Stumping Upon a Star

I hope proponents of gay marriage blush a little when they lift up Britney Spears as exhibit W. I mean, come on. But if somebody like Deroy Murdock is willing to put the argument together and offer it in all seriousness, I suppose I'm willing to listen.

Social conservatives are working overtime to argue that gay marriage would imperil straight matrimony. They say that if Jack and Joe were united, till death do them part, they would jeopardize husbands and wives, from sea to shining sea. ...

It would be far easier to take these claims seriously if gay-marriage critics spent as much energy denouncing irresponsible heterosexuals whose behavior undermines traditional marriage. Among prominent Americans, such misdeeds are increasingly ubiquitous.

As evidence, Murdock submits 1) Britney Spears's 55-hour marriage, 2) David Letterman's out-of-wedlock child, and 3) Jerry Seinfeld's home-wrecking mojo. I suppose it would take the argument a bit more seriously than it deserves to point out that to collect these three together, Murdock had to go all the way back to 1998 for number 3. Once again, I say: come on now. Would those who stump for gay marriage be willing to hold up Britney, David, and Jerry's peers as the representative sample for their cause?

John Derbyshire gives this quick response on his way to commentary on Britney more generally:

The short answer is that if a customary social institution is trashed and trivialized by irresponsible buffoons, we ought to exert more control over it — to tighten access, not loosen it.

There is, I think, something more basic to the difference between Spears and same sex marriage. Nobody seriously believes that the pop star entered into anything other than a legal marriage. She got a license, but it might as well have been a phony one. She demeaned Nevada's marriage law more than she demeaned the institution of marriage.

In the case of gay marriage, especially if imposed nationally by the courts, it is the very definition of marriage that will be rocked. Such an assault challenges the idea of what marriage is. Those SSM advocates who cite Britney's ceremony with a straight face must argue that the weekend prank counts, not just as a legal marriage, but as what the rest of us would consider marriage to be. Perhaps one reason that prominent social conservatives haven't been all over the talk shows attacking Britney for this is because they would look silly. For one thing, what Britney represents more generally has attracted much conservative denunciation. Derb, whose tone is properly (in my opinion) light throughout his piece, calls her "an instrument of Satan."

But the sheer brevity of Mr. and Mrs. Spears's "marriage" and the tabloid quality of its characters push it clearly across the line, far removed from Marriage, into limelight high jinks. A central objection to gay marriage, on the other hand, is the very fact that it will be Marriage. The issue's social component is the equation of gay and straight relationships on every front, not just legal contracts. Yet, reduction of the institution to legal contracts so as to push it through the courts is one of the ways in which gay marriage will harm it.

I feel comfortable suggesting that there isn't a sane person in the country who would react with indignant outrage were I to suggest that Britney Spears's marriage was not a real marriage and was, in fact, an abomination. What, do you suppose, would be the reaction were I to say the same thing about gay marriages in a country in which such a thing existed?

Which brings us back to my amazement that serious and intelligent people are using gossip industry fare to make sincere social arguments about a very important matter. Social conservatives who do the same have been mocked as laughable prigs for decades. Funny how the rules — and the roles — change.