The threat of heterosexual remarriage

Jeff Jacoby offers his opinion in today's Boston Globe on what he sees as "just a shred" of evidence that gay marriage can have a negative impact on heterosexual marriage.

Well, here's a shred of evidence: The Boston Globe reports that in the three years since Vermont extended near-marriage status to same-sex civil unions, nearly 5,700 gay and lesbian couples have registered their relationship. Of those couples, close to 40 percent, or more than 2,000, include at least one partner who used to be married.

Just a shred - but a jarring one. Of course, it doesn't mean that Vermont's civil union law broke up 2,000 straight couples. It does mean that where there used to be 2,000 traditional marriages, there are now 2,000 ruptured ones - and 2,000 gay or lesbian unions in their place. Were some of those marriages doomed from the outset? Probably. But it's also probable that some of them weren't. In another time or another state, some of those marriages might have worked out. The old stigmas, the universal standards that were so important to family stability, might have given them a fighting chance. Without them, they were left exposed and vulnerable.

So, because 2,000 people who used to be in heterosexual marriages are now in a homosexual civil unions, Jacoby thinks this indicates that civil unions may have a detrimental effect on heterosexual marriages? I'm really not sure how he can come to this kind of a conclusion. There's simply not enough information to make any kind of an assumption about what the numbers themselves might mean.

For example, we don't know when the original heterosexual marriages ended in divorce. If the divorces occured prior to the civil union law being put into effect, then it cannot be claimed that the civil union law had any impact on the heterosexual marriage at all. And even if the divorce happened subsequently to the law being passed, it doesn't prove that the civil union law played any part in it.

Keep in mind that for quite some time, now, this country has had a divorce rate of roughly 50%. Half of all marriages end in divorce, and I'd venture to say that most of those people end up in another relationship at some point, be it heterosexual or homosexual; a marriage, domestic partnership or civil union.

I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I would not be the least bit surprised if it turned out that a large percentage of marriages involved people who had been married before. Would Jacoby assume that heterosexual marriage, and the ease of getting remarried, is similarly responsible for breaking up marriages? Should heterosexual re-marriage be illegal as a result?

Jacoby is worried that civil unions create a situation in which the "stigmas" that helped keep people focused on "family stability" are weakened, and thus people are more likely to leave their marriage rather than trying to make it "work". Yet you rarely see similar concern that allowing heterosexual re-marriage can create the same vulnerability, even though the same logic - that the availability of a new and legally sanctioned relationship makes it easier to leave an old relationship that isn't working well - would apply.

Jacoby's reference to "stigmas", however, leads me to look at this from a somewhat different angle. Even with civil unions being legal in one state, homosexual relationships - along with homosexuality in general - is still very heavily stigmatized. Many gays and lesbians go through many years of denial about their sexuality before finally admitting to themselves that they truly are homosexual. It's not at all uncommon to hear a gay or lesbian speak about how they had gotten into a heterosexual marriage to try and cover-up their homosexuality, or as a way of "curing" their homosexuality. Some even think that by committing themselves to another person, they can "forget" about being gay all together. Typically, though, these marriages fail because the person finds they cannot deny who they really are.

If, however, the stigma of homosexuality was removed - if we, as a society, could find a way to accept homosexuality and homosexual relationships - including allowing gay marriage - gays and lesbians would no longer feel a need to hide or deny their own feelings, and they'd be less likely to enter into these doomed heterosexual relationships as ways of trying to deny their homosexuality to themselves and the world.

Now, obviously, this isn't going to eliminate divorce - I doubt it would make that much of a dent in the overall divorce rate - but it makes as much sense to think that acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual relationships would help strengthen heterosexual messages by eliminating those marriages that are entered into for the wrong reasons, (thus preventing the divorces and broken families that result) as it does to think that legalizing gay marriage is going to break up numerous heterosexual marriages. Of course, that won't solve the problem of marriages breaking up because of ease of re-marriage, but it might be a start, eh?

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Posted by thorswitch at July 3, 2003 02:06 PM | TrackBack