Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott at least makes a more coherent argument against gay marriage than Rick Santorum ever did.
Attorney General Greg Abbott says Texas’ same-sex marriage ban should remain in place because legalizing it would do little or nothing to encourage heterosexual couples to get married and have children.
Writing in a brief filed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, Abbott said the state was not obligated to prove why gay marriage might be detrimental to the economic or social well-being of Texans. It was only required to show how opposite-sex marriage would be more beneficial for its citizens.
That’s a little unclear. Let’s see if this helps.
“The State is not required to show that recognizing same-sex marriage will undermine heterosexual marriage,” the brief read. “It is enough if one could rationally speculate that opposite-sex marriages will advance some state interest to a greater extent than same-sex marriages will.”
The new filing largely reiterated the same “responsible procreation” argument Abbott made in July, when the state first appealed a a February district court’s ruling overturning the Texas gay marriage ban. In it, Abbott argued marriage among heterosexual partners is more beneficial to society because it encourages married couples to have children and provides an example for other couples to do the same.
Notice that Mr. Abbott isn’t arguing that allowing same-sex marriage will lead people to marry animals. Instead, he argues that when men and women get married before having children, they set a positive example for other people that has the effect of reducing the number of out-of-wedlock births. And, by his argument, the example of same-sex partners getting married does not share this salutary effect on the health of society.
Of course, same-sex marriages create their own examples, including the idea that being gay doesn’t preclude having a loving, potentially monogamous relationship. By reducing promiscuity, at least potentially, and increasing the quality of life for marginalized people, same-sex marriage has its own salutary effects.
And, of course, if reducing the stigma attached to homosexuality and making people happy are values the state cares about, then there’s a state interest in promoting same-sex marriage.
Abbott’s argument isn’t particularly good, and it isn’t convincing, but it is at least some kind of argument. Man on Dog was never an argument.
Still, even the idea that the state has a compelling interest in deterring out-of-wedlock births seems dubious to me because it sounds good in theory but it begins to fall apart in practice. To what degree should the state go to promote this interest? They can’t go very far before they get themselves involved in discriminatory practices.
