The Weiner Scandal and Andrew Sullivan's Hypocrisy on Gay Marriage.

Andrew Sullivan argues that Weiner's behavior is of no interest to the public and is purely a matter between himself and his wife since marriage, in Sullivan's view, is a purely private affair.

But, wait!, says Megan McCardle, if that's the case, then why is Sullivan such an ardent supporter of homosexual marriage?:

But I also don't think it works to say that it's nobody's business but the couple's whether people keep their marriage vows. Andrew has been a great proponent of gay marriage--not civil unions, but marriage. Why was it so important to call it marriage, if everything about it is entirely private? Why not stop with legal equality and leave marriage to the heterosexuals? If all the benefits are private, then a combination of legal visitation/property sharing rights, and whatever private arrangements the two parties choose to make, should be more than sufficient.


But it wasn't, because gay couples wanted public recognition of their commitment. And well they should. But the public recognition exists for a reason--marriage is a great deal more than just saying "We like to sleep together and pick out bathroom tile." Did she show up at his campaign events? If she did, they were both happy to have the marriage be part of a very public persona. You can't use your marriage to shore up your political position, and then complain when people get curious about your performance as a husband--particularly when you piqued their interest in such a public way.

Society takes a greater interest in marriages than in other relationships because society, as well as the individual, has an interest in strong marriages. Strong marriages support a strong society. And society supports the marriage by encouraging people to do the very hard work of keeping their promises. One of the ways in which society ensures strong marriages is by tut-tutting (or worse) at people who don't keep to their vows: who abandon spouses, treat them badly, or yes, violate their trust by engaging in covert sexual activity. I'm a big fan of sexual privacy. But you cannot have a public institution that rests in part on fidelity, and also complete privacy on those matters.


Call me old-fashioned, but I think that social sanction can be very helpful in assisting us in doing important but difficult things. Marriage is stronger if people who find out that their friends are cheating don't say, "Awesome, is he hot?" but "How could you do that to Jason?" Marriage is stronger if people who cheat are viewed with slight revulsion, and so are the (knowing) people who they cheat with. Marriage is stronger when people who decide not to care for seriously ill spouses are met with an incredulous "What the hell is wrong with you?", not "Yeah, I couldn't handle that either." Of course it would be nicer if we didn't need this sort of help. But we are a flawed species.

This is, to be sure, a bit trickier in an era when people like me and Andrew accept that there can be healthy non-monagamous marriages. Maybe, folks have suggested, she was totally okay with this! This seems possible, but not really very likely. I know a decent number of people in open marriages, but they are very far from the majority of the people I know. Looking at what polls and research we have on this sort of thing, plus an unscientific survey of my friends and the women who have written me, I'm going to go out on a limb here and speak for heterosexual married women as a class: I'm pretty sure that most of us are not okay with our husbands sending racy photos to strangers, or engaging in phone sex with same within weeks of our wedding day. And if she's totally okay with this, how come she hasn't said so?

Because it would be embarrassing? But if there's nothing wrong about what Weiner did, or about having a relationship in which the spouse has said it's okay to do what Weiner did, then why shouldn't she just say so? Andrew has spent years hounding Sarah Palin because he thinks her stories about childbirth don't add up. Why does Weiner have any less obligation to clear up apparent inconsistencies in his public story?

Megan is right about Sullivan's hypocrisy, but she's wrong about "open marriage," which is an oxy-moron.

The conventional assumption is that marriage means fidelity.  People who get married trade on that assumption in many ways.  Let's assume that Weiner and his wife were in an "open marriage."  Wouldn't it be the case that Weiner was trading on the image and assumptions of his being married - that he was settled down, that he was mature, that he was able to restrain his impulses - in the minds of his constituents and people generally in society?  Wouldn't the fact that Weiner was married and, yet, privately had an arrangement that negated a principle element of marriage, make him every bit a hypocrite as any "family values Republican" who cheated on his wife? 

This exchange is interesting in showing that at least one prominent homosexual defender of homosexual marriage doesn't believe that marital fidelity is an essential part of marriage, which does raise the question, apart from wanting to redefine marriage for other people, why do they make such a big deal about marriage?

Update:

James Taranto deconstructs the issue:

Sullivan comrade Glenn Greenwald responds:

McArdle has absolutely no idea what vows Weiner and his wife have made to each other, and she shouldn't know, because it's none of her business, despite her eagerness to learn about it and publicly condemn it. Even if she had any idea of what she was talking about--and she plainly doesn't--nothing is less relevant than Megan McArdle's views of the arrangement Anthony Weiner and his wife have for their marriage and whether each partner is adhering to that arrangement.

When opponents of same-sex marriage are caught violating their vows, proponents tell us it is relevant because it shows that those opponents are hypocritical in claiming to be serious about the institution of marriage. When the likes of Sullivan and Greenwald defend Weiner, they reveal exactly the same thing about themselves. It isn't that they care about marriage, which they are happy to reduce to a mere "arrangement," but that they refuse to tolerate it as a heterosexual institution.