What Marriage Has Become
Marriage is fundamentally a pre-political institution.
It is important to situate the same-sex marriage issue in the context of dramatic changes in our society over the last forty years that bear upon the very nature of marriage. These changes have paved the way for the even more dramatic changes implicit in the adoption of homosexual marriage.
We should not hope to return to some mythical golden age of marriage in the past. Marriage has always had its problems, many of them significant. There have been some profound changes since 1970, and some of them (e.g., greater opportunities for women in education and employment) have been good. But others have been, in my opinion, catastrophic.
The widespread adoption of different versions of no-fault divorce by most states after 1970 transformed marriage and family. The traditional presumption in favor of the permanence of marriage (with certain well-defined exceptions) gave way to a situation in which one of the partners, for whatever reason, could unilaterally end the marriage. This marked a cultural shift from regarding marriage as a truly fundamental social institution to regarding it as primarily a personal union in which there is a very limited social interest.
This shift occurred in conjunction with other changes, and especially the widespread availability of contraception. With contraception, sex could be, and was, separated from marriage. This severing resulted in sexual activity beginning at younger ages, more sexual activity outside of marriage, widespread cohabitation, as well as lower birth rates and higher rates of out-of-wedlock births. For reasons that were not accidental, they were also accompanied by a growth in pornography and abortion.
With these developments, homosexuality emerged as a new theme of sexual liberation. If heterosexuals could engage in sexual activity for pleasure and personal intimacy, apart from children and marriage, why not homosexuals as well? This sort of logic was implicit in judicial opinions such as the Bowers v. Hardwick dissents, especially Justice Stevens’s dissent, which pointed out that the majority’s treatment of the case as one of homosexual sodomy did not square with the actual law in the case–a law that prohibited sodomy (oral or anal sex) whether it was heterosexual (by married or unmarried persons) or homosexual. The assumption behind this observation seemed to be that, since the statute would probably not survive a challenge by heterosexuals (certainly married ones, and probably unmarried ones), its application to homosexuals was dubious as well.
Public opinion as well as law has generally moved in the direction of supporting the elimination of legal prohibitions on homosexual activity, but that movement has stopped short of legitimizing gay marriage. When the issue of marriage is on the ballot, state after state has reaffirmed marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The question is whether that attachment to monogamous, heterosexual marriage is simply the retention of an ancient prejudice, or a position grounded in reasonable principles.
The case for traditional marriage is grounded in a conviction that marriage is not simply a socially devised and revisable institution. While it is true that there are many ancillary features of marriage that are quite variable (e.g., the diversity of property arrangements associated with marriage at different times and places), there is a true core of marriage that exists by nature.
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“Public opinion as well as law has generally moved in the direction of supporting the elimination of legal prohibitions on homosexual activity, but that movement has stopped short of legitimizing gay marriage.”
Actually, that’s not true, as irrelevant to the legal issue of same-sex marriage as popular opinion is. More Americans favor equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian Americans than oppose it.
Even better, look at these stats from catholic Americans!
“Nearly three-quarters of Catholics favor either allowing gay and lesbian people to marry (43 percent) or allowing them to form civil unions (31 percent). Only 22 percent of Catholics say there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship.”
Awesome!
@Sean More and more Americans are succumbing to the propaganda of the homosexualists instead of using discernment. That still doesn’t make SSM right and proper.
Just because members of a Church have decided to abandon the teachings of Christ, that doesn’t make their argument valid. They should be subject to church discipline.
False headlines notwithstanding, the majority of Catholics don’t actually support same-sex marriage. See http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=15355
Polls showed marriage definition leading in California and Maine until people cast their votes in the privacy of the polling booth. Pollsters and the wording of the question can influence a poll, but when it comes to actual votes, the outcome is still the same. If a political candidate lost every election, despite outspending his opponent, and despite sometimes leading in some polls, you would rationally conclude that that candidate was not the people’s choice.
@Leo
What happens when the people’s choice, expressed by voting, is ignored?
The good news for gay and lesbian Americans, and their many fellow citizens who support them, is that this is fundamentally a legal issue, not a popular opinion issue. While popular opinion is coming around to equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans, it is really the many lawsuits, as well as decent folks’ honoring the US Constitution, that have advanced the cause.
The liberal 9th Circuit Court today announced it would not lift its stay on Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision overturning Proposition 8, a torrent of lawfare suits notwithstanding, upholding the constitution.
When the government ignores the consent of the governed, it is the right of the people to change their government. See Libya. See Iowa.
@Leo
You’re right.
The fact is, all the world can call a “union” between two men or between two women a “marriage” and the law of every government on earth can affirm that, but the “union” will not in fact be a “marriage” as that word has historically been defined. A marriage is and always has been the “union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together, and renewed by acts that constitute the behavioral part of the process of reproduction.” See “What is Marriage?” at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155.
If all the world calls same-sex “unions” “marriages,” either all the world is lying, mistaken or has changed the definition of marriage. If the latter is the case, the distinction which the word “marriage” used to denote will still exist, there just won’t be a recognized word for it. What same-sex “marriage” advocates can never have is what “marriage” has always denoted, a lifelong union between two people in which the couple engage in the act by which children are naturally procreated. I didn’t say same-sex couples may not have this; I said that they cannot have this. It is an impossibility. To insist that the government say otherwise is to insist on others joining in a delusion.
“Just because members of a Church have decided to abandon the teachings of Christ”
Where did Christ express his opposition to same-sex marriage? And why is Christ’s instruction to care for the “lease among us” not applicable to the children of same-sex couples, whose young lives would be more secure with married parents?
Sean, I think it is more caring for those children to give their care-givers the security they need via Civil Unions, without giving them a right to attempt to conceive offspring together that marriage always gives. That would not help the existing children at all, rather it would both insult them and take their resources away. Just demanding the right is insulting, even if the couple doesn’t pursue it.
John, civil unions create a “separate but equal” accommodation, prohibited by law. We don’t do separate water fountains anymore. Distinguishing between straight couples and gay couples serves no public purpose. That’s why discriminatory marriage laws will eventually be thrown out. The courts have already telegraphed there dislike of separate but equal accommodations that treat minorities as second-class citizens.
No Sean, the Civil Unions I propose would not give the couple a right to attempt to conceive offspring together, that was the whole point of my comment. They would not be “separate but equal” because they would not be equal, they would explicitly not be equal. However they would also not be separate, as they would have the same protections and benefits as marriage in all other regards.
Again, the point of my comment: I think that it is more caring for those children to give their parents Civil Unions that don’t give them a right to attempt to conceive offspring together. The point is that those children’s parents should not have a right to conceive offspring together, it is not caring to give them an equal right to do that. It is caring, however, to give them the other protections. Hence, my solution: Civil Unions that do expressly that, give the other protections but do not give the right to conceive offspring.
Our argument is that you think those kids would be better served and cared for by giving their parents the right to procreate offspring together, which is totally ridiculous and obviously plainly false, there is no way that those kids would benefit from that.
Plus, there is the fact that your demands hold up getting any recognition to thousands of families, just because you insist that same-sex couples should be allowed to conceive offspring if it ever becomes possible. Why not wait until it does become possible before putting that right ahead of the needs of actual families?
“They would not be “separate but equal” because they would not be equal, they would explicitly not be equal.”
John, I think you’re taking the word “equal” a little too literally. Even without procreation rights, the intent of civil unions is to create a second-class existence for gay and lesbian couples.
I’m still baffled: if you don’t want gay couples reproducing, how does illegal same-sex marriage accomplish that? Unmarried couples also have procreational rights.
Yes, same-sex couples would be second class, due to the Egg and Sperm law that would mean they were prohibited from conceiving offspring. It wouldn’t be the CU law that would prohibit them, it would be the Egg and Sperm law. It would publicly prohibit all same-sex couples from conceiving offspring. The same man would then be allowed to conceive offspring with a woman, but would not have (does not have) that same right with a man. That makes it a second-class status. That needs to be reflected in the name of the legal entity, to reflect the difference in rights of the parties. Marriage should continue to approve and allow and bestow society’s blessings on the conception of offspring of the couple, no marriages should ever be prohibited from using their own genes to procreate. It is marriage that protects the couple’s right to procreate, nothing else. Marriage means conception rights, it means the couple is allowed to have sex and conceive offspring together, in every culture throughout history. It is never given to couples that are prohibited from conceiving offspring, such as siblings. But we could give such couples the other rights and protections of marriage without giving them the approval to procreate or without stripping the approval to procreate from marriage, by creating CU’s defined as “marriage minus procreation rights.” That “minus” is what makes a substantial difference in rights which is not only reflective of the couple’s rights but is also necessary to enact the CU’s in states that have prohibited CU’s that are substantially identical or that purport to give the equal rights. By withholding the essential sine qua non right of marriage, and for a good public policy reason, these CU’s would be Constitutional and politically acceptable.