By Matt Simonette

Staff Writer

Numerous arguments have been made against same-sex marriage by the GLBT community’s opponents on the Right. But, according to University of Chicago professor and author Martha Nussbaum, most of those arguments do not belie the fact that their antogonism is driven by what she calls the “politics of stigma and disgust.”

“A lot of people do find the sex acts of gays and lesbians disgusting,” Nussbaum said last week.

Nussbaum is not a lawyer but is Professor of Law and Ethics at Univ. of Chicago, holding appointments in the University’s Philosophy Department, Law School and Divinity School. She spoke on “Same-Sex marriage and constitutional law” at Center on Halsted Oct. 22.

Nussbaum has long argued that sex is used by cultures to deny social justice to women and GLBTs. She detailed a number of arguments that have been used against same-sex marriage and how easily they could be broken down once empirical evidence, or simple common sense, is applied.

The argument that marriage is about procreation is countered by the fact that marriage between men and women who will never have children is allowed. Or, the argument that children need to be raised by opposite-sex parents can be countered by experiential evidence to the contrary, to name just two examples.

But the debate is marred by an indisputable fact—much of the opposition to same-sex marriage is, according to Nussbaum, driven by disgust and fear from the Right, making it all that more difficult for GLBTs to argue the point rationally.

Those same emotions and impulses drove segregation and anti-miscegenation laws, which likewise could never be defended with compelling evidence. In the end Nussbaum said she was confident that DOMA and similar laws would similarly not hold water.

“To exclude (GLBTs) insults them and demeans them. That is evident as a matter of morality and constitutional law,” she added.

Nussbaum was asked her opinion on President Obama’s stance on gay marriage. She said she was “disturbed by my former colleague’s statements on the matter” and added that the president knows full well that the wisdom he says he subscribes to has “no bearing on the constitution.”

“That’s not even the official position of the church he belongs to,” Nussbaum said.

Nussbaum added that she suspected that “most people would be glad to get rid of (DOMA)—they just don’t want to be the first.”

Nussbaum’s talk was sponsored by the University of Chicago’s newly-formed LGBT Alumni Association. For more information, visit genderstudies.uchicago.edu/lgsp/alumni/.