Independent media needs you. Join the Tyee.

Books

Tyee Books

Not the Marrying Kind?

Somerville's silly Massey Lecture against same-sex marriage.

By Charles Campbell 7 Nov 2006 | TheTyee.ca

Charles Campbell is editor of Tyee Books. Read his previous articles here.

image atom
Ethicist Margaret Somerville.
  • The Ethical Imagination: Journeys of the Human Spirit
  • Margaret Somerville
  • House of Anansi Press (2006)

What is the strongest argument that can be made against same-sex marriage? Renowned Montreal ethicist Margaret Somerville puts her best case forward in The Ethical Imagination. It's a book about many other things -- the importance of maintaining our sense of connection with the natural world, the nature of the sacred, our shared social responsibilities in this moment and to the future. She rejects moral relativism, which is fine by me.

But her opposition to the state bestowing the word "married" on gay and lesbian couples occupies a pivotal section of the book, the companion volume to this year's Massey Lectures, which are being broadcast on CBC this week. It's this argument that The Globe and Mail chose to excerpt on Oct. 20 with "Why I am against same-sex marriage."

Somerville's view is very simple: procreative marriages are normal, their homosexual equivalents are transgressive, and therefore it is a potentially damaging affront to the meaning and value of marriage in our society to say that homosexuals are married.

She frames this argument with a bit of science, such as evidence in the emerging field of epigenetics that rats unlicked by their mothers at birth don't show strong nurturing instincts in later life. She emphasizes the power of language, and asks us to consider the impact of the language choices we make now on generations hence. She talks about the importance of maintaining social taboos "to protect that which we hold most dear, that which we hold sacred."

She talks about the right of children to know and be connected to biological parents. Somerville believes "same-sex marriage unavoidably nullifies this right for all children."

She says: "Words matter. Language is never neutral in ethics."

'Marry' quite contrary

Somerville sometimes comes across as though she's using the language not of an ethicist but of a statistician. Instead of talking about "normal," she talks about "norms." She talks about different but equal. Yet she wants to use the word marriage in a deeply moral manner. She advocates a sort of linguistic apartheid.

Would she have argued most of a century ago that Canadian women deserved the right to vote but that doesn't necessarily mean they should be legal "persons"? Of course not, but the analogy does point to the absurdity of talking about equality under law without acknowledging the importance of equality in language.

Now, I'm no moral relativist lost in some postmodern soup of no distinction. Language defines differences. Or so I've heard. But how we use language is an inexact science.

"Marry" is a word with many nuances and sometimes contrary definitions. My 1913 Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary follows the usual primary definition regarding the union of a man and woman in matrimony with these various meanings: "enter into common-law relations," "unite in a close union," "enter into a conjugal state," and even "jump over a broomstick."

The dictionary is in some regards an unfortunate creature of its time and origin, in that it offers the sentence, "When I marry a flirt, I will buy second-hand clothes of a Jew" as an example of usage. Yet it also notes that while "marry was formerly more often used of the priest...it is now more commonly used of the contracting parties themselves."

While Somerville says using the word "marriage" to describe a gay relationship "necessarily negates" its normative use to describe a procreative relationship, she remains silent on the implications for the definition "jump over a broomstick."

Language does evolve to reflect social norms and serve social objectives. At different times and places in the last century, the words negro, coloured, black, African-American and Niggers With Attitude would conjure wildly different associations. Likewise faggot, queer and dyke. It all depends on who is using the words and for what purpose.

Vows to reproduce?

Margaret Somerville, on the other hand, believes that we can see the word "marriage" in black and white. It seems strange to be patronizing an ethicist held in such high esteem in so many quarters (founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, Samuel Gale Chair in the Faculty of Law and a professor in the Faculty of Medicine), but here's a tip for her: one word can have more than one meaning, and one definition does not necessarily negate another. The definition of marriage as "unite in close union" -- which Somerville uses in the book in that context -- does not necessarily undermine its use to describe a procreative relationship.

Ironically, I do agree that marriage has one most significant meaning, and I don't find much discussion of it in dictionaries, which can be bloodlessly technical and sometimes out of date. Marriage symbolizes love and commitment between two people. Those elements are not always a fact in married relationships, but they are the highest values to which we aspire in the institution. Procreation is not nearly so central to our current common understanding of the word. I've never been to a wedding where the vows were "to love, honour, cherish and have children."

This perspective was the key to Bishop Michael Ingham's thinking when the Anglican diocese for Greater Vancouver voted in 2002 to permit (but not require) its ministers to bless homosexual marriages. "We are calling [homosexuals] to fidelity, permanence and stability in relationships," Ingham said at the time. "We are offering them the support of the Christian community as they grow into the fullness of the stature of Christ through the struggles and challenges of mutual commitment."

We've rectified many of the injustices our society has inflicted on gays and lesbians. Homosexual acts are no longer illegal, as they were in Canada little more than three decades ago. Just four years ago, Canadian immigration rules were changed to allow Canadian homosexuals to sponsor foreign partners to immigrate.

But notwithstanding changes in law, and notwithstanding all those gay characters on television, when there were virtually none just a decade ago, gays and lesbians are still far from being equals in our society.

Who's 'transgressive'?

The worst form of discrimination is to deny homosexuals basic respect for who they are. Do gay men form fewer long-term monogamous partnerships than heterosexual men -- are they more promiscuous -- because of social factors? Is it a problem that many people in our society -- many parents -- view homosexual relationships, to use Somerville's frame, as "not normal" and "transgressive"? Is it a problem that the possible outcome of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's commitment to revisit Canadian law on gay marriage is in doubt?

Oh yeah. More than a few people have died because of the belief that homosexual behaviour is a taboo. We still live in a society that creates impediments for gays and lesbians to gain what we all desire most: love and security in our homes, and with our families. We still live in a society that wants to emphasize the difference, and the current tool of choice is one of the most emotional-laden words in the English lexicon.

Somerville talks about the precautionary principle, as though somehow our procreative society will be damaged generations hence by a new state-sanctioned use of the word "married." I don't think men and women will stop having sex. And notwithstanding the latest research in epigenetics, I hardly think that the sex of parents is the primary element in creating a nurturing environment for children.

Somerville does say some things I believe to be true. She writes, "Using language to define and label is not a neutral activity and is often an exercise of power. Therefore definition and labelling must be undertaken ethically, especially when the impact is to demonize others or to include or exclude certain people and ideas."

Yet Somerville wants officialdom to remind gays and lesbians of their disentitlement on their wedding days. She wants us to say that what they are doing is abnormal and transgressive.

"Marriage" and "marry," it seems, aren't the only words that Somerville and I don't understand in the same way.

 [Tyee]