Sam Schulman wrote a very interesting article for Commentary on secular reasons for keeping marriage between men and women only:
JAMES Q. WILSON, Maggie Gallagher, Stanley Kurtz, and others?including William J. Bennett in The Broken Hearth (2001)?are right to point to the deleterious private and public consequences of instituting gay marriage. Why, then, do their arguments fail to satisfy completely? Partly, no doubt, it is because the damage they describe is largely prospective and to that degree hypothetical; partly, as I remarked early on, the defensive tone that invariably enters into these polemics may rob them of the force they would otherwise have. I hardly mean to deprecate that tone: anyone with homosexual friends or relatives, especially those participating in longstanding romantic relationships, must feel abashed to find himself saying, in effect, ?You gentlemen, you ladies, are at one and the same time a fine example of fidelity and mutual attachment?and the thin edge of the wedge.? Nevertheless, in demanding the right to marry, that is exactly what they are….
The truth is banal, circular, but finally unavoidable: by definition, the essence of marriage is to sanction and solemnize that connection of opposites which alone creates new life. (Whether or not a given married couple does in fact create new life is immaterial.) Men and women can marry only because they belong to different, opposite, sexes. In marriage, they surrender those separate and different sexual allegiances, coming together to form a new entity. Their union is not a formalizing of romantic love but represents a certain idea?a construction, an abstract thought?about how best to formalize the human condition. This thought, embodied in a promise or a contract, is what holds marriage together, and the creation of this idea of marriage marks a key moment in the history of human development, a triumph over the alternative idea, which is concubinage.
I think it’s very well thought out, but ultimately unconvincing.
The problem with these arguments is in the “presumptions.” This guy presumes to know what the “fundamental presumptions” of marriage are. Is he talking strictly about monogamous marriage? In what time period? For the great bulk of 10,000 years of human civilization, polygamy, not monogamy, was the norm. 80% of the total number of world’s societies since 10,000 years ago were ploygamous. Monogamy is a recent idea (in comparison), and a Western one at that. I’m not denigrating monogamy, but I am also not “presuming” what marriage should mean for everyone. Actually, polygamy has its benefits, both for the man and the woman, especially in “creating life” (plenty of opportunities) and caring for children (plenty of parental supervision). We can only presume what the law states, for that is clear. Any de facto arguments of what constitutes marriage are simply that. Would Schulman agree that polygamy is a good form of marriage? Probably not.
Polygamy does have some benefits in the way of genetics, but then so does killing the crippled, the weak and the elderly which happened 10,000 years ago. I guarantee that polygamy laws will be next on the chopping block, but that’s another argument.
We have to ask ourselves why do homosexuals actually want to marry(or just the ability to marry)? Do they have an overwhelming need to pay the marriage penalty?
What does marriage actually represent to society? It means that the union between the two individuals is approved by that society. This is what the homosexuals want for themselves. They want the approval of everyone around to say what they are doing is normal and healthy. Modern day society is tolerant of homosexual behavior, but it does not condone it. It is not willing to say that a homosexual union is a healthy, normal relationship. This is the crux of the problem and the reason why gay marriages won’t happen within the next twenty years.
I don’t see the comparison between polygamy and infanticide/eugenics/murder. In the same way we can compare polygamy with building the pyramids because they happened around the same time. Not only that, up until recently some Mormons practiced polygamy, and I don’t see them stoning their grandparents.
You’re right. Homosexuals want legitamacy. They expect to be treated like the rest of Americans (well, in law, at least).