The Boston Globe recently reported that “a number of scholars are seeking to shore up friendship in a surprising way: by granting it legal recognition.” The article posits a couple of different ways this could be done. One is “on a case-by-case basis—eligibility to take time off to care for a sick friend under an equivalent of the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example.”
Yet another might be “an official legal arrangement between two friends, designating a bundle of mutual rights and privileges.” The article points out that such arrangements are already permitted in Hawaii. In any case, the idea would be that friends could get the kind of rights and benefits traditionally granted to married couples.
So far, so good. Just a statement of the facts in the situation. It's all downhill from this point:
This was bound to happen. You see, the relentless push for benefits for same-sex partners has eroded the status of marriage in our society. Instead of being honored as the bedrock of healthy families and civilization, marriage has come to be seen as just one more relationship, no different than any other, with no particular benefits, and no more deserving of privileges than any other.
Problems in this paragraph: "bound to happen" (slippery slope), "the relentless push" (lack of attribution, false info), "eroded the status of marriage" (slippery slope, false info), "bedrock of healthy families and civilizations" (false hyperbole), everything after "marriage has come..." (false info, slippery slope). Marriage is fine. Name me one point in history when more people were married than right now. Name me one bill proposed by any legislator that would end marriage. Name me one straight person who was turned gay because a gay couple got married. I'll wait.
So if a same-sex couple can have benefits, why can’t two friends? Why couldn’t a whole group of friends?
Good questions. Why not? If you can't figure out the answer to this one, don't worry, he doesn't give it to you. You're on your own.
Already this line of thinking has created some ludicrous situations. A couple of years ago, University of Florida employees wanting to qualify for domestic partner health benefits had to pledge that they were actually having sexual relations with their partner! The irony is hard to miss. The same people that have clamored for years for the authorities to stay out of their bedrooms; and they’re now creating situations where employers are forced to intrude.
Nonsense. No employer is ever forced to pry into their employees private lives, they chose to do that. Besides, the reason that UF did this was because of budget shortfalls, the type of thing that could be avoided if Republicans and gay-marriage opponents hadn't destroyed the economy and the budget. In fact, since all the research I've ever seen says the top reason for divorce is financial stress, then it's obvious who the real threat to marriage is -- economic conservatives.
The result would be not to make friendship stronger, but to continue to make marriage—and all of society—weaker. And, not to mention, government far larger than we could tolerate.
The "make marriage and society weaker" argument is a tired one used over and over without the slightest bit of logic to back it up, but the "larger government" argument is just plain out there. He's actually arguing that if gay people get benefits and friends can get benefits, that would necessarily lead to more government intrusion into people's lives and bigger and more expensive government. I can't real dissect that one any further because it's so ludicrous as to be mind-bogglingly scary that this man gets to write in a public forum.
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