union

is not comprehensive, because it excludes an important part of the identities of the persons involved.

Whats wrong with same-sex marriage?

Therefore to change the legal definition of marriage to include same-sex couples would legislate a falsehood as well as obscure the moral truth about marriage.

By Paul Burgess (Contributor to Embracing Truth, see www.handselpress.co.uk)

This paper argues that the only form of marriage that can be
meaningfully enshrined by law is conjugal marriage, 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. (-Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 245- 287, Winter 2010, from which article the writer acknowledges that many ideas in this paper are drawn)

A brave new world? Or just shame?

Governments who seek to please the vocal but minority gay lobby by promoting their same-sex equality agenda fail to realize that in the process they are undermining the norms of sexual relationships recognized by the vast majority of human beings down the ages whatever the shortcomings of those who fail to live up to the norms of life-long commitment to faithful monogamy. Rather than bringing in a brave new world of justice and equality to an under-privileged minority, the government that introduces same-sex marriage will eventually bring shame upon itself when society realizes the loss of what was formerly contributed to the common good by the ages old institution of conjugal marriage.

The Humpty Dumpty fallacy

Many dimensions of the common good relating to childrens welfare, to the couples stability, and to freedom of expression would be threatened. We need a public policy that serves the common good by reinforcing traditional family life Terri Kelleher, writing in the Australian Family Association Journal (Vol.32 No.2, 2011) rightly observes:

Advocates of so called same-sex marriage claim that justice requires recognizing the equality of any loving faithful relationship to that of a traditional marriage; they believe that marriage can, and should, be extended to include same-sex couples. This however begs the question of what is meant by marriage. While the push to legalize such same-sex marriages has the powerful backing of leaders in government, what is being proposed actually lacks credibility both logically and on pragmatic grounds, and all this irrespective of any arguments based on religious premises. Any law, however, does not change marriage itself, especially if it is based on a false conception of what marriage entails. What is at stake is: what do we mean by marriage? And on what grounds, if any, should we change a meaning generally accepted by civilizations down the ages?

The comprehensive heterosexual union alone is oriented to child bearing and rearing children, and is consequently oriented to permanence and exclusivity. For although public policy should not disregard the desires or needs of individuals, it must primarily serve the common good. Marriage law currently does so by fortifying that unique relationship which is naturally oriented towards bringing forth children. At a time when family dislocation weighs with increasing severity on families, we need public policy which reinforces, rather than undermines, the importance of mums and dads sticking together in a spirit of service to one another, to their children, and to the communities in which they live.

The situation is well expressed in another context by a dialogue in Lewis Carrolls Through the Looking Glass:

When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, It means just what I choose it to mean neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master that's all."

Legal construct? Or moral reality?

Marriage, as it stands, makes a lot of sense. Lets keep it that way! [Print version of this paper available from: paulandcathie@gmail.com]
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Some will indeed argue that marriage is a social/legal construct created by convention, with society deciding what components constitute its nature and thus what defines its meaning. Others recognize marriage as a given human good a moral reality independent of custom, expressing a fundamental relationship at the heart of what it means to be human.

The simple truth more complex

Who is right? Truth rarely lies in plausible slogans and the short superficial sound bites beloved of the media. Truth is more complex, being mined by well-developed arguments sourced from logic, commonsense and the experience of the ages. (Men and women of faith can draw upon further evidence in their scriptures and traditions, though we are not drawing upon such data here, lest charges of religious bigotry be raised by any disposed to dismiss out of court the total argument before it can be sufficiently developed.)

It is clear that same-sex marriage is an important part of this agenda, whose protagonists are out to challenge every traditional belief about marriage, sexual behaviour and even gender, so that they can reshape our society according to their own radical ideology As Wall Street Journal columnist Robert Bork wrote back in 2001,

One of the last obstacles to the complete normalization of homosexuality in our society is the understanding that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.

Distinguishing equality from equivalence not discrimination!

Michelangelo Signorile, another prominent gay activist, is quoted in the Harvard Journal article as urging: Same-sex couples should fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, [because] the most subversive action lesbians and gay men can undertake . . . is to transform the notion of family entirely. Same sex marriage a minority demand

Clear thinking is required that involves first comparing like categories with like and then distinguishing between matters frequently confused, such as equality and equivalence. Thus while we might talk of the equality of homosexuals and heterosexuals as fellow human beings, there can be no marital equivalence when considering the nature of their sexual relationships one group without innate potential for coitus, the other with such potential. Note that to deny such equivalence is no more discriminatory than to object to a definition of motherhood that includes men! It is a fallacy, then, to assume that making distinctions is always discriminatory. Thus, in law, distinctions are made as to whom each law applies, Those who maintain that conjugal union is a distinctive characteristic of marriage should not be portrayed as discriminating against gays because they point out that gays are ineligible for marriage by virtue of being naturally incapable of such a union. It is not simply a matter of expanding the pool of people eligible for marriage to let in homosexuals, as a golf club might be persuaded to admit ladies into membership without affecting the nature of golf. After all we rightly discriminate between trained doctors and quacks to ensure our health and safety; similarly, by discriminating against same-sex marriage, in favour of conjugal marriage, we believe we are preserving the health and stability of society.

The homosexual community is a minority group that packs a media punch far out of proportion to its numerical strength. According to latest scientific evidence less than 1% of men are life- long homosexuals. Only a small fraction of gay people are in any sense monogamous or committed for life to each other. Why should such a small but vocal minority be allowed to rewrite the definition and law of marriage for 99% of the total population?

Conjugal marriage a universal age-old custom

A study sympathetic to the gay agenda by Lubin / Duncan concludes, The resistance to same-sex marriage is not limited to Western culture with its age-old anti-homosexual hysteria and bigotry, but extends to almost every culture throughout the world.

Conclusion

Right to marry who?

To those who demand their equal right to the status of marriage, we would point out that while everyone has the right to marry, that right is not unrestricted as to who they marry: for example, no father has a natural right to marry his daughter. It would be ludicrous to claim equal right to her when compared with another (unrelated) candidate for her hand. Indeed he has no right at all.

Same sex marriage is an empty pretense lacking the fundamental sexual complementarity of male and female. Like all counterfeits, it cheapens and degrades the real thing. Marriage creates the most important relationship in life and has more to do with peoples morals and civilization than any other institution. It is a comprehensive union that involves the complete sharing of every aspect of the lives of the two persons involved, including bodily union. A union that does not include such a bodily

 The state, however, would no longer reinforce this notion that children need both a mother and father; that men and women in general bring different gifts to the job of parenting.

Conjugal marriage designed with children in mind

Restrict parents from teaching their children a traditional view of marriage

Parents in a traditional marriage also would, by implication, be affected with regard to what they tell their children about same-sex marriages. For once a conjugal understanding of marriage is scrapped and, by implication, same-sex and other-sex unions are to be regarded as equivalent marriages, the state would have to view those who still support conjugal-marriage as the only real form of marriage as bigots who make groundless and discriminatory distinctions. This would consequently restrict the rights of parents to teach their children a traditional view of marriage.

Conjugal marriage union is crucially different to same-sex union in that it unites a couple bodily in its conjugal acts as a reproductive unit, whether or not children are consequently born. This inherent orientation to the bearing and rearing of children contributes to marriages distinctive purpose (continuance of a stable human society, of which the family is a microcosm), structure (mother, father and child) and patterns of behaviour (such norms as permanence, monogamy and fidelity).

Same-sex marriage a romantic union only

Gag all dissent and undermine freedom of conscience

In so far as church leaders would be gagged and not permitted to criticize same-sex marriage in their public ministry, it would undermine religious freedom of conscience. For if marriage is legally redefined, believing what every human society once believed about marriagenamely, that it is a male-female union will increasingly be regarded as evidence of moral insanity, prejudice, or hatred. This would induce not merely 'political correctness' but something approaching totalitarianism where no dissent will be tolerated. Thus in the name of tolerance gross intolerance will reign supreme. Gay Activists agenda

Advocates of same-sex marriage understand it is essentially as an emotional union, an affirmation of love between two individuals. Since it cannot be linked to organic bodily union, it is about the union of two people (of whatever sex either may be) who commit to loving and caring for each other and to sharing the burdens and benefits of domestic life. It is essentially a limited union of hearts and minds, augmented by sexual intimacy. It cannot also be a union of bodies since coitus is impossible. In this way it lacks marital comprehensiveness. Marriage is far more than two people contracting to love and care for each other for life.

These two views of what constitutes marriage are incompatible. Legal rulings may call same-sex relationships marriage, and the state may confer the status, title and benefits of marriage on same- sex unions, but in reality it cannot make them marital any more than it can alter the natures of masculinity and femininity themselves.

What has brought about the possibility of such a scenario?

How lack of complementarity affects same-sex unions

Two decades ago Paula Ettelbrick stated: Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and ... transforming the very fabric of society.

Peter Tatchell, one of gay activisms leading campaigners, once provided a clear insight into the original ambitions of the Gay Liberation Front when he wrote: GLFs strategy for queer emancipation was to change societys values and norms, rather than adapt to them. We sought a cultural revolution to overturn centuries of male heterosexual domination and thereby free both queers and women. GLFs gender agenda has been partly won.

In a same-sex union the characteristics of only one gender are contributing to the couples relational development and stability, where heterosexual couples have the advantage of both genders input. A lack of reproductive connection also ensures that any family created is by an adoptive process, rather than a biological one; its lack of gender complementarity reflects more seriously on the childrens experience of parenthood, where only one gender provides a role model and where parental characteristics for rearing are limited to the one gender. Extensive studies have shown that boys and girls need and tend to benefit from fathers and mothers in different ways. In fact according to the best available sociological evidence children fare best on virtually every indicator of wellbeing when it is their wedded biological parents who bring them up.

Conjugal marriage promotes the common good

Some consequences of introducing same-sex marriage

The childrens welfare points to why marriage understood as the conjugal union of husband and wife is crucial for the good of society and should be recognized, regulated and preserved by the state. The contributors to the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy point out prudential reasons for the state to enshrine this understanding of marriage in its positive law, and to resist the call to recognize as marriages the sexual unions of same-sex partners Enshrining the moral truth of marriage in law is crucial for securing the great social benefits served by real marriage. Further, The states favored conception of marriage matters because it affects societys understanding of that institution.

What might be some of the consequences of implementing the gay agenda?

Induce confusion about the responsibilities of marriage

Family stability and social good

Marriage creates the most important relationship in life and has more to do with peoples morals and civilization than any other institution. It involves moral privileges and obligations between people that go far beyond the interests of the couple themselves to include the maintenance of stability and nurture for children. Developing healthy family relationships prepare all concerned for responsible citizenship, a good that is in the states interest to promote. The marriage norms of fidelity, permanence and respect for the opposite sex, learnt in a monogamous heterosexual family household, all make for a healthier society.

Endorsing same-sex marriages as essentially an emotional union of committed couples would obscure peoples understanding about what truly marital union involves as well as tend to increase marital instability by focusing on parents happiness rather than childrens well-being. In redefining marriage, the law would teach that marriage is fundamentally about adults emotional unions, not bodily union or children, and therefore not much different from ordinary friendships in general that do not require permanency or exclusivity. This in turn would confuse peoples understanding of what marriage relationships entail.

Lessen marital stability by stressing emotional ties rather than bodily bonds

By focusing on the mood of the moment rather than either the bodily bond (one flesh union) that has been created or the long-term responsibilities for rearing children, marital stability would be lessened.

Deprive children of the benefits of having both mother and father

Whats wrong with same-sex marriage?

The Harvard writers warn that rather than imposing traditional norms on homosexual relationships, abolishing the conjugal conception of marriage would tend to erode the basis for those norms in any relationship. They document gay activists ambitions: by recognizing same-sex unions, to make marriage ever after stand for sexual choice, for cutting the link between sex and diapers; their onslaught on monogamy: to use such legal recognition to de- normalize heterosexual monogamy as a way of life for the sake of rectifying past discrimination against homosexuals, bisexuals, polygamists, and care networks; and their promotion of open relationships: There is more likely to be greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman. Such statements, though possibly extreme, alert us to real dangers in the change of attitudes and mores that many revisionists approvingly expect same-sex marriage to produce.

Children of same-sex parents, even though cared for lovingly and sacrificially in a family context, would still be deprived of either a mother or a father, since no mother can be a father nor any man a mother. Indeed it has been argued that to deprive a child voluntarily and unnecessarily of either a mother or a father is contrary to the childs fundamental rights and best interests. (See Margaret Somerville (2007) Childrens Human Rights and Unlinking Child- Parent Bonds With Adoption, Same-Sex Marriage, and New Reproductive Technologies, Journal of Family Studies)

As has already been stated, research strongly confirms what is obvious: that parents brought up by their own mother and father do better in educational achievement, emotional health and psychological development; their personal and social behaviour is also better than those reared in one parent or samesex parent families. (See The Witherspoon Institute (2008) Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles).