Quotes of the day

If 2 gay men, or 2 gay men and a woman, or 5 people want to enter into some contract by which they effectively become a single legal entity with respect to property, finances, etc–like a marriage–that’s their right.

The whole idea that there is a need to define “marriage” is silly to me.

DaveS on April 9, 2009 at 11:52 PM

It’s interesting that marriage tends to define itself as a man and a woman, time and again, in cultures and religious traditions across the world. There are exceptions, of course, but for the vast majority of the time humans have organized into civilizations, the one man + one woman model has been predominant, particularly among the middle and lower levels of various societies. Maroon seven men and six women on an island, and odds are good they’ll form into several married couples eventually, plus maybe a couple of swingers and a beta male.

Obviously one could point to the rigors of pre-industrial life as a powerful incentive to form traditional families, with the partners helping each other to survive and raise children, but the traditional marriage persisted as the norm far beyond the development of technology that largely removed the survival issue… and in the modern Western state, a great deal of the child-rearing is done by government school and hired professional caretakers, with the state eager to step in and take over more of those duties. Still, even in the increasingly transformed America of 2009, there is strong support – not merely political but cultural and philosophical – for the traditional marriage. The current challenge to the traditional concept of marriage is a very recent phenomenon, and didn’t really develop its current energy until after the no-fault divorce revolution had swept through America in the 70s, hard on the heels of the sexual revolution in the 60s. Each of these things has led to the other, in a parade of deconstruction that leaves social conservatives in the 2000s scrambling to defend things that were regarded as obvious truths in the early 60s. When the proponents of gay marriage point to astronomical divorce rates and say the traditional marriage isn’t what it used to be, they’re not wrong.

Leaving questions of religious faith and morality out of the discussion, the purely social problem with these alternative marriage arrangements is that they can only gain credibility by stripping away the special status of the traditional marriage. Society can only strongly favor so many things, and you can’t bestow societal approval on 5 men marrying 3 women without devaluing the marriages between 1 man and 1 woman. You don’t have to denigrate gay people in committed relationships to maintain a high regard for the sanctity of the traditional marriage… but you do have to strip away the sanctity of that traditional marriage in order to elevate that committed gay relationship to the status of a “marriage.” I would certainly agree that the modern divorce culture has reduced our reverence for traditional marriage, but officially sanctioned alternative marriage arrangements will kill it altogether – if any group of people, of any sex, can declare they are “married,” then what’s so special about Bob and Martha sticking together through three kids and celebrating their 50th anniversary together?

I don’t think our civilization can long survive the devolution of the traditional marriage – it is too valuable to a healthy, free society. In a world of rapidly shifting business and personal relationships, it is the only lifetime commitment we still aspire to; the only opportunity for the modern man to understand fidelity and the concept of a sacred oath is when he swears one to his wife.

Marriage nourishes children, not just by providing for their material needs, but by bringing them into the embrace of tradition and the past. At its best, marriage gives children an incredible example of the triumph of love, devotion, and courage over crude biology and the elaborate temptations of comfortable modern life. It is the building block of a free society, giving birth to the authority that runs from family to clan to community to nation. It is noble precisely because it is a powerful denial of lesser urges… a remarkably adult thing to do, in a world that enables lifetimes of childish, selfish behavior. Adolescent fantasies always begin by removing Mom and Dad from the picture. The devolution of American society since the 60s has been one long adolescent fantasy, in which no one ever has to grow up, honor women instead of using them, deny their immediate urges, or take responsibility for the future.

America has spent the last four months forging chains for its children, writing fat checks and tossing them into the crib for the kids to take care of them. Men marrying men, men marrying a possee of women, or random groups of people marrying each other will not be able to raise the children of sobriety and industry it will take to clear up the disaster their weak and self-indulgent parents have left for them. I can see why the Left is so eager to shovel dirt over traditional marriage: all these alternative arrangements will have the inevitable result of leaving a sea of confused kids for the State to raise, and then all the alternative parents can scurry away before someone makes them stand in front of their children and take responsibility for what we’ve done to their birthright.

Doctor Zero on April 10, 2009 at 12:55 AM