This week, a "DC Madam" has stoked the fires of delight that certain moralizers are shown to be hypocrites, namely Randall Tobias. With 46 pounds of phone records served up to the news media (ABC), not even a court or a judge, that air has quickly shifted to one of anticipation.
But, can you imagine a world in which no opprobrium whatsoever attached to such actions?
It's clear that many do hold such views, while also reveling in the apparent 'hypocrisy'. (That's just a statement of fact about beliefs, not a judgment).
One commentator in a student newspaper writes:
There is certainly a relationship between a person's character - and therefore their ability to lead - and their personal life. It is also true that public servants must live up to different standards than other individuals, as they are responsible in theory for the welfare of entire populations. But I still think that the private sexual lives of even the most powerful politicians are irrelevant to their skills as leaders and policymakers.
What if, rather than resigning, Tobias had come before the cameras and said, "My wife and I have an open marriage. I didn't 'cheat'. I did nothing wrong - I would never do that. I serve at the pleasure of the President and will not resign so long as I think I can be effective."
THE LINK WITH A GAY MARRIAGE ETHICOver at the Volokh Conspiracy, one of the few places that actually attempts to have a topically intermittent, reasonably open forum for deliberative discussion on gay marriage issues, Dale Carpenter has taken the risk of opening up 'cracks' in the debate just enough to allow people to exchange views and, luckily, most of the people appear to have been able to do it, without flaming out. Without surprise, one of the issues is related:
One of the "traditional cultural message[s] about marriage," I believe, is fidelity. To the extent that homosexual relationships dismiss with fidelity as a fundamental foundation of the relationship, I believe they do damage to its adherence in heterosexual marriage. I think it goes without saying that it would not be healthy for children to be raised in a heterosexual marriage similarly "open."
Now, you may dispute that deleterious practices of homosexual couples will have any effect on the practices of heterosexual married couples, but I think that is simply naive. As a married man, my relationship with my wife is affected and shaped by the practices of other married couples. I would not make it my practice to be in close friendly association with married men who regularly commit adultery, and my wife would be more than entitled to request that I not. Attitudes rub off, and both prevalent practice and the law are tutors.
What to do about this?
At a minimum, at least we can say it is an issue in the debate, maybe 'in the batter's box' compared to where the big 'moral issues' are raging, factors that drive anti-gay amendment approvals to 78% in some states, like 'ick-factor' prejudices, re-enforcing scriptural ignorance and language (viz. "abomination"), and possibly self-aggrandizing views of what marriage is all about. [I have no poll or focus group data, so this list is just a best estimate. The polls I could find are "approve"/"disapprove". To move opinion, why attitudes are held is required].
If there is agreement that it is an issue, then, if you pause to think about it, that might inform ways to handle it in a political strategy.
FROM ONE SIZE FITS ALL TO ANYTHING GOES
Many share the view that consenting adults ought to be able to do what they want sexually, free from the glare of the public's eye. That's attractive and compelling, to me. (And I believe in a broader tolerance than quite a few to achieve that kind of freedom. Not that my views matter particularly, but there it is).
Are there other considerations?
Some conservatives will observe that a consenting-adults-only standard is not what we have now, so care should be taken in adopting other views. They posit some unexplained wisdom embodied in the current structure of affairs, even if there seems to be injustice in it. For many, this is obviously not compelling.
I can think of two other, perhaps more intuitively framed considerations.
The first we might call historical humility. In the past, when people have had sexual license, licentiousness has followed in ways that have created civic disorder and pathology, without specifying too much about why that might be. Basically, the weight of 'complete' freedom, if given to people proves to be too much. If you need an example, have a look at traffic. On a rainy day (i.e. 'hazardous conditions'), a few weeks ago, someone nearby me committed three 'infractions' in a matter of 15 seconds or so, a dangerous lane change, failure to signal (twice), talking on a cell phone while doing the above. People don't seem to handle their freedom well, for whatever reasons, as a matter of historical inference.
You don't need a dismal view of fellow citizens, either, to get to the same conclusion, although one certainly could argue that "consenting adults" implies "responsible choice" and among the "uneducated multitudes" few have the education or discipline to be self-limiting without guideposts to help them out (it's not clear that educated people have more moral compass, so I don't make that kind of argument). There are two other systematic mechanisms. One is least common denominator (maybe coupled with the multiplication of needs). The other is peer pressure.
People are always looking over their shoulder to see who is having more fun and why. Suppose we had an "open marriage" ethic and everyone handled it "fine" for the first five years, as responsible adults. Then, stories start going around about these guys who go down to Haiti, for these wild parties where you can have all the "openness" you want. That has the potential to create an unchecked envy draw. ("Unchecked" is important, because the only thing limiting such a draw is an individual's own imagination and desire, not any social stigma or social opprobrium). Then, the next rumor starts and so on. In time, maybe forty, fifty years, guys and gals are, like, "I can get all the sexual fulfillment I need from this or that, why do I need to spend time and money raising a family" or some variant. Notice this does NOT say that the general concept of "consenting adults should be allowed" is BAD in itself, it just notes that, if you start out with everything 'equal' you can end up with something you didn't expect. Unlike others, I absolutely will not go so far as to say that the kind of disequilibrium I describe is a necessary outcome. In fact, I believe the contrary, that people do eventually learn how to "draw the line". However, it's easy to see how a society run this way is always sailing against the lee shore, running the risk of going through a period in which everything turns into a sexual Pottersville, in which civic life ends up ordering itself around sexual desires in ways that look individually "free" but collectively irresponsible, and, thereby, risks the backlash and ascendancy of those who would easily cut gays and lesbians out in order to restore "general moral order".
When people aren't naturally curious about how other people are having fun, they are being asked to come along to have fun (social creatures 'R us, afterall!). Now, some friend (from wherever, the office, the tennis team, the jogging club, etc.), comes along and says to you, "You know, some of us have open relationships, and I just wanted to let you know that a couple of the guys have said that I should let you know that their wives are interested in you." I know that a person could reply "no" or "yes" and be value neutral. And, maybe that is the way it is, at first, for the first ten or twenty years. But, I also know that is not human nature. If you say "no" to someone, they think it IS a value judgment, that you think you are better than they are, not just different. Pretty soon, the 'open' people find out who each other are, and so do the 'closed' people. Maybe, someone 'open' passes out a job promotion or something, to someone they know in the 'open' group, completely innocently. But the 'closed' people don't see it that way, and soon sexual relations are spilling over into civic power structures in ways that go beyond what I used to think was the sole threat to civic society, quid pro quo sexuality. Notice again that this is not a refutation of the principle of consenting adults. Some who feel strongly will simply reply that 'peer pressure' negates the principle of 'consenting', because if you are coerced, you cannot properly 'consent'. I do not dispute that. It's just that is not the whole picture (and historically has led to such formulations of regret, in other contexts, as, "we were right to have been wrong"). Adults find ways to contend politically about even their consented differences. There may be cultures that deeply value tolerance in a way that mitigates that contentiousness; but, those traditions build up over long, long periods of time and are not available simply for the asking.
Based on the above considerations, one might conclude that 'open marriage' is not something to be institutionalized, without great risk. (If you disagree, please argue, rather than get angry). There are perhaps conditions under which it could be tried, but I don't think those are the conditions in America, today (or even in the near future). It also suggests that 'marriage', even 'gay marriage' is not compatible with 'open marriage' (and also opens up the very unwelcome notion that one could be for 'gay marriage' but forced to choose between ending a scaldingly inhumane exclusion of gays and agitation for an imperfectly propagated 'marriage equality' ethic, if it too much embodied 'openness' ... ug, as if there weren't enough Sophie's choices in the world already).
Because raising 'open marriage' to the level of a general proposition, i.e. institutionalization, seems inadvisable, what's left? Well, I like to think of myself as progressive enough not to be mightily moralizing about what people should do with their sex life, that's why I'd embrace tolerance, rather than revolution. It makes sense, even self-interested sense, that there should be a dominant, responsibility-oriented sexual ethic, but I also believe that folks need living space, that one-size-fits-all is a known fallacy that we keep knowing that we are going to give room to those who are gloriously different. Matthew Arnold described "the tribute that vice pays to virtue". If it helps, perhaps that's the way to think about it.
THE POLITICAL STRATEGY IMPLICATIONS
I'm going to give short shrift to this section, because this post is way too long already.
Drawing on the above, it would be "o.k." to firmly say that embracing marriage also means leaving behind 'open marriage' as unworkable in America for 'institutionalization'. In other words, it might be "o.k." and smart clearly to separate "marriage rights" from "marriage revolution" rhetorically, but within some bounds, noting, for example, that people in the cities view their relationships differently than people in the suburbs and beyond. And these "bounds" are important, because too many 'marriage defenders' get caught up in the rhetoric and forget just how much leeway folks are allowed to inflect things, for their own community or geography, without threatening or distorting the whole picture.
CLEAN UP
There are other arguments/issues in the quote from Volokh above. I didn't want to turn this whole post into a discussion of this or that social groups 'promiscuity'. Suffice it to say, for the record, I think it is an o.k. consideration to raise in discussion, but not fair grounds on which to deny lesbian and gay marriage rights, for reasons given by others in the Volokh thread, but also because some huge percentage (more than 50%?) is probably socialized, not innate, as one writer there was suggesting with his comments.
