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Paperback
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
ISBN13: 9780805078152
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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"Thoughtful and convincingly argued . . . Rauch's impressive book is as enthusiastic an encomium to marriage as anyone, gay or straight, could write."
—David J. Garrow, The Washington Post Book World
In May 2004, gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts, but it remains a divisive and contentious issue across America. As liberals and conservatives mobilize around this issue, no one has come forward with a more compelling, comprehensive, and readable case for gay marriage than Jonathan Rauch. In this book, he puts forward a clear and honest manifesto explaining why gay marriage is important—even crucial—to the health of marriage in America today, grounding his argument in commonsense, mainstream values and confronting social conservatives on their own turf. Marriage, he observes, is more than a bond between individuals; it also links them to the community at large. Excluding some people from the prospect of marriage not only is harmful to them but also is corrosive of the institution itself.
Gay marriage, he shows, is a "win-win-win" for strengthening the bonds that tie us together and for remaining true to our national heritage of fairness and humaneness toward all.
Marriage, when it's right (and usually when it's wrong), is a subject that stirs strong feelings. Gay marriage inspires its own set of passions, with opponents decrying it as a step that will undermine the very fabric of society while supporters posit it as an inevitable next stage in step-by-step acceptance of homosexuality by mainstream America. Appearing as the issue heats ups following President George W. Bush's call for a constitutional amendment that would block the gathering tide of gay nuptials, this polemic by Atlantic Monthly/National Journal writer Jonathan Rauch deftly walks a fine line, both personalizing the subject (Rauch is a gay man with a longtime lover and a lifelong wistful attitude about marriage) and addressing it with an intellectual poise informed by historical and philosophical perspectives. Rauch actually supports the steady-as-she-goes, state-by-state advancement of gay marriage, believing that "same sex marriage will work best when people accept and understand it, whereas a sudden national enactment, where it suddenly to happen, might spark a culture war on the order of the abortion battle." Might? It says a lot about Rauch's temperance that he doesn't forecast an inevitably fractious future for the nation while it sorts through the implications of gay weddings. There are more impassioned perspectives on the issue, but Rauch's positive approach advances the issue with a welcome coolheadedness that actually suits the controversy. This is, after all, a fight over the right of traditional outsiders to engage in an inherently conservative institution. --Steven Stolder
| Customer Reviews: |
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| In The Dust of Death |
| Customer Rating: 2 out of 5 |
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We can be thankful at least in Rauch's book that he doesn't paint those of us who are conservative Christians as homophobes who hate homosexuals. I don't know any who are around me and if I encountered them, I would try to remind them that Christ commanded us to love people regardless of what they do. However, Rauch doesn't really have new arguments and doesn't address the main issues. Instead, I felt like I was being taken on an appeal to emotion throughout the whole book. That's how the very first chapter starts even!
Now I'm not entirely discounting an appeal to emotion, but if that is what seems to be the fundamental underlying principle, there's a problem. Take the abortion debate. If all I had was emotion, that'd be a problem. If I make a case however that this is a living human being from conception and then point out the realities by speaking of 4,000 babies dying every day, I have appealed to your emotion, but I have also given you facts. The emotion is useless without the facts. I have told you the truth and then how I expect you to respond.
I plan to write a fuller review for my own work later, but I'd like to touch on some issues for Amazon readers. First off, Rauch will not address issues such as the morality of homosexuality or even that there is clear scientific evidence that homosexuality is genetic and even if there was, why it would follow that it is moral. He speaks of homosexuals in a world upside-down. It's just the reverse. The world by and large is right-side up. It's the homosexual community that is upside-down.
Rauch rightly traces much of this to the 60's which got me thinking throughout this book that much of the blame is on we conservatives today. If we had been honoring marriage throughout the years as we should have, we would not be in this mess and I pray when I marry a beautiful young lady and hopefully someday soon, I will be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Another problem has been our lax morality. I believe there are more homosexuals today not because of genes being spread or laws growing lax, but morality growing lax and people seeking to find themselves. At my workplace, we were talking about this topic recently and noted how our society has fallen in that men don't know what it means to be men and women don't know what it means to be women. No wonder they're so confused about sexuality.
Rauch brings out many of the arguments that others have commented on such as the question of infertile couples. What Rauch forgets is that they still represent the institution that society recognizes is capable of bringing forth children. The reason they cannot is a problem within the system. For the homosexual community, it is not a problem within the system but the system is the problem.
Note that marriage is the only relationship that gets this treatment. I live with a roommate as a Seminary student. I didn't need government clearance. I don't need that for my family. If I get married, I have to go to the state. Why? Why does the state care? It cares because the man-woman relationship is that which can produce children and gives the best environment in which to raise them. Why should we give our children anything less than ideal when we don't have to? That's why I'm for marriage. I believe children have the right to be raised by a Mom and a Dad. A man cannot be a Mom and a woman cannot be a Dad.
Rauch might counter that as a Seminary student my position is religious, and he doesn't deal with religion at all. He just says we don't agree and moves on, as if all secularists agreed on everything or if agreement even made something true! I would instead say that my religious belief is in accordance with Natural Law thinking. The question of objective morality is one I don't see Rauch addressing and probably for good reason. After all, before asking if "gay marriage" is good for homosexuals, straights, and America, we need to first ask if it is good.
Now there are many things we condone here in America that aren't good. We condone adultery, gluttony, pornography (excluding child), etc. Now I think these are wrong actions, but I also think that the government is not to be the police until things start interfering with the societal good. Do we want the government monitoring bedrooms, monitoring restaurants, and monitoring our internet usage? We are willing to allow people to error in these ways for the greater good of the whole in the freedom to do good on their own.
Rauch does refer to marriage as a lifelong commitment between two people to put each other in the hands of the other. Good friends could do that however. You don't need the state's approval to do that, which I think is what this all boils down to. This is not about equal rights. This is about approval which makes this situation different. I don't condone adultery. I'm willing to avoid prosecuting it, but I sure won't celebrate it and treat it as a valid action. That's what the state's recognition of homosexual marriage would do. It would make the homosexual relationship equal to the heterosexual, which it is not.
Rauch throughout treats love as a need. I can agree with that. I don't think marriage is a need however. No one dies from lack of sex or lack of marriage. They might not be as pleased, but they live. Also, our notion of happiness today is just wrong. Happiness is really living in conformity to the way the world really is and realizing your niche in it. It is not "having a good time" or "enjoying yourself" or "an emotional high." It can produce those things, but it is not those things.
He refers to a long dark age when homosexuals were constantly persecuted and now we have seen the light. Unfortunately, there is nothing that tells where this light came from or what this light is. Ironically in this on page 65 he says he does not want to compare the homosexual situation with that of the slaves. They are not remotely comparable. Yet on pages 101-103, he does just that!
He also assumes 3 to 5 million Americans are homosexual, which is just simply the Kinsey numbers trotted out again. The work of Judith Reisman on Kinsey is simply monumental and we need to go back in history and undo anything that was based on the false Kinsey data.
Page 78 has the final paragraph stating "If it is true that marriage creates kin, then surely society's interest in kin creation is strongest of all for people who are less likely to have children of their own to rely on in old age and who may be rejected or even evicted....." I wish to concentrate on that part at the start, the "if, then."
I read this paragraph. I read it again. I read it again. I read it I don't know how many times. I took it to others and read it to them, men trained well in logic and said "Am I missing something here?" No connection could be found in these statements. There is no logical connection I see between the "if" and the "then" here.
Very revealing however is on page 100 where he says that if he could have designed himself in the womb, he would have designed himself heterosexual. This seems to be common in homosexual writings. They have this deep sorrow and he does sense he is missing something in life. Unfortunately, Rauch has already written off a cure as impossible. On the other hand, as one with a legitimate disability, I considered it quite tasteless to make a comparison to the disabled community.
On Page 106, he tries to summarize the arguments of Rick Santorum. He has it in five parts saying the first is that marriage is uniquely good for raising children. From then on, all the rest is a miss. He says that without children, marriage is not worth having, which is not Santorum's position. He is saying the institution is there for the raising of children. If some couples don't have children, that's their choice. Now I think that's a bad choice and I'm against birth control, but they have made the choice. Like adultery, I don't condone it, but I allow it so the greater good can be got of people who do realize the blessing children are meant to be.
It is the "Anything Goes" chapter where Rauch is at his weakest. On page 125, he states that homosexuals are not asking for the right to marry anybody that they love. They want to marry someone that they love. My first thought is, "I wasn't realizing someone was fighting for the right to marry somebody they didn't love." However, on page 127 he says that there is no group like homosexuals who are barred from marrying anyone they love, and he emphasizes anyone. Which do you want? We have a contradiction within a few pages.
His arguments against polygamy are quite amusing. Rauch states that the law simply says you can only marry one person you love. The polygamist would rightly argue "Well you changed that. Why aren't I allowed to change it? Why are you excluding the love I have for these multiple women?"
The same with incest. Rauch says he doesn't know of people arguing for incest. Maybe so, but in ethics, you have to deal with these tough cases. Rauch says many of us fall in love with people we can't marry, such as those who are already married. We just have to move on. It's amazing Rauch complains about how homosexuals are excluded when they just want to marry someone they love, but he's very quick to exclude polygamists and incest promoters and just tell them they need to recognize what the law is. All of a sudden, the law is right!
Now I could go on, but I think I've said enough for the time being. I would like to say that we conservatives need to take this as a wake-up call. Start taking marriage seriously. It was because of ideas like the sexual revolution and the problem of no-fault divorce that we eroded marriage to nothing more than a pleasure ride of sex. We need to recover what it is. This issue of homosexuality will either be our finest hour where we reclaim the joy of what marriage is, or it will be our uttermost defeat and we will look over the ruins of what once was and realize where we went wrong and beg to turn back the clock, only to find it too late.
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| Thoughtful and Convincing |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Rauch, Jonathan. "Gay Marriage" Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America", Holt Paperbacks, 2009.
Thoughtful and Convincing
Amos Lassen
Marriage is a subject that everyone has an opinion about and gay marriage certainly has its own set of opinions. Everyone seems to have something to say about it. Some feel that it undermines societal values while others feel it is the next step toward equality of all Americans.
Jonathan Rauch gives us an argument in which he maintains that separate but equal strategies for marriage will weaken the institution of marriage for everyone. He says that the most compelling argument for gay marriage is an issue of morality and only related to equal rights tangentially. Marriage, he says, is the only social reform that can "save gays from what he characterizes as the adolescent and unfulfilling lifestyle that love and sex outside of marriage has forced upon same-sex couples for centuries". By allowing gays to marry, gay relationships would gain the place in society they deserve and thereby a better kind of love would be the result.
Some claim that the reason gay marriage is on the national agenda is because liberal democracy has come into being so that equality under the law can only be denied because of some very persuasive reasons. There are good reasons for same-sex marriage as there are good reasons for anyone to marry. For one thing, marriage tends to domesticate. Marriage is also an extension of the formal recognition of love and the value of marriage is increased over civil unions.
Rauch tells us that the strongest argument about gay marriage is that some feel that male-female marriage is ordained by God. His articulate prose makes reading this easy and he says some very powerful things. He shows us that gay marriage can be a win-win situation because it will strengthen the bonds that tie people together and at the same time stay true with America's ideas of fairness and humanity toward all. It appears that the key is not gender. Who should really care about gender when two people are in love? What is important is if those that want to marry are willing to form a permanent relationship which, in turn, actually "enhances the community".
Rauch defends gay marriage as supporting the values of family and giving strength to the meaning of marriage and extending human rights. He provides us with argument based upon reason and not upon shouting matches. He is open and he is fair. He further states that until gay marriage is accepted, homosexuals will continue to be regarded as second class citizens. Rauch is a liberal secular humanist but unlike others he is able to focus on several arguments. He rewards us with his views and we see why we believe as we do. He avoids the religious issue by saying that different religions have different views and it is nice not to have religion thrown into the issue for a change. Another reviewer found this to be a fault with the thesis but I find it to be a definite plus mainly because religion is nothing more than a means of social control and I say that as an observant Jew.
We are all aware that marriage is a legal contract and religion only enters the picture when those involved want to include it. This could be due to the religious brainwashing that so many of us receive from our parents who may or may not believe but want to offer us the option. It is no wonder that so many gay people turn away from religion. They have been told that they are not wanted.
This is a short book that has a lot to say and whether you agree or not is not important. What is important is that you have been exposed.
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| Fails to Convince This Skeptic |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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In this well-written book, Rauch comes across as thoughtful, intelligent, sincere and willing to give opposing arguments a fair shake. But has he really answered his strongest opponents? Or merely lined up a few straw men?
Rauch occasionally invokes the rhetoric of "equality" to justify gay marriage, but he is not satisfied to rely on it. This is to his credit -- one cannot demand privileges in the name of equality. If "equality" were truly the goal, we should demand the revocation of all married privileges, and treat all persons equally. Since Rauch admits he does not want this, his burden is to prove, to single folk such as myself, that gay persons in committed relationships are somehow *more* deserving of special treatment. And this is exactly what he sets out to show.
Rauch admits that a critical function of marriage is that it creates a favorable environment for raising children. But he seeks to counter this by arguing (1) that marriage serves other functions; (2) that married privileges are accorded to couples who do not procreate; (3) that if we allow privileges to such non-procreative couples, we must also extend them to gays; and (4) that gay couples also have or raise children. I will address each in turn.
(1) Yes, marriage serves many functions, as do all relationships. But these functions are not necessarily appropriate targets for government regulation. For instance, Rauch's idea that it is somehow the government's business to encourage young men to "settle down" strikes me as undemocratic. Nor do other functions matter, if procreation is the real justification.
(2) Rauch starts by assuming, wrongly, that the procreative function of marriage is served by encouraging as many couples to have as many children as possible. Then, when facts fail to fit this narrow view, he cites this as proof that marriage is really about something else. He cites couples who are infertile, or don't intend to have kids, or who stay married after their kids leave.
But the function of marriage is not maximum child production. Rather, marriage creates, like a broad net, an institution that catches each child the moment it enters the world. It works for the sake of unplanned children, as well as those that are planned. It also serves a democratic political function. By providing most children with legal fathers the instant they are born, marriage helps ensure that the rights and responsibilities of procreation rest ultimately with the people. Government recognition of marriage actually serves as a barrier to government intrusion into child-rearing.
Stability is an important aspect of the child-friendly environment that marriage promotes. This goal would not be served if middle-aged men were encouraged to dump their post-menopausal wives so they could compete with younger men for a smaller supply of fertile women. When it suits his purposes, Rauch understands how damaging to families such a dynamic would be, as when he discusses polygamy. But then he puts his blinders back on, and argues that since marriage encourages loyalty even to infertile spouses, it cannot really be about procreation.
Certainly, marriage would seem less attractive, even to young women, if they knew its protections would evaporate as they aged. Marriage cannot serve its child-protective function unless folks believe that its promises will be kept. Moreover, only one member of an "infertile" couple is typically infertile. By encouraging such couples to be faithful, marriage may actually limit procreation -- which is indeed a procreative function. Finally, making child-bearing a pre-condition of marriage benefits would create a moral hazard -- one does not want couples bearing children for improper reasons.
The procreative function of marriage does not end when the wife enters menopause, nor even when the last child grows up and leaves. It ends when the last surviving spouse dies and her belongings pass to her descendants. Also, marriage benefits from having elders set an example to the young by practicing what they preach.
(3) An exception may disprove a rule, but it cannot disprove a system, because no system can be perfect. Even if Rauch could prove that some marriages serve no procreative function, this would be irrelevant, unless Rauch could somehow propose a better system. But Rauch does not seriously propose a better system. He merely suggests that, unless we are willing to change marriage in ways that even Rauch admits are ludicrous, we must admit it is not really about procreation and extend the same privileges to gays. Sorry, Mr. Rauch, I don't buy it. It would hurt kids, not help them, if government were allowed to demand fertility tests, or a promise to bear children, as a precondition to marriage, or to deny marriage benefits to post-menopausal women. The same goes for the rest of Mr. Rauch's silly suggestions.
The procreative function of marriage is too complex an issue for this review, but is far more complex than Rauch acknowledges. Rauch seems not to understand that when a rich bachelor uncle dies and leaves all his money to his niece, this serves the procreative function, and ensures the survival of the uncle's genes. Rauch would much rather the rich uncle's gay lover get the money, and thinks it a tragedy if he does not. I'm not so sure. If that really is the uncle's preference, I think he ought to make a will. To my mind, it might well be a far worse tragedy if he accidentally disinherited his niece just because he and his lover wanted a tax break.
(4) But, says Rauch, gays have children too -- some have kids from prior relationships, others adopt, and still others resort to artificial insemination. But this has nothing to do with marriage. If a bisexual man has a child with a woman, then that is who society would prefer that he marry. If this is impossible, and the child needs a second parent, then adoption (not marriage) is the legal mechanism by which this is achieved. Gay people can adopt, to be sure, but so can single people. In either case, the ability to care for the child is assessed when the adoption is approved. And while I don't think artificial insemination should be forbidden, I think that any scheme that deliberately sets out to create a child without two legal biological parents living in harmony, is not a procreative scheme that society should encourage as ideal. Moroever, the law already provides tax breaks and benefits for those who have kids; the tax breaks of marriage are separate.
In the course of this book, Rauch keeps uttering the disclaimer that he does not mean to disrespect people who do not marry. Ah, but he does. His whole argument is that folks like him are better for society than folks like me, and I am not buying it. I am willing to let government give special breaks to married couples because I understand they are the center, from which the next generation will descend. I am not willing to do the same for Mr. Rauch.
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| It's so great! |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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Five Wishes: How Answering One Simple Question Can Make Your Dreams Come TrueThe Broken HA Secret EdgeAnd the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
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| A Good Book about All Marriage (and a good wedding present) |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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A friend of mine (straight) was given this by a marriage counseler, and he passed it along to me with a comment that it could help a lot of troubled marriages. It is as much a dissertaion on marriage as an argument for gay marriage. It certainly points out, in ways that would be hard to refute, the intellectual dishonesty in arguments against marriage equality. He addresses all of the arguments against marriage equality and lays out a rather simple and compelling argument for it. Anyone who cares enough to debate the issue would do well to read this first. Rauch is a good writer and very smart. You can breeze through this unlike a lot of social commentary, due to his simple and clear writing style. For its genre, it's exceptionally well written, and after reading it, I think the final word in the debate.
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