SSM: FRIENDSHIP. This is the last SSM post for today. Like I said in the “setup” post below, today’s posts are long. None of the later posts will be as long as these–they’ll be paring knives, not broadswords.

So: Why do I keep talking about friendship when I talk about same-sex marriage?

Unqualified Offerings, in an understandable but way off-base interpretation, writes, “Eve says, ‘marriage is not friendship’ and ‘marriage is about sex,’ but this is only relevant if she is also saying, sotto voce, gay people who say they want to marry someone they love and sleep with are really just friends with that person. I personally have no reason to be sure that gay people who want to marry are that confused.”

This signals to me that I haven’t been clear enough. So let me try to crystallize:

1) We as a society need to stop thinking everything is eros or it’s crap. I want to renew and strengthen our appreciation of philia.

2) I also, though, want to point out the ways philia is different from marriage. And this, I think, is directly related to same-sex marriage. (Point #1 may or may not be indirectly related to SSM.)

Philia is a form of love. It is often accompanied by a deep, abiding commitment to be there for the friend in his or her time of need. It is often accompanied by an extraordinary emotional intimacy. It’s forged through experiences of joy, hardship, and just plain hanging out and supporting one another through thick and thin. It’s generally, though not always, a relationship of people who view one another as equals. It’s often at its best when the friends are engaged in some common personal project. In some societies (and even to this day), it has been solemnized by religious vows and ceremonies.

Now do you see?

I think friendship is huge–for the friends involved. I think it is beautiful. But I think it is much more relevant to the friends themselves than to the wider society. It does some good for society simply by making the friends happy. They take care of one another, relieving some of the burdens that would otherwise be shouldered by the individual and society (including government).

But friendship doesn’t do nearly as much for society as marriage. Nor do same-sex unions, even if you think they are morally peachy-keen. (For more on that, see the posts below on “my basic position” and “Boyz II Men,” and this piece by Maggie Gallagher.)

I want society to honor friendship more than it does. I don’t believe the same thing about homosexual relationships (for more, go here and here), but I understand that others do. In comparing homosexual relationships to friendships, I’m not trying to say that the former is “really” the latter. I’m trying to point out that you can want society to be more solicitous of your closest chosen relationships without thinking that entitles your relationship to the special status, the “special right,” of marriage.

I’ll be writing more on this tomorrow-ish, since both halves of the argument(friendship should get more honor from society, and both friendship and same-sex unions do not earn the title “marriage”) are things I’m passionate about.