Part-Time Pundit

I'm writing in response to your December 9th article, The Wrong Question. Unlike many of your previous commentors, I agree with you.

Most people in our society today do not know the purpose of marriage; love AND procreation.

You are correct in saying that supporters of traditional marriage are not helping themselves. Many of those same folks use contraception and have been divorced at least once. These 2 items have done more to damage traditional marriage than anything else. In fact, when contraception came onto the scene in the 60s, the divorce rate doubled in something like 5 - 10 years. The 2 are connected.

Some of your commentors stated that you lumped married couples who cannot have children in with homosexuals. No, you didn't. In fact, married couples incapable of having children have a perfectly legitimate marriage. It is an acceptable marriage because the sex within that marriage does not contradict the Natural Law. The sexual faculties are being used in the appropriate manner, albeit unfruitfully.

This situation is different for couples who contracept. For couples who make love and use contraception, how is it different from a homosexual realtionship? Both types of sex contradict the Natural Law insofar as they both prevent the possibility of conception through the people's own actions.

In conclusion, I echo your sentiments that it's time that we end this debate about what marriage is. Seperating marriage and (normally) procreation has done nothing but harm our society. Why would we want to continue the trend by establishing a novel definition of marriage that has never existed before?

--Jason
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

Why do people have to produce their *own* children to be considered for marriage? With all the kids waiting for adoption, isn't it better that they have a home with two parents than none at all?

It took me a while to digest your column and I'm still thinking about it. I just don't understand why marriage should be restricted based on gender. Because it always has been? Okay, but then you have to be against divorce, and the same problem comes with the idea of having a stable place to raise children. If the focus is on what's best for the children (and therefore divorce should be allowed because it's obviously bad for kids to grow up with parents who hate each other), you'd be hard pressed to argue that it's better for kids to be waiting for adoption by an opposite-sex couple than to be given a loving home with a same-sex one.

The main reason same-sex couples want marriage--not civil unions, not "life partnership"--is because there is no other contract that gives a couple all of the legal benefits of marriage. Civil unions are separate and not equal, and they will be as long as they are considered something "set aside" for same-sex couples.

Personally, I would like to see marriage as a purely religious ceremony and civil unions as the secular and legal contract that marriage is currently. Churches would not need to worry about being forced to perform same-sex marriages (though I don't think that's a real concern in a nation where a pharmacist can refuse to give birth control based on religious beliefs). I don't think it's ever going to happen, but it's what would truly separate church and state in this regard.

In response to the previous comment, though I'm running out of time: False correlations are everywhere. For example, violent crime and ice cream sales both rise in the summer, but the two are not related by anything more than the warmer weather.

Someday I'll start a blog for just argument. But even though I don't have one, I would like to hear your response; my email address is given.

It always seems strange to me, that I have to be arguing on the side opposite the folks who favor redefining marriage to include gays. Because the pro-gay-marriage crowd is more devoted to being married than any heterosexual I've ever met.

The institution of marriage is in a lot of trouble in our society, and it's _not_ the gays who put it there. We (heterosexuals, that is) did it all to ourselves. Over the course of the past 40 years, we've debased the institution to the point where few people on either side of the divide seriously believe it means anything except an omnibus contract between the couple and the state...and if you believe that, then there's no good reason _not_ to include homosexuals in the deal.

Which makes those few of us who _don't_ believe that come out sounding like bigots.

RESPONSE:

Exactly right, which is why I suggested, and apparently it wasn't understood, we should be talking about what the institution should be first, instead of debating who can participate.

I forgot to mention in the email that I have posted links to your column and blog on the (mostly unused) blog my brother set up for a few of our friends to discuss interesting topics. I've also included your response and mine. I don't know if anybody on the group blog will answer--it's been a long time--but you're welcome to comment, or to respond via email if you prefer. It would be nice to have some opinions from outside...we're all pretty much politically liberal, which makes for rather boring debate on some topics. I promise there won't be any ganging up on The Conservative, should you respond there. (At the time of this comment I'm still working on the post.)

Quote:
"Until the traditional marriage crowd can embrace children by casting away contraception and embrace the life-long commitment to marriage by casting away no-fault divorce, the gay marriage crowd has an extremely powerful argument - that traditional marriage advocates are hypocrites."

--

That particular argument, as made by SSMers, is itself hypocritical.

It depends on the devolution of marriage as a legal institution, not as a social institution. Thus, SSM stands on the negative trends that have been spearheaded by the legal logic of a hodgepodge of legale reforms enacted by courts mostly, but also by legislatures attempting to accomodate the fraying of the edges of the social fabric. That fraying has become long tears and the legalisms that have distanced the social institution that the state recognizes, from the legal construct that accomodates negative trends, have created more confusion, not less.

Yes, society needs to consider the purpose of state recognition of the social institution of marriage. Does it remain the preferred home for the conjugal relationship (of man and woman) and the integration of the sexes that flows from it?

This is a separate question from the discussion about recognizing nonmarital alternatives, such as the single sexed arrangement (the emphasis on the subset that features homosexed relations); what benefits arise from such alternatives and what is the appropriate way to elevate such alternatives.

SSM is the redefinition of non-marriage, not of marriage. Where it has been enacted, SSM has been raised on par with the preferential status of marriage, but not on its own merits. It has been thus raised by piggybacking on the benefits of the social institution of marriage. The state does not create those benefits, it recognizes them, and attempts to benefit the social institution in return. No such exchange has been proposed with SSM. Rather, as a sex-segretative proposal, SSM rides on the back of a social institution that arises from sex integration.

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