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2/25/04 The New Marriage Liberal activists persist in characterizing the proposed constitutional amendment codifying the ancient definition of marriage as a "ban" on homosexual marriage, as if you could "ban" something that has never yet existed. The definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman does set a boundary, but not by closing off territory once permitted. Marriages involving only members of one gender has never existed, so the boundary in question is not a new one that is proposed to be created by conservative advocates of the amendment, but the ancient one that the activists propose to shatter once and for all. .What must be considered publicly, aside from the appropriately lofty testimonials lavished on the ancient institution of marriage by the President and other advocates of the amendment, is the question of what the limits will be on marriage, if any, once it has successfully been redefined so as to include single-gender marriages. This is not, as some may assume, and opponents of the amendment may want to imply, a "slippery-slope" argument. There is no slope, and it is not slippery. The current boundary exists, and if it is broken, every one of the limits that have traditionally been imposed on marriage will be left with no rational basis, because the basis for each rested in the old definition and will have no place in the new. What follows is a list of the current traditional or well-established restrictions that have real bases in logic as well as religious tradition, but which have no place in a marriage that is constructed to support the new types of unions proposed. The only reason that could be asserted for preserving any of these restrictions is the reason that is being rejected by the activists as the reason for keeping the restriction that "Marriage is between a man and a woman": because it has always been so. The activists cannot reject that argument on one point and then assert it on another without admitting that their position has no rational basis.
The New Marriage is indeed a new paradigm. It does not permit the slide into aberrance, but defines aberration as the norm. If it is bigotry to deny two men the right to marry and pretend to procreate, because the new paradigm says that one form of romantic love is just as good as another and that marriage is the vessel of romantic love, then how can it not be bigotry to deny three brothers who say they have conceived romantic love between them the same right? It is impossible for anyone to define anyone else's loves and desires, and if there is no rational, relatively immutable standard against which to measure the institutional role of those loves and desires, then, Katie, bar the door. Is allowing three brothers the right to marry and pretend to procreate less ethical than allowing two unrelated men to do the same thing? I don't see how. It seems so, because I feel more revulsion against the notion of brothers loving each other sexually than of unrelated men, but not by much. But it doesn't matter how much revulsion I feel about those two unrelated men or a heterosexual couple who revolt me physically. Such appearances mean nothing. The point is that it isn't up to you or me to decide on arbitrary, subjective criteria what combinations people should choose for their sexual partnerships. What matters is that marriage codifies something natural and immutable in human life, and that is the pattern of reproduction and education and inheritance that has been the engine of every human society in history. To change its definition as the activists would is to drain it of the last vestiges of its true meaning; in other words, if they have their way, marriage will mean nothing, because it represents nothing more than the terms different generations choose to use for temporary romantic relationships: "going steady," "talking," "hooking up." It wouldn't refer to two people only, or even to two less-than-so-related people bonded to form a family. It could refer to pairs of swinging couples (heterosexual or otherwise) who claim that the chain of their love is not bounded by traditional notions of romance, or groups of men or women in whatever combination who claim to share some transcendental bond in which no one else will necessarily believe but which nevertheless no one can demonstrate in a court of law (if any court would even deign to hear the complaint) is merely an excuse for behavior still regarded by a majority of society as deviant to the point of being evil. The groups who wish to wear the badge of Marriage in hopes of achieving some higher level of acceptance by society at large will find that they are thwarted, because The New Marriage will not represent what marriage once did. There will no longer be a public institution that defines itself as the foundational commitment to a traditional family. The New Marriage will mean nothing to the people who currently value marriage, and will mean nothing to the people who currently wish they could be married. It will mean nothing to anyone. That is why The New Marriage must never be. The only marriage that society needs is the one it currently has (or better yet, the one it had fifty years ago). Let's define it once and for all in the hope that we never face so ethically destitute and morally vain a challenge to this fundamental, ancient institution again. Modified: 09/10/2004 |
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