The Target of Marriage

Iowa Supreme Court Justice Mark Cady wrote the following in his opinion in the Varnum v. Brien case:

The benefit denied by the marriage statute - the status of civil marriage for same-sex couples - is so “closely correlated with being homosexual” as to make it apparent the law is targeted at gay and lesbian people as a class.

I am tempted to repeat the refrain: Correlation is not causation.

Heh.

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The man-woman criterion of the marriage statute is aimed at the core meaning of marriage and the justification for lines drawn on eligibility.

For instance, the statute refers to one man and one woman and thus draws the following lines:

1. Just men and women, not boys nor girls.

2. Monogamous marriage, not polygyny nor polyandry nor polyamory nor bigamy.

3. Twosomes, not threesomes nor moresomes.

4. Sex integration, not sex segregation.

What is the cause or the source of the man-woman criterion in the marriage statute? The societal concern for the core meaning of marriage: sex integration and responsible procreation combined as a coherent whole.

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The marriage statute is positively aimed at the class of relationship that can provide for responsible procreation as per the marital presumption of paternity and the unity of fatherhood and motherhood.

On that basis, the marriage law draws lines against some related people but not all related people. The denial of marital status is far more strongly correlated with being closely related than with being "homosexual".

Likewise with being already married or being a child.

Indeed these "targets" are explicitly ineligible in the marriage statute and that is because the conjugal relationship, as a distinct sexual type or class of relationship, is two-sexed.

The marriage statute simply distinguishes between marriage and nonmarriage. Naturally, the benefits of marital status are denied to nonmarital arrangements whether these lack adults, unrelated people, monogamy, or one of the sexes.

When such is lacked, the arrangements provide for more sex-segregation and for an inferior form of procreation. Note that the contingency for responsible procreation is not just about making babies: it begins before conception and continues long after childbirth. And sex integration goes far deeper both on a private level and on a public level than mere sexual attraction or a romp in the haystack.

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Meanwhile, marital status is not denied to people who'd identify as gay or lesbian just because they identify as gay or lesbian. What Justice Cady stated above is not even implied in the marriage statute.

The "same-sex" category is ineligible, as a type of arrangement, not due to homosexuality but due to the lack of one or the other sex. There is NO sexual orientation requirement. Two heterosexual men are inelgiible; two heterosexual women are ineligible.

Ineligibility is closely correlated with increased sex-segregation and the undermining of responsible procreation. Hence the lines drawn against children, related people, and already-married people. The correlation is more obvious when one or the other sex is excluded from the arrangement.

The marriage statute does NOT require that the applicant show or delcare a sexual orientation or a socio-political identity -- homosexual, gay, lesbian or otherwise.

It merely requires that the union of husband and wife includes both a groom and a bride.

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The cause and the justification of the lines is the core meaning of marriage. The lines are drawn around that core. The effect is to deny eligibility based on an arrangement that affronts rather than affirms that core meaning. The special status for the conjugal relationship (i.e. marital status) shows the preference for the advantages society gains from rising toward the aspirational goals of that core meaning.

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Whatever it is called, gay "marriage" or gay "union, an arrangement that is based on gay identity politics may have its special merits (and its inevitable demerits) but its advocates ought to make an independent claim based on its core meaning.

Justice Cady might be such an advocate. If so, he ought to resign from the bench and seek election to public office -- or employment with one of Iowa's gay lobby groups.

Large chunks of his written opinion read like a pro-SSM pamphlet. His ipse dixits gives him a headstart with the pro-SSM crowd. But Cady has yet to provide a robust justification (if there is such a thing) for a special relationship status that would arise from homosexuality that targets the gay and lesbian "class".