchallenged for 15 months at the Web site of even a liberal religious group like the Union for Reform Judaism or the Unitarian Universalist church?

• An interview with Charlie and Bill (I happen to know Charlie) said that in nine years together they were monogamous “most of the time.”

• An interview with Bruce, who bragged that he and Sam “can afford to be non-monogamous.”

• An interview with Andy and Peter, who say they were monogamous for about half the eight years they were in a “committed relationship.”

Now, if this Web site totally misrepresented the gay community’s attitudes toward monogamy, why am I the first gay person to have protested it so far? If these ideas offend gay sensibilities, wouldn’t all major gay and lesbian organizations refuse to link to the site?

I’d be very interested in someone honest on the “marriage equality” side to just accept my assertion that gay people do not value monogamy the way straight people do. Then, you can still argue that it’s not fair to refuse same-sex couples marriage, but at least you won’t try to earn marriage rights through fraudulous misrepresentation.

UPDATE: I am stunned by the following statistic: I contacted 100 of the top linguists in the country, including virtually the entire departments at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, and Texas. Within 48 hours, exactly half (50) had answered my query. None had ever heard of a language that did not differentiate between “mother” and “father” – and several said they did not think I would ever find one. There are some arguments I have made in which I could be fairly criticized for not consulting enough experts, or experts with strong enough qualifications. This is, um, not one one of them.

GaysDefendMarriage.com got a very nice plug today in the National Review Online, in a thoughtful and frankly scary piece marking today’s new definition of marriage in California. Maggie Gallagher calls our Web site “intellectually fecund” and quotes one of my posts about monogamy.

In Re Marriage Cases ruled that same-sex marriage “will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage.” This echoes common “marriage equality” rhetoric, that claims gay marriage won’t change marriage, it will strengthen marriage. More conservative gays like Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Rauch have made especially interesting arguments that same-sex marriage would strengthen the institution and American society, rather than cause harm.

If only it were true.

First of all, it is admirable that the “marriage equality” movement has hammered its talking points home to such a degree that few LGBT people openly talk about their hostility toward marriage or their goal to see marriage change. But many gays and lesbians definitely feel that way. The most recent director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Matt Foreman, told the National Journal three years ago that part of his goal in promoting same-sex marriage was to bring flexibility to the sexist institution itself: “Marriage is a profoundly conservative institution, and in many states it works against women in a very significant way.”

Then just today I got an E-mail from a reader of my “Blowback” piece in the LA Times. Regan DuCasse, a frequent poster on LGBT Web sites who lives in the San Fernando Valley, wrote me that “the intents and purposes of marriage have traditionally and inherently been misogynist and it can be argued that discomfort and hostility towards gay men and women are an extension of that misogyny. Equality in marriage is more a step towards an egalitarian purpose.” In other words, at least some LGBT people are hostile toward marriage as it exists, and they’re trying to “fix” it in part by opening it up to same-sex couples. Which they have the right to try to do. I just think everyone else should be informed about their true goals.

Then there are the actual ways that extending marriage to same-sex couples will change the institution. I’ll list just three:

• It will no longer automatically contain the ideal configuration for raising a child.

• Problematic kinds of relationships that are commonly found in the LGBT community but virtually unheard of among opposite-sex couples – such as relationships based on the incest model (Daddy-boy relationships) and chattel slavery (master-slave relationships) will have every right to use the word marriage to describe their disturbing mode for two spouses to relate to each other.

• It is quite rare for heterosexual (or lesbian!) couples to come up with “monogamy of the heart” or “ethical non-monogamy” agreements that allow each other to have sex with outsiders as long as certain conditions are met (like no kissing, or only out of town, or only if I can watch). Such arrangements are more the rule than the exception among male-male relationships. Gay.com claims that about a third of gay couples are sexually exclusive, and that number sounds high to me. I have never been at a soiree with multiple straight “committed” couples in which someone suggests we take off our clothes and see what happens, but I’m sad to say it’s happened with gay friends in long-term relationships. Of course, I know, many men cheat on their wives. But they almost never define their marriage as something that accommodates adultery.

So I’m afraid I have to conclude that marriage will change if it is opened to same-sex couples, which is precisely what some, but not all, advocates of “marriage equality” would like to see happen.

MarriageDebate.com reprints a letter to the editor from Kate Martin, a lesbian mother in St. Louis (where I live, by coincidence) who opposes same-sex marriage. Some excerpts follow:

A letter was published May 20th about the California Supreme Court ruling which overturned that state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The writer stated “gay marriage will be the law of the land, and intolerant straights will just have to get over it.”

The writer puts the issue in a very small frame in which to think about the conflict. If people are against two men or two women being legally married then they are called intolerant or worse. The writer calls it “hateful discrimination that fearful Missouri voters wrote into their constitution.”…

If one views the issue of same-sex marriage in very tight boundaries – as people who are in love and want to share benefits – it would indeed seem very small and petty to object. But it is not a simple “love and benefits” issue.

Same-sex marriage is a radical leftist concept pushed by gay leftists elites who themselves sneer at the instituiton of marriage and monogamy….

Change the definition of marriage just once and there will be continuous change from here on out until it is completely unrecognizable and meaningless. And that is the goal.

One problem with the “marriage equality” movement is that too many of its leaders have no idea what marriage is. For example, one of the most prominent rabbis defending same-sex marriage in California is in an open relationship with her husband in which each has the other’s permission to commit adultery.

(I have held my tongue on telling this story for more than a decade, but now that this woman’s agenda has come to fruition, I think it’s important for people to understand the vision of “marriage” supported by some adherents of this movement. On the advice of an Orthodox rabbi I’m friends with, I’m not disclosing this rabbi’s name or congregation.)

A dozen years ago, when I first began to wonder whether my commitment to my Jewish faith necessitated an end to my pursuit of gay sex and a transition toward opposite-sex dating and even marriage. I approached a thoughtful rabbi who had done much work with LGBT people, and we shared a meal in which we discussed my feelings. What follows is a greatly condensed version of the key exchange in our conversation:

Rabbi “Angelina”: I think you need to have sex with a woman, and see how it feels.

Me: What do you expect me to do – hire a prostitute? Start frequenting pick-up bars until I get lucky?

Rabbi Angelina: Well, why don’t you have sex with me?

Pause.

Me: But you’re married. You have a kid.

Rabbi Angelina: My husband and I have an arrangement. He’d be OK with it.

Me: Thanks, but I’ll pass.

Rabbi Angelina: Well, why not? I find you attractive. I like how smart you are.

Me: Um, you’re 15 years older than I am. I’m just not interested.

Rabbi Angelina: Now you’ve hurt my feelings. I’ve put myself out there for you and you shot me down.

Me: Well, I’m sorry…

Rabbi Angelina: After all, you came on to me first.

Me: Excuse me?

Rabbi Angelina: You came on to me, with all that talk about sex. Everybody knows that when a man makes explicit sex talk to a woman, he’s interested in sleeping with her.

The whole conversation disturbed me, and helped convince me that those pushing to abandon Judaism’s preference for opposite-sex relationships were not making much moral sense. A few years later, I approached Rabbi Angelina, and suggested she seek counseling, with or without my assistance, to explore the possibility her behavior may have been inappropriate for a rabbi. Her response? “Never contact me again.”

For the past few years, Rabbi Angelina has refused to sign marriage licenses for brides and grooms in protest of the fact same-sex couples couldn’t marry. Of course, she never admitted to anyone that her vision of acceptable marriages is not limited to ignoring the sex of the the prospective spouses, but to making fidelity optional as well.

I am certainly not saying that all supporters of same-sex marriage are adulterous abusers of the power of the clergy. Most are not. But a surprising number are very confused about what marriage is. I know one gay man who sees no reason for the government to prevent a father and his teenage son from tying the knot. And as far as I can tell I am the only member of the LGBT community who has expressed concern about the extension of marriages to relationships based in part on the eroticization of incest (Daddy-boy relationships) and of chattel slavery (master-slave relationships). Not all members of these subcultures of the gay community keep their kinks in their bedrooms. Some of these couples live out their role playing in their daily lives. Extending matrimony to such relationships would so dilute the meaning of marriage that the institution would become unrecognizable.

So the next time someone proposes changing the definition of marriage, ask a lot of questions about what they think marriage is all about. You may be surprised that they, like Rabbi Angelina, are very confused about the purpose of marriage in our society.