Joseph Sobran’s
Washington Watch

Do Sodomites Have Duties?

(Reprinted from the issue of February 26, 2004)

The subject of same-sex “marriage” has already been discussed ad nauseam, yet one important angle has been neglected. As usual in the liberal public square, everything has been argued in terms of “equal rights.” Homosexual activists say they are only asking for the same rights others now enjoy as a matter of course.

Well, they already have the same right to marry others have — that is, to marry someone of the other sex. They may not want that, or they may be unfortunately incapable of exercising it, but they do have it. They are demanding that marriage be absurdly redefined, and made to mean something it has never meant, for their special benefit. This is even more radical than redefining “civil rights” to mean special racial privileges.

Besides — and this is what particularly interests me — marriage is not only a “right,” but a set of objective responsibilities. In days of yore (say, 1955) when a young man got his girlfriend pregnant, he was expected to offer to marry her, both for her sake and for the child’s. The “shotgun” marriage wasn’t very romantic, but it was a marriage. Legal abortion has greatly reduced its frequency, but it shows that marriage is something more than, and other than, a happy culmination of falling in love. Though it excites powerful emotions, those emotions aren’t its essence or its reason for being.

Have you heard any proponent of same-sex marriages mention the theme of responsibility? Of course not. One reason for marriage, after all, is to make sure people, especially men, fulfill their duties. And what duties are incurred by the act of sodomy? Does anyone commit sodomy in the spirit of normal couples starting a family? To ask these questions is to answer them.

Try to imagine a homosexual deciding that he should delay marrying, or that he should save his virginity for his “spouse.” Try to imagine his parents worrying that he is insufficiently mature for a lifelong same-sex union. It gets sillier and sillier.

One theme of the new institution’s proponents is that they are entitled to the same “marital benefits” as other people. Here we are at least returning to the objective world. Employers and government would have to pony up billions of dollars in benefits to same-sexers, just as they now do to actual married couples and families.

In fact there would nothing to prevent two normal men or women from contracting a same-sex “marriage” on paper in order to enjoy the material advantages of the fiction. Nobody could very well demand proof that such a union had actually been consummated; and to deny the right to contract it would be “discrimination.”

Less than ever is marriage something that merely occurs “between two people”; it imposes obligations on other people, and on the state — even if the two principal parties feel no duty toward each other! The general assumption of marriage is that both spouses will be more or less faithful to each other; but homosexual unions are often “open,” with both partners free to “cruise” for sexual “action” elsewhere.

So what is being advanced is more an inversion of marriage than genuine marriage. The partners are to receive public recognition as spouses, but with no real responsibilities, while new obligations are heaped on society at large.

Again, no homosexual activist has said: “It’s only fair that gay people should have to assume the same duties of fidelity and family responsibility as everyone else!” The subject is simply never discussed in that light.
 
Consequences and Perils

For that matter, the opponents of this newfangled “matrimony” never argue that homosexuals owe society anything either. Why should they? They understand perfectly well that sodomy is in its essence a sterile, irresponsible act, and that it would be preposterous to talk as if it could be a positive source of moral and social duties.

In a sense, sodomite unions can’t be marriages for the simple reason that there are certain harms sodomy can’t inflict. It doesn’t produce single mothers, illegitimate children, and all the attendant evils of crime and disorder associated with them. It’s because normal intercourse has special consequences, and therefore perils, that we need marriage.

Being grossly unsanitary, sodomy does spread disease, but this hardly warrants marriage as a remedy. On the contrary, homosexuality is so distasteful because the only life it fosters is not human, but bacteriological. I suppose there is a certain responsibility not to spread infection, but this hardly rises to the dignity of normal family responsibility.

A final argument for monosex matrimony, offered by “conservatives” like Andrew Sullivan and David Brooks, is that homosexuals should be encouraged to be monogamous. Advocates of this position appear not to be joking. Since when have sodomites, even in more or less permanent relationships, put a premium on fidelity? Is anyone seriously suggesting that adultery should be grounds for same-sex divorce?

If you are going to sin, or “deviate” (even that word now seems a bit quaint), you have a certain duty to make sure you do as little harm as possible. You should avoid scandal, respect outward forms, and take care not to injure the innocent. Some homosexuals (and other sinners) have always had the sense to know this.

But obviously we’ve come far, far beyond such Victorian decencies. The public debate over sodomite “rights” and unions is already a sign of how our standards have sunk. Today we are arguing insanely over things that used to be unmentionable in polite company. I am old enough to remember when nobody would think of talking about abortion at the dinner table. Today the public schools feel obliged to instruct the little ones in methods of “safe sex.”

It’s a revolting subject, and arguing against the claims of sodomy may seem superfluous, heartless, or both. But one result of its phony “normalization” is that we can no longer freely discuss the tragedy of homosexual life. The impenitent and belligerent activists have totally upstaged the countless homosexuals who, far from being “gay,” are sad, regretful, and depressed about the lives they lead, and who need help — especially spiritual help.
 
Standards to Uphold

The simple test is this. Would anyone wish that condition on a loved one, or rejoice to be told, “Mom and Dad, I’m gay”? Does even the most liberal expectant parent say, “We don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, as long as it’s gay or lesbian”?

Again, these questions answer themselves. I’ve ached with pity to learn that good friends were homosexual or, even worse, pedophilic. (Some are now dead or in prison.)

The new “scientific” argument that some people are biologically predisposed — predestined, you might say — to homosexuality is a way of saying they have no choice in the matter; that is, no responsibility. But even if that were true, it would be perfectly logical to regard it as a birth defect.

Yet there are still standards to uphold; and when the natural law itself is under fanatical attack, when even a major political party is committed to its denial, we can’t afford to be too delicate about defending what used to be universal common sense.


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Joseph Sobran