Our Wrongs and Our Rights

Well, we've had fun times this week, what with DOMA being struck down and other silliness. Not being a deep and learned scholar of constitutional law like our dear President, I doubt I could say anything as to the legal details of the case or its rights and wrongs. I would, however, like to address this whole notion of gay marriage as a "right."

The lure of accepting gay marriage as an inevitability and even perhaps a positive good is something many conservatives, especially young conservatives, have snapped up, and while I for one refuse to go gently into that good night (or whatever the phrase is), I do, on some level, understand its appeal. Nobody likes to be mean, or to be perceived as mean; and the libertarian ethos that is part and parcel of American conservatism would have a hard time in any climate opposing calls for the freedom to marry. Consider the stance of groups like "Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry," which argues that endorsing gay marriage "is in line with our core belief in limited government and individual freedom," not some "partisan issue." Well, I can forgive them that (though not their rejection of opposition as not "a conservative or an American value"). But their rhetoric strikes me all the same as extremely muddle-headed, to say the least, and as indicative of our modern obsession with rights.

Although it seems most glaring today in connection with gay marriage, this is hardly a new obsession. The history of the modern West could almost be summarized as people conceiving of rights and then being determined to get them, no matter how noble or absurd. Consider, for example, the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," which includes in its list not only the right to marry, the right to equal pay, and the right to free education, but also the right of copyright, the right to an international order, the right to develop one's personality (whatever that means), and the right to "rest and leisure." Well. But are these claims merely laughable, or actually wrong?

Conservatism has always been suspicious of such broad declarations of personal right. And rightly so: Too often, people mean by "right" something nice that they think everyone should be able to have. That is hardly its true meaning, though--rights have never existed in a vacuum, but are always dependent on circumstances and the obligations that go with them. As Russell Kirk put it, more presciently than he knew, in The Conservative Mind: "If a man has a right to marry, some woman [or in this case, some man] must have the duty of marrying him; if a man has a right to rest, some other person must have the duty of supporting him." Rights and obligations: You can rarely have the former without the latter, and in the real world, obligations often take precedence altogether. This is why I never understood the furor over DADT being cast as a matter of one's right to serve in the military. No one has a right to serve in the armed forces; if such a right existed, anyone not drafted could call themselves "oppressed." Military service is, in the final analysis, an obligation which the military authorities include or exclude a man from as they see fit.

Though the two are hardly identical, something similar could be said about the "right to marry," whether it concerns gays or straights. No individual or board has oversight of marriages, it is true. But just as it would be foolish for me to say my rights are being violated if I don't get drafted, what should I say if I'm unlucky in love and can't find a spouse? Who's violating my rights then? The ladies who shot me down? The government for failing to provide me with a wife? Does any of this make sense?

Now maybe you'll say that I'm interpreting this too narrowly. "Right to marry" doesn't mean the right to be provided with a spouse, it means being able to get married if you and another person want to do so. Fair enough (though you really can't call it a "right" in that case). But at no time in history have we permitted the fulfillment of such desires at face value. Incestuous marriages are not allowed; neither are polygamy or group marriages (yet). Feel free to compare those behaviors to homosexuality or not; the point is that restraints on who can get married are and always have been universally accepted, regardless of the banned people's feelings or whether they "love each other."

Concepts like freedom, liberty, and fighting for one's rights are part and parcel of American conservatism, and should not be denied. But in order to do that, we must not confuse libertarianism with libertinism, nor our desires, sexual or otherwise, with actual rights. At its heart, conservatism understands that liberty exists alongside an often-fragile social fabric; where an institution as important to that fabric's continuation as marriage is concerned, accepting a concept like "homosexual marriage" can only come after careful deliberation and weighing of the costs and benefits (if any), and certainly not because it's demanded as a right.