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By
Orson Scott Card
The single most
effective argument being used to gain support for the redefinition
of marriage to mean anything, therefore nothing, is this:
"It's
not fair that homosexuals can't get married just like heterosexuals."
Defining Fairness
This argument
is only effective because nobody is bothering to define "fairness"
or to figure out whether the result will be in any way more fair
than the hitherto universal definition of marriage. When
our kids were little, we made it a very clear rule in our family
that fairness didn't mean that everybody got exactly what anybody
else got.
"Suppose
we buy a dress for your sister," I said to my son. "Would
you want us to get a dress for you too?"
"No, but
I want clothes."
"Of course.
But it doesn't have to be the same day, and it doesn't have to cost
the same." In particular, I pointed out to the kids that
when I was traveling, sometimes I'd find something that was just
perfect for one of the kids — or for their mother.
"If that
happens," I said, "I'll come home with a present for that
person. It doesn't mean I don't love the others just as much.
And it isn't unfair. What would be unfair is if I couldn't
buy that perfect gift for one person just because it would make
the others jealous."
They got it.
And in the long run, they recognized that people with different
needs can't be treated exactly alike. In fact, it would be
grossly unfair even to try.
For instance,
our handicapped son, Charlie Ben, never got to run, or build with
blocks, or go on a date with a girl — and not because he didn't
want to.
A Fair Society
But we taught
our other kids that they had no reason to feel guilty just because
they could do things their brother couldn't do. Nor was there
any reason to hide from him the fact that there were activities
he couldn't take part in.
Instead, we
provided for Charlie Ben everything that he could reasonably use,
and showed our love for him in every way we could. He had
the best life that we could put within his reach, and if sometimes
he was sad, he was never resentful of his brother and sisters.
Instead he delighted in the good things they did and was glad for
them. They also rejoiced with him over his triumphs, even
though they were things that they could do easily.
If we
had demanded that Charlie Ben do everything his siblings could do,
or if we had forbidden them to do anything that Charlie Ben could
not do equally well, it would have been grossly unfair either way.
A fair society is one in which people don't put up
phony barriers just to keep one particular group down.
But it's also
one where people who have natural limitations don't try to drag
down those who don't have those limitations.
And don't think
for a minute that this is an essay against affirmative action for
African-Americans. Quite the opposite — considering that in
American society, Blacks spent generations bowed down under the
deliberate oppression of Jim Crow and the terrorism of "lynch
law," simple decency required that besides stopping the oppression,
we collectively offer a hand to help them recover from the damage
so unfairly done to them.
Fairness Making
Up for Every Deficiency?
It's good to
be in a society that tries to raise the floor wherever we can.
Handicapped parking places and ramps are a sign of public compassion.
Welfare for children whose parents haven't been able to provide
for them; grants and scholarships for bright, hardworking, but financially
strapped students — these things make sense.
The problem
is when people think "fairness" means that society has
to make up for every deficiency in their lives.
Worse yet are
the people who, when it's impossible for society to give them the
same benefits that others have, demand that those benefits should
be taken away even from those who are in a position to make use
of them.
Imagine how
ridiculous it would be if blind people demanded that because we
can't restore their sight, the rest of us should live our lives
blindfolded. Fairness has to include a recognition of the
differences between people.
It also has
to be able to adapt to random chance. Not every inequality
in life is somebody's fault. And even when some unfortunate
inequality can be blamed on someone's action, there isn't necessarily
any sensible remedy.
For some things,
we just have to tough it out. Maybe even keep some griefs
and frustrations private, put on a good face for the rest of the
world, and be glad things aren't even worse than they are.
An Example There are times when our government acts in ways that
seem grossly unbalanced — and yet these actions benefit everybody
and should continue. Let me give you an obvious example: The
mortgage interest tax deduction.
On the surface,
this is about as unfair as a law can be. People who can afford
to buy houses are subsidized by the government. Most of each
monthly house payment consists of interest on the mortgage, so when
the government allows interest to be deducted from taxable income,
it can be a sizable discount.
Worse yet,
it's completely regressive — the more expensive your house, the
larger your mortgage, the more you can deduct. And the higher
your income and therefore the higher your tax rate, the higher the
percentage of your house payment you end up deducting!
On top of that,
these people are accruing equity in their homes — enormous profits
on which they don't have to pay taxes when they sell their homes,
as long as they sink the money back into another house.
And there sit
all those poor renters, getting no tax break, paying more than the
actual cost of their housing (since the landlord gets his profit),
and accruing no interest. When they move out of one rental
property, chances are they'll forfeit some part of their deposit
— they lose out in every way. Why in the world do Americans, who
are almost obsessive about being "fair" these days, allow
such an unfair system to continue? Why aren't renters rioting
in the streets, or at the very least picketing Congress?
Here's why:
Most renters fully expect that someday they will buy a house.
And they know that without being able to count on that huge tax
break on mortgage interest payments, it would be far harder to afford
to make the transition to home ownership.
And it's more
than the selfishness of those who hope to take advantage of an unfair
system. Society as a whole benefits from ever-higher proportions
of home ownership. Home owners tend to be more stable, to
move less. They pay property taxes. They keep up their
yards. They're more likely to pay their bills; and if they
run into hard times, their home equity usually allows them to borrow
the money to tide them over till the emergency passes — without
going on welfare.
America is
a better society precisely because we bend over backward to make
it possible for people to make the transition from renting to owning.
Now, not all
home owners live up to these ideals. Some of them don't pay
their bills; some of them can't handle their financial emergencies;
some of them don't keep up their property and let them become eyesores
or even hazards to their neighbors.
But the deficiencies
of some home owners don't cause anyone to seriously propose that
all home ownership should be abolished, or that the tax break for
mortgage interest should be eliminated because some people are not
living up to expectations.
So, in the
long run, is the special tax break for mortgage-paying homeowners
really unfair at all? Or is it, in fact, a way of being as
fair as we possibly can — to open the door to home ownership to
as many people as possible?
(Now, personally,
I think that there could be a reasonable ceiling on the deduction
without losing a bit of the public benefit — let's say that you
could only deduct your mortgage interest until it equals some percentage
of the amount of the national median income. I can't see that
we get any benefit at all from subsidizing the huge mortgages on
ten-million-dollar mansions. (But that's a matter of tweaking
the law — the fundamental principle is, in fact, fair, even though
it seems grossly unfair upon first examination.)
Compare to Marriage
So now let's compare this to marriage. Historically, governments
and churches came late to the game — marriages between men and women
were going on long before they were co-opted by public laws or religious
rites.
In effect,
though, governments and churches gave their sanction to marriages
in order to encourage people to live up to the obligations and expectations
of marriage.
That's because
nobody thought of marriage as a "right." It was
a responsibility, one which some people took far too lightly.
Governments and churches intervened to encourage people to take
them seriously and help them to thrive.
If a woman
and man promise to remove themselves from the marriage pool, take
care of each other regardless of circumstance, provide for their
children, and bring them up to be responsible members of the society,
then they should get special benefits.
Churches provided
the benefit of public ceremony, the promise of divine sanction for
the sacred family, and such support for child-rearing as the moral
teaching, charity, and neighborliness of the congregation offer.
Governments,
in their turn, provided a much simpler ceremony, but could offer
legal protection for the family from outside harassment, as well
as additional financial and social support for families. In addition,
both power centers — the church and the state — promised not to
meddle in or weaken the family unit, and to provide various penalties,
social or legal, for those failed to live up to their marriage promises.
This system is obviously unfair to many people, not to homosexuals
in particular.
It's unfair
to people who, because of their looks or social skills or lack of
money or prospects are unable to find someone willing to marry them.
It's unfair to people who get bored or frustrated with their marriage
or who, for various reasons, can't take advantage of the full range
of benefits. And, yes, it's unfair to those whose sexual predilections
make marriage unattractive to them. Just because a person
has a reproductive dysfunction shouldn't bar him or her from the
full benefits of this widespread practice of marriage, should it?
How unfair!
And so it seems
— especially to those who haven't given it any thought beyond sloganeering.
In fact, however, just as that unfair mortgage interest tax deduction
benefits everybody, so does the special protection for marriage
between a man and a woman.
Benefits
Everybody
Unfortunately,
many of those benefits are hard to demonstrate right now because
we have spent the past fifty years wiping out most of the things
that once made marriage so valuable to civilization.
No longer does
society discourage people from breaking their marriage vows, whether
through adultery, abandonment, or divorce. Going after "deadbeat
dads" is merely a clumsy, ineffective substitute that deals
only with finances, and not with any of the other devastating effects
of broken promises.
No longer are
those who bear children out of wedlock socially stigmatized.
No longer are
children protected during their vulnerable adolescent years from
the possibility of entering into nonce relationships that lead to
babies being born without responsible parents. But the fact that
our society has made some gross mistakes that cripple marriages
and families doesn't mean that we will get any benefit from abolishing
marriage altogether, replacing it with laws that allow any relationship
to be called "marriage," thereby removing the last shred
of societal protection from real marriages. In the name of
"fairness," what we are poised to do now is make it impossible
to give any legal or social advantage to those who are actually
engaged in bearing and raising children in households where a father
and a mother provide the essential gender role models that will
give their children the best chance of entering society as adults
who are ready to take on child-bearing and child-rearing themselves.
We have vast
scientific and statistical evidence already that children thrive
best in families that have one father and one mother, who pool their
financial resources, are sexually faithful to each other, and remain
married to each other until they are parted by death, and provide
for their children to the best of their ability.
In all the
criticism of "traditional values" and all the attacks
on "dysfunctional families," it's good to remember that
nobody has yet invented a better system.
And until we
have a better system, it makes no sense at all to destroy the last
vestige of the old system.
So when you
hear someone talk about how "extending marriage to gay people"
is "simple fairness," think again. Is it fair to
the children who will grow up in a society that insists on magnifying
any trace of reproductive dysfunction? Is it fair for all
of us to be forced to raise our children without public encouragement
for reproductive normality and monogamous, heterosexual, lifetime
marriages?
Just as there
are people who for reasons of their own will always be renters,
who never get to benefit from that tax deduction for home buyers,
so there will always be people excluded from the joys and responsibilities
of marriage and child-rearing.
But it should
provoke, not sympathy, but scorn when some of those unfortunate
people demand that special protection for marriage be abolished
solely because they have no personal desire to participate in it.
Instead they
demand that their non-marriage relationships be called marriage,
and that public schools from now on should teach all of our children
that those reproductively dysfunctional relationships should be
held up as equally valid models for our children to aspire to.
Not only that,
but even before any vote is taken, even before the courts have decided
to dictate this course of action, they demand that their opponents
be silenced because any opposition is "hate speech."
It should be
obvious that we're no longer talking about fairness. Because
once we allow one side in an argument to demand that their opponents
be silenced, we have already decided that fairness no longer plays
a role in our society.
It is pitiable,
even tragic, when, for various reasons, anyone is involuntarily
cut off from the reproductive cycle of life. But it is grossly unfair
to demand, in the name of "fairness," that the normal
pattern of marriage and family be deprived of its privileged position
in our society, just so a few people can feel better about dysfunctions
that even they insist are nobody's fault.
First
Published in the Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro NC.
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