shirenomad | As a fence-sitter it's my job to keep the argument balanced.

One of the most coherent arguments against gay marriage arrived in my inbox today, in response to my middle ground statement on this journal earlier. I got permission to do with it as I please, and I thought it was worth repetition, if only because we never hear from those firmly on that side of the argument.

Message begins:

I think it is important to begin any discussion of gay marriage by bringing up the point that gays, right now, are not barred from marriage at all. There is utterly no discrimination directed against them. Any homosexual could at this moment enter into a marriage contract, but with the understanding that marriage is a contract between a man and a woman.

This response probably seems somewhat duplicitous: This is obviously not what gay marriage advocates mean when they say that they are barred from marriage. But we must remember that they are not restricted from entering into a marriage contract--they do not agree with what marriage currently is. This is not a campaign for marital rights; it is a campaign to redefine marriage.

That being said, it could still be the case that marriage needs to be redefined. In certain states of the Union in the not so recent past, marriage was defined as: a monogamous lifelong relationship between one man and one woman of the same ethnic and racial group. While again not technically discriminatory (whites couldn't marry outside of their group any more than blacks could), this was decided to be an arbitrary and even unhelpful clause to the definition of marriage, and so it was dropped. This was, I think, a good thing.

Also in the not so distant past, with the passage of no-fault divorce laws, marriage was also redefined so that the "lifelong" part was also eliminated. This was not such a good thing, and it is still having negative effects on our social fabric today in the high (though now dropping slightly) divorce rate and accompanying social ills such as deadbeat dads and the like. The "monogamous" part has been continuously under fire, but still seems to be holding at least legally--being guilty of adultery will get you burned in divorce court.

All the above is merely to explain that redefinition of marriage has been done in the past, and can conceivably be done in the future: the question is whether or not it will be beneficial.

From a Christian standpoint, the answer is obviously no. As a political matter, however, the question shifts to a question of whether a redefinition of marriage will benefit society, or at the least not harm it. If it were the case that politically it would be beneficial to allow homosexuals to marry in the manner they wish, then I would think your solution would be an equitable one, which would preserve both religious conviction and an egalitarian outlook. But marriage as an institution will not benefit from the redefinition being proposed; it will weaken.

What is behind the idea that two men should be allowed to marry each other? The definition that marriage consists solely of two people who love each other (whatever that means). Since gays have become more accepted, and the ways in which homosexuals love each other is increasingly been seen as identical to the ways in which heterosexuals love each other, it seems absurd and even cruel to exclude gays from entering into marriage contracts with their partners. If marriage is nothing more than a public proclamation of a romantic relationship that the parties in question wish to turn contractual, sure, why not let gays marry. But there are at least three reasons why this new definition will be a death knell for marriage.

The first is that making marriage about nothing more than love (typically equated with feelings of romance which could possibly dissipate in a week) means that other aspects of the traditional definition of marriage will have to go. If it is arbitrary and unduly restrictive to maintain that marriage is between two people, a man and a woman, then why is it not also arbitrary to maintain that marriage is between two people? Can't three people love each other in a sufficient enough way to qualify for marriage? To take an example of how this played out even this week, on Crossfire:

CARLSON: Well, then, let me ask you this question. Cheryl [Jacques, Human Rights Campaign], I want to ask you a question. And I want you to answer it. No one ever answers this question. And perhaps you will. The standards that the Massachusetts Supreme Court set was intimacy. People are intimate, share intimacy, they deserve to be married. Why draw the line at two people, say? Why shouldn't a group of three men, for instance, by that standard, be able to be married? It's an honest question. I'd like an honest answer, please.
JACQUES: Here's an honest answer. Tucker, I'm raising two sons. I want them to be in love with a committed partner. I want them to have a family. I want grandchildren. I want them to take care of each other. I want them to share each other's health insurance. I want, when one of them dies, the other one to be able to receive Social Security survivor benefits, because they'll pay into it, as I do.
CARLSON: OK, but you haven't answered the question yet.
JACQUES: I just answered it.
CARLSON: No, no, why not three?
JACQUES: I want two committed parents, like every family.
CARLSON: But why deny the right of [three] people
JACQUES: Because I don't approve of that. [emphasis added]
CARLSON: Why don't you approve of it?
JACQUES: The American Pediatrics Association, all the leading groups say two committed parents.
CARLSON: But give me a reason. I don't understand.
JACQUES: That's what makes for a healthy family and a loving family and that's what I want.
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JACQUES: That's not what this is about.
CARLSON: Why isn't that what it is about?
JACQUES: Because that's a different show with different advocates. This is about two loving, committed people. [again, emphasis added]

Note first that Jacques' visceral reaction to the question of polygamy is disgust: "I don't approve of that." This is the exact same attitude that she would no doubt condemn as bigotry if it were directed at the issue of gay marriage. Note also the claims a two person relationship is better at raising children--that will also be important later--and how the court ruling in Massachusetts had absolutely nothing to say about the family issues like children. If marriage is simply about "intimacy" (the court's term), then the pronouncements of the American Pediatrics Association is about as useful as that of National Union of Garbage Collectors--marriage has nothing intrinsic to do with children.

It was also mentioned on the same program that at this moment polygamy advocates are taking to court to sue for marriage rights, and not just in Utah. Under the legal rulings proposed by the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and the logic behind the positions of most gay activists, there is no viable argument to oppose them.

More importantly, the transition to a "marriage is about a loving, intimate relationship" definition works to render the entire notion of marriage irrelevant. Your friend Chibiakki mentioned that she(?) wasn't interested in marriage because "If I love, why do I need a piece of paper to say that I'm in love?" Very true. Marriage, to be something other than a form of milking benefits out of society, has to have a greater value than "We love each other and want to be together." People don't need any encouragement to do that. And with each successive redefinition of marriage, first homosexuality, then polygamy, then whatever else some aggrieved social group comes up with, the idea that marriage is solely about intimacy grows deeper ingrained into the cultural psyche. And if marriage is solely connected with intimacy, while intimacy is radically disconnected with marriage (How many lovers does an average person go through before getting married? How many after?) then marriage increasingly seems irrelevant. As indeed, with that definition, it is.

Social scientist Dr. Stanley Kurtz, who has been following the issue of gay marriage for some time, notes that in the few countries where gay marriage or even the equivalent of civil unions is allowed, marriage has further dissipated, almost to the point of nonexistence. (See his piece on weeklystandard.com or, even better, his response on nationalreview.com to Andrew Sullivan's critique of his initial analysis for further evaluation.) Which is simply to say that culture matters, and that gay marriage (not even to mention what will inevitably come after), will change the culture in such a way as to make marriage an endangered species in our country.

Of course, even should all this be true, that leaves us with saying that marriage will die as an institution and that all that we will have left is the extraneous benefits of a government contract, which actually seems to match your proposed plan to the entire mess sitting before us. I must admit it can seem a temping option, as it gives us Christians an opportunity to wash our hands of the entire affair without enraging and alienating our friends, neighbors, and coworkers who happen to be gay. And to a certain extent, particularly in opening things up like visitation rights and other periphery issues, I would have no problem with such privileges being granted to anyone to specify as you choose: if you desperately want your gay lover (or your best friend, or roommates, or what have you) to be able visit you in the hospital, you should have the ability to designate that. But marriage, again, is more than this.

The reason government took an interest in marriage, and kept that interest in what you claim is primarily a religious rite while other rites such as baptism became increasingly ignored in our secular state, is that marriage properly understood is not about individuals in intimacy with each other but the family as a unit. Jacques alluded to this in her attempt to separate gay marriage from polygamy, saying that child experts agree that having two people raising children is better than other combinations. That's half right summarization of their results: actually they have found that a man and a woman, raising a child, is better than the other combinations. If all it takes is two people, then the rise of social ills due to fatherlessness and deadbeat or absentee father figures should not be occurring. Children function best with both a male and female figure in the household. Jacques seems to think that because two parent households function better than one or three or five parent households, only two parent households should be allowed to exist. If, then, households with both genders occupying parental roles function better than households with only one, should not only two gender households be allowed?

This is partially to show (again) that Jacques cannot criticize polygamists without undermining her own position. But it also shows that the idea of marriage as being related to procreation and the raising of children is not dead yet in our culture. The old definition is under attack, but it has not fallen. The proposed constitutional amendment has its popular support precisely because the definition it supports still have defenders, enough so that if the courts did not feel the need to rewrite law to their desires, it would not be necessary to have an amendment in the first place. Understand, however, that the enshrining of the "intimacy" definition into law will be ruled into existence by our courts if that amendment is not passed. It would be better, much better, if the matter could have been dealt with on a state by state basis. I would argue it would have been better if the issue did not come up at all, but some could accuse me of an overly conservative bias for that. But those options are not before us. The choice we do have is to pass a constitutional amendment to defend marriage's old definition, or let those who wish to install the new one succeed. Being polarized in such a fashion is not pleasant, particularly when friends are caught on the other side. But I hope that you can understand why I am choosing not to take a tertium quid on this issue, and why I truly don't think one is possible.