We are within a few weeks of the release of What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense, an expanded version of Sherif Girgis, Robert George, and Ryan Anderson’s seminal paper on the same topic. I’ve read an advance copy of the book, and I will have a review forthcoming. For now, in the briefest possible terms, I would describe it as a work of philosophical reasoning in favor of conjugal (man-woman) marriage.
I could further describe it as charitable, clear, and persuasive, but those descriptions are beside the point for my current topic; for it seems that whether it’s well-reasoned or not, it carries the kind of toxicity with which Christians ought to quit poisoning our witness. Or that’s what I’m being told, at any rate. A commenter on my Thinking Christian blog wrote yesterday,
Perhaps it is time for the Christian church to re-evaluate our opposition to SSM. It doesn’t matter what reasons we give and how good they are, we are coming across as if we hate gays….
This commenter, “bigbird,” went on to say that since the battle is already lost, we might as well accept things as they are; and if we do, then eventually gays might realize we don’t hate them after all.
I’m encountering this plea more and more often these days. “Elections in four states last week are further proof that there’s no hope for the defense of marriage. Let’s let it go. Let’s learn to love again. Anything else is just pushing the hate button.”
It seems so gracious and loving. If I were a gay man, though, I would be appalled.
For this is the message it would be sending about me: “My response is predetermined. No matter how cogently or charitably the other side reasons, the only reaction I can possibly offer in return is that it’s hateful.” Who could hear that, and not stand up and shout? “I am not programmed with your automatic answer! I am no dog salivating to the sound of a bell! I am a human being, and I can treat others as human beings, too.”
If anything qualifies as hate speech, it seems to me that bigbird’s recommendation would, for it assumes gays are by nature emotionally programmed and not fully rational. I do not mean it is in the same class of hate as, say, outright bullying or blaming hurricanes on homosexuals. Rather it is a more subtle form of contempt: it assumes gays are not grown up enough to engage rationally in reasoned discourse.
As a Christian I refuse to treat another human being that way.
Yet I am sadly confident that bigbird is at least partly right: there will be those who will receive What Is Marriage? as hate speech. Those who do so will reveal more about themselves than about the work they’re responding to.
I have hopes that they will be in the minority among SSM advocates. I have hopes that the majority will cast off rhetorical manipulations and automatically-expected responses, and treat the book as an invitation to reasoned discussion together as fellow human beings. Call me naive: I can dream, can’t I?
November 15th, 2012 | 5:42 pm
Thank you for your clear response. Just because the opposing side calls us haters doesn’t mean that we are. They are the one who want to engage in a smear campaign and are quite narrow minded if they think people who are as charitable as Christians “hate” anyone.
November 15th, 2012 | 10:40 pm
It’s the same when they call people “homophobic” – a charge that is thrown out by particular commenters on this blog with a certain frequency. A smear tactic to avoid all debate.
November 15th, 2012 | 11:38 pm
If they’re mad, we must be bad. Jesus’ problem was mainly a PR one. At times the crowd loved him but he dropped the ball and they crucified him. He is an example so his followers should definitely avoid the cross. Christians are cool too.
November 16th, 2012 | 8:22 am
I think that Tom presents a reasoned, and humane approach. I believe that reason and evidence shows that same sex marriages (SSM’s) are legitimate, religiously and secularly. But I’ve always admired Tom’s use of logic and arguments to support his view that the opposite is the correct view. There’s no doubt that he does want the best for gays/lesbians, and I can see that his position, that opposition to SSM’s is guided by love, and a non-condescending view toward gays/lesbians.
November 16th, 2012 | 8:46 am
Good practice. In a few years, they’ll be calling anybody who objects to pedophilia and bestiality “haters.” If you cave now, how can you stand fast then?
November 16th, 2012 | 8:55 am
[...] Reasoned Discussion, Common Humanity, and Hate Speech – Tom Gilson, First Thoughts Can't Find What You're Looking For? [...]
November 16th, 2012 | 9:09 am
Questions about marriage are inextricably intertwined with questions about the human rights of children.
These discussions, which purport to be about marriage as we have known it for quite some time now, have an odd, detached quality when consideration of children’s right to their natural parents and the parents’ solemn responsibilities to the children conceived of their bodily union is absent.
November 16th, 2012 | 9:51 am
A clarification of my argument for children’s human rights:
It is my position that the discussion about children – sons and daughters of mothers and fathers – must come first.
Earlier considerations of civil unions, respect for the privacy of persons of homosexual orientation, were not seen primarily in relation to children. If we at least consider the progression in Canada from legalization of marriage of same sex persons to immediate erasure of the terms “natural parent” and “blood relationship” from all Canadian law, perhaps we can see the relationship now.
Mothers and fathers and the children born of their bodily union are inextricably connected. Only the severest of crises should separate them. Do we still believe this?
November 16th, 2012 | 9:53 am
Tom, it is important to have a very firm differentiation between the Church and the state on this matter. One can retreat from opposition to SSM as law simply on strategic grounds while firmly as ever holding on to the Scriptures and the teachings of the Church from her foundation.
Second, there is a basic problem with bigbird’s thinking. S/he presumes there is an actor in the world call “the Christian church” and that “we” are part of it. Plenty of Protestant denominations in North America and Western Europe have already traveled down bigbird’s path. I haven’t seen any evidence that this new “witness” has improved reception of the Gospel, but am open to argument.
November 16th, 2012 | 10:06 am
A Reader:
I agree. When it comes to actually discussing the reasons for conjugal marriage—when we actually do that which bigbird wrongly thinks is hateful to do—the children’s place is right at the center of that discussion.
November 16th, 2012 | 10:16 am
Their new paper had better consider the possibility of stem cell derived gametes making it possible to reproduce as either sex.
November 16th, 2012 | 10:38 am
[...] previously blogged on how attractive hate can be for some people; they love to hate others. This article draws attention to another use of hate; the accusation that other people are hateful with the [...]
November 16th, 2012 | 11:07 am
The reasoning presupposes a couple of things, doesn’t it?
That there is a literal “moral order” to the universe that is compatible with the physical aspects of nature. These correlate to the function of “man and woman” in procreation. The underwriting of this thinking is “God”, as the Creator of both marriage and the physical realm.
While the reasoning is consistent, is it necessarily true? Humans create their social environments. And differences in how humans create their social environments are differences in culture. “Culture” being the way that man understand reality.
Man has created the calendar to understand time by the setting and rising of the sun. Man observed that there was a consistent standard to the rising and setting of the sun. This doesn’t mean that “God” created. It only means that there are certain physical laws that man can observe. These laws help man to understand and “hone” nature into usefulness for Man.
The important aspect of marriage is stability, not procreation, or conjugation. How and what one does as to sexual behavior is between the parties involved. Marriage is a consensual relationship. Thus, we do allow for divorce. But, some choose to believe that marriage is a sacred relationship that correlates to many aspects to their “Christian faith”. That is part of religious liberty, but liberty should not impose upon another’s right to choose differently, as to their beliefs about what constitutes “marriage”. The civil liberties that Americans enjoy are because we don’t impose our view. Our nation was to allow for religious liberty and civil rights. Everyone should “be at peace” with that.
November 16th, 2012 | 12:03 pm
Yeah, I don’t really like their emphasis on God and Natural Law when there is a completely secular case for limiting procreation to a man and a woman, and preserving the right of marriage to procreate. God is the creator of everything and everything that happens (including abortion, torture, hurricanes, etc) is God’s will, but that doesn’t mean that we have to like everything that happened or never try to influence our destiny.
We don’t have to let same-sex couples attempt to reproduce genetic offspring together, just like we don’t have let siblings conceive offspring either. It would be bad public policy, too expensive, harm human dignity and the basis of equality, which is the basis of rights, put children at risk, be an offensive insult to families that are not genetically related, increase government and corporate control of our lives, and is totally unnecessary and there is no right to do it. It should be prohibited, and we should settle on Civil Unions that are exactly like marriage except for one difference in rights: they would be defined as “marriage minus conception rights.” And marriage should be affirmed as approving and allowing the couple to conceive offspring together from their own genes.
November 16th, 2012 | 12:25 pm
Yet I am sadly confident that bigbird is at least partly right: there will be those who will receive What Is Marriage? as hate speech. Those who do so will reveal more about themselves than about the work they’re responding to.
I have read the paper What Is Marriage? and I look forward to reading the expanded book version. Would that all arguments about same-sex marriage were on that level! Those of us who attempt to defend same-sex marriage against its critics deal mostly with the worst arguments, not with the best. I can’t tell you how many times, in various forums, I have dealt with the argument that if gay marriage is permitted, then there is no possible moral argument against brothers marrying sisters (or, presumably, brothers marrying brothers), adults (including parents) marrying children, or humans marrying dogs. Can you perhaps empathize with a gay person who has been with his or her partner twenty or thirty years and is told, essentially, that there is no moral difference between their relationship and that of a woman and a dog, or a pedophile and a child?
I wonder if opponents of same-sex marriage notice how much anger there is coming from “their side.” I don’t know any way of objectively calculating which side of the debate resorts more to irrational, emotional, or accusatory language. Even if it is lopsidedly the pro-SSM side, it is very definitely not all that side. And of course there is a heavy burden on those who argue against same-sex marriage from the Christian point of view to actually follow the teachings of Jesus (and Paul) about loving your enemies, bearing wrongs patiently, and avoiding anger and name-calling. To any who think that is a call for Christian opponents of same-sex marriage to unilaterally disarm, it seems to me the call of Jesus for his followers to love their enemies and do good to those who hated them was not an invitation to humiliating defeat or surrender but to eventual victory.
One more point: From the Catholic perspective, or so it seems to me, the arguments against homosexuality and the arguments against contraception are closely related and may very well stand or fall together. Catholic arguments agains homosexuality have consequences for all sexual behavior. And if I remember What Is Marriage? correctly, it argues for the indissolubility of heterosexual marriage. Those Christians (and others) who accept divorce and remarriage had better be prepared to show where Girgis, George, and Anderson are wrong on this point if they consider them right about everything else.
November 16th, 2012 | 1:25 pm
David it’s not hateful to say that people have the same right to procreate with someone of the same sex that they do with a sister or a gorilla. It’s just a fact. People only have a right to procreate with someone of the other sex who they are eligible to marry according to the laws.
There is so much more to a relationship than being allowed to procreate together, gay people don’t have to demand that right in order to be respected or have their relationships respected. But a marriage does have to demand the right to procreate together to be respected, I do demand that right with my spouse, I won’t accept being equated to a same-sex couple or to siblings, that’s very offensive to everyone’s marriage and to human rights and equality.
November 16th, 2012 | 1:39 pm
John Howard –
I can at least see where you’re coming from with most of your list, even if I disagree in some areas. But I’m not even sure what this means. Can you expand on this?
November 16th, 2012 | 2:42 pm
Think of all the gay couples raising children right now, especially those families that aren’t in a state that gives their family any security or benefits or recognition as a permanent committed couple. How do you think it makes those families and especially their children feel when people say that the highest priority – above getting legal recognition as soon as possible – is for same-sex couples to be allowed to use experimental stem cell derived gametes in order to have kids that are genetically related to both of them? Do you see how it totally insults them and implies that they aren’t loved as much or as important to both of them as much as shared biological children would be? That they’d rather have manufactured children if they could? Instead, we should affirm that “love makes a family” and gay people don’t need to be allowed to do incredibly risky experiments in order to both be related to a child to love the child and be a real family, and what they need is the security of Civil Unions, not the conception rights of marriage.
November 16th, 2012 | 11:26 pm
when people say that the highest priority – above getting legal recognition as soon as possible – is for same-sex couples to be allowed to use experimental stem cell derived gametes in order to have kids that are genetically related to both of them?
John Howard,
I have never heard of any gay-rights group making it a top priority, or even a long-term goal, for same-sex couples to have biological offspring. If possible at all, it is well beyond the reach of current technology. It is certainly not something dealt with in the essay What Is Marriage? and I can’t imagine it is a topic in the forthcoming book. It really is a separate issue from same-sex marriage, it seems to me, and is in the same category as reproductive cloning. I believe it is theoretically possible to take the genetic material from one human egg and use it to “fertilize” a second egg. How it would be possible to produce the offspring of two males I can’t even imagine. But as I said, I don’t see it as relevant to the issue of same-sex marriage.
November 17th, 2012 | 2:24 am
Find me one gay rights group or blogger (even yourself) who says that same-sex couples do not have a right to attempt to conceive offspring together, and not be allowed to attempt to conceive offspring together. I’ve asked them, they all refuse to give up the demand for equal conception rights.
Maybe you can show them how to do it: Just say that there is no right to try to make people through experimental joining of two people of the same sex. Say that it isn’t important and you are willing to give up the demand to be allowed to, in exchange for establishing Civil Unions throughout the country that are defined as “marriage minus conception rights.”
November 17th, 2012 | 7:43 am
Angie VanDeMerwe wrote, “The important aspect of marriage is stability, not procreation, or conjugation.”
But why, then, does the law not only permit, but facilitate, death-bed marriages?
Surely, the legal function or purpose of marriage is filiation and a death-bed marriage can serve that purpose for existing offspring or those not yet born. It establishes the bond of legal paternity.
In the words of le doyen Carbonnier, “the heart of marriage is not the couple, it is the presumption of paternity.”
November 17th, 2012 | 11:50 am
How far from death do you think a person should have to be to get married? I do think there is something shammy about death bead marriages, but they are kind of like marriages of inmates with life sentences in that there are many reasons people marry and a right to marry and all there has to be is a faint hope that they might be able to consummate their marriage someday, for the marriage to be valid, which includes people up until they are unable to say “I do.” They shouldn’t have to kiss the bride or consummate the relationship immediately or even in the near future, they just have to want to hopefully in the future (and of course be allowed to – they can’t be siblings or married to someone else for example).
I don’t think a death bed marriage establishes any paternity though it certainly would affect inheritance because the assets would become the surviving spouse’s and then be inherited by the new spouse’s children when the new spouse dies. But those children don’t become legal children of the a new step parent, the step parent has to adopt them for that to happen. I think.
November 17th, 2012 | 12:15 pm
Just say that there is no right to try to make people through experimental joining of two people of the same sex.
John Howard,
No two individuals, same-sex or opposite sex, have a right to demand science provide them with a way to have biological offspring other than (perhaps) bringing together the egg from the woman and the sperm from the man—that is, in vitro fertilization, and I am hesitant to endorse eve that.
November 17th, 2012 | 12:38 pm
John Howard –
Ahem.
Not ruling out a possibility that might obtain in coming decades is a bit different from “the highest priority – above getting legal recognition as soon as possible”.
Besides which, I’m not following you on the “insult” bit. Do – should – adopted children in general feel insulted because of IVF and so forth?
November 17th, 2012 | 1:28 pm
John Howard
A death-bed marriage will legitimate children previously born to the couple, providing they were free to marry at the time of the child’s birth.
Of course, if the woman is pregnant at the time of the marriage, the provision “the child conceived or born in marriage has the husband for father” would apply.
Inheritance laws differ; most European countries follow the Code Civil, which gives an indefeasible legal right to half a parent’s estate to an only child, two-thirds to two children and three-quarters to three or more. In all cases, a surviving spouse takes a quarter share. Anything left over can be disposed of by will.
November 17th, 2012 | 1:49 pm
You are doing more than just “not ruling out a possibility” you are insisting on having, currently, right now, the equal right to conceive offspring together that a married man and woman have. Accepting that there is no right to reproduce with someone of the same sex and giving up the demand does not actually rule out society deciding to allow same-sex conception at some point in the future, anyhow. All you are doing by demanding to be allowed to do it right now is harming people. It harms the thousands of same-sex couples and their families that don’t care a whit about being allowed to reproduce offspring with each other, they need legal recognition and these Civil Unions defined as marriage minus conception rights would give them that right now, and could be passed right now, before Christmas, and be Constitutional. But you won’t agree to it because you insist on clinging to a non-existent right to do a non-existant technology. It also harms everyone’s right to reproduce with their spouse, when you equate their right to reproduce offspring together to a same-sex couple’s, especially in advance of it being possible and you say you don’t even demand it. Let me tell you, I demand to be allowed to have sex and conceive offspring with my wife using our own genes, so you better make it a demand if you want to say we have equal marriages.
Yes, there are thousands of kids that need families and lucky to be adopted by weirdos while normal rich families are buying eggs and sperm and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars just to have a genetic connection, or just to have a child from day one, their own child, unspoiled by having been someone else’s child, don’t you think adopted people are insulted by that?
November 17th, 2012 | 2:13 pm
“No two individuals, same-sex or opposite sex, have a right to demand science provide them with a way to have biological offspring other than (perhaps) bringing together the egg from the woman and the sperm from the man—that is, in vitro fertilization, and I am hesitant to endorse eve that.”
David, that’s one issue, whether or not a same-sex couple can claim a right for it to be provided, the way they demand sex change operations be paid for by the state in Massachusetts, and the way IVF is covered by mandated insurance. There’s lots of people who would say they do have a right to that, and that we should continue to publicly fund the research and make it possible. It’s good that you agree they don’t have a right to it, and I agree that no couple has a right to force us to provide IVF. I even agree that maybe we should provide married couples with IVF using their own egg and sperm, but maybe it’s enough that we just continue to leave it legal for them, and make use their own money.
Do you think we have to let people try using their own money to create offspring with someone of the same sex? Since you know it will involve “science providing them with a way to have biological offspring” then you know they don’t have a right to demand it, as you just said. Now, do you think we have to let people create offspring with someone of the other sex? I think we do, even if we don’t let anyone use IVF, because we don’t know that they will have to use a banned technology, and more importantly they have a right to do that even if they can’t that is important to honor, that they don’t have with someone of the same sex.
November 17th, 2012 | 2:48 pm
John Howard,
Can you give some evidence that the demands your are objecting to are actually being made? Can you point, for example, to a gay-rights organization, or a pro-SSM organization, that is demanding the right of two people of the same sex to reproduce biologically in the manner you describe—that is, by some laboratory process by which their DNA is combined to form a zygote-like entity that would mature into a human being?
Perhaps what you are trying to say is that the purpose of marriage is procreation, and by demanding the right to marry, same-sex couples are implicitly demanding the right to procreate. The problem with that is that those arguing for same-sex marriage deny that the purpose of marriage is procreation. They are demanding the right to same-sex marriage not so they can procreate, but in spite of the fact that they cannot procreate.
Unless you can show us some evidence that those seeking same-sex marriage are seeking some kind of scientific program to enable them to procreate, I will continue to be concerned that we are being sidetracked here discussing a nonissue. I know of no such demand from any major players in the same-sex marriage movement. There may, of course, be occasional speculation as to what future reproductive technologies may bring, but that should not be mistaken for demands by same-sex marriage advocates.
November 17th, 2012 | 3:18 pm
John Howard,
I would approach the issue from a slightly different angle. I would say that a democratic society has the right, if the people choose, to prohibit scientists form developing techniques to create human beings in ways other than bringing together a human sperm and a human egg. Those techniques, as far as I can determine, would involve some kind of reproductive cloning. Fifteen states already ban reproductive cloning. I would support the right of the other 35 to enacts such bans.
November 17th, 2012 | 3:58 pm
The demand for equal rights is a demand to be allowed to procreate offspring with each other’s genes, because that is certainly something I demand as a right for my marriage. If they have to use technology, then it is a demand to be allowed to use technology. It is an abstract approval of the concept of offspring and we should not give that approval, we should instead prohibit people from doing that. You can’t equate being approved and being prohibited.
Gay rights lawyers are very careful not to go on the record as “seeking some kind of scientific program enabling them to procreate,” but I’ve interacted with many, and they also never give up the demand. This comment on my blog by John Culhane is typical:
“John Culhane said…
I’m speaking on this issue for a panel of lawyers on Monday, and I’m not sure I’m understanding the basis of your objection to this technology. Let’s say that science gets to the place — it might not — where we’d have good evidence that creating children through modified gametes is as safe as natural procreation. Now let’s also assume that this is achieved through research not funded by the government, thereby doing away with your “why this when some don’t have basic health care” argument?
Then what would be the basis of your objection? I’m just wondering, because it doesn’t seem to raise any of the serious ethical questions as stem cell research. Do you think it’s like cloning? Do you oppose cloning?”
Then he responded later in an email to me where he said “(3) Wouldn’t a same-sex couple say that their “human equality” demand access to whatever reproductive technologies are available (assuming safety, again)?”
I had similar discussions with Corvino and Rauch, they all insist it has to be allowed, they refuse to admit it is not a right and could be banned. And then I’ve run into anonymous commenters who tell me they can’t wait to do it with their partner, it’s gonna happen and they can’t be stopped.
November 17th, 2012 | 4:18 pm
John Howard –
Excuse me. Since you are quoting my words, I’ll assume you’re addressing me. In that case…
…yes, I am in fact “insisting on having… the… right to conceive offspring together that a married man and woman have.” Indeed, I’ve already exercised that right four times with my wife over the fifteen years we’ve been married. In a purely biological fashion devoid of technological assistance, not to put too fine a point on it.
In case you haven’t made the connection… I’m a straight male married to a woman. Indeed, I’ve actually been one to point out – many times, on this very site – that civil unions strike me as the best way forward.
I have asked you a couple questions for clarification, and disagreed with how you have characterized the positions of many people lobbying for gay marriage. I find it remarkable that on that basis – alone – you made some rather startling assumptions about me and my positions on various issues.
November 17th, 2012 | 10:50 pm
State bans on cloning wouldn’t stop it, because it isn’t cloning. Missouri has an Amendment that stops implantation of embryos that are not created through the union of a man and woman’s sperm and egg, but as long as one state allows it, then the country allows it because same-sex couples in any state would just go to New Jersey or California to have their offspring manufactured for them.
But if what you are saying is in good faith, then you mean that you would support same-sex couples being prohibited from conceiving children, and you agree that they do not have a right to attempt to conceive offspring together. Is that right? Because those state laws that you support would supposedly prevent same-sex conception, right? And they would have zero effect on a married man and woman’s right to conceive offspring, right?
November 17th, 2012 | 10:56 pm
Ray it was mainly on the basis of you starting your comment “Ahem” that I made the wrong assumption, sorry. If you support Civil Unions then you’re on my side, I think they need to be defined with a difference in rights for them to be constitutional, and that difference should be conception rights. What do you think?
November 18th, 2012 | 1:53 pm
“Yes, there are thousands of kids that need families and lucky to be adopted by weirdos while normal rich families are buying eggs and sperm and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars just to have a genetic connection, or just to have a child from day one, their own child, unspoiled by having been someone else’s child, don’t you think adopted people are insulted by that?”
Arguing that assisted reproduction–any kind of assisted reproduction, apparently–is necessarily an insult to adopted children, or to potentially adoptable children, strikes me as eccentric. Shall I be insulted by everyone who benefits from resources I just don’t have? And should the children produced by assisted reproduction resent potentially adoptable children as mortal threats to their existence?
November 18th, 2012 | 2:55 pm
@ John Howard and David Nickol.
The definition of marriage accords with the definition of the physical reality of parenthood: permanent, heterosexual (containing both sexes) and exclusive (containing only two people). This is why international law gives marriage as the right to marry and found a family. ANY change to the definition of marriage leaves in place an artificial definition of parenthood ie one that does not accord with physical reality.
If marriage is defined as being between “two adults”, then the law understands that a man and a woman can be a child’s parents in the exact same way as, for instance, two women. But if man plus woman is the same as woman plus woman, then man and woman must be the same (if A+B = B+B then A=B). If man and woman are the same, then we can call them both “adult” (C). If two adults can found a family, and all adults are the same, then it must be true that one adult can found a family (if C+C= C then C=C).
A redefinition of marriage is a legal statement that we do not procreate: we clone. Technology will then have to try to catch up with this legal statement. Pretty nuts huh? :) Same-sex couples will not have to fight hard to access cloning technology, as the definition of marriage will have already given them the legal right.
I would welcome anybody showing me that i have made a mistake as, as far as i am aware, i am the first person to make this explicit link between cloning and redefining marriage.
gentlemind
November 18th, 2012 | 5:11 pm
John Howard and gentlemind,
I would urge you both to read the paper What Is Marriage? and (when it is published) the book. I think you’ll see how far off track these discussions of as yet undeveloped reproductive technologies are regarding the debate over same-sex marriage. The authors put forward the conjugal view of marriage (which they espouse) and the revisionist view (which they reject).
I think you both are espousing a conjugal view of marriage turned on its head. In the conjugal view of marriage, a man and woman have a right to marry because they can procreate. They do not acquire a right to procreate because they are permitted to marry.
I think the authors are essentially correct in presenting the two views of marriage, and the view view you are presenting is not consistent with either of those two. It’s in the realm of straw men and red herrings. It simply isn’t what the two sides of the debate are arguing over.
Whatever progress the proponents of same-sex marriage are making is being achieved by denying any necessary connection between marriage and procreation. Proponents of same-sex marriage are saying that the ability to produce offspring by merging of DNA of the two spouses is not so essential to marriage that there can be no marriage without it. You are arguing, quite differently (and oddly) that those who want same-sex marriage are recognizing the producing biological offspring is an essential part of marriage, and consequently that those advocating same-sex marriage are demanding the right to marry and the right (which is to be provided by science) to produce biological offspring.
If it were actually the case that marriage conferred on married partners the right to produce biological offspring, then infertile heterosexual married couples for whom all assisted reproductive technologies fail would have the right to demand even greater scientific involvement in reproduction with techniques like cloning. Is there any sign of that? I don’t think so.
I think the proponents of conjugal marriage would maintain that it can’t be “redefined.” Conjugal marriage is what it is. What can be redefined is civil marriage, which in many respects in 21st century America is not in conformity with conjugal marriage as the authors define it. So I think we have to distinguish between human rights and civil rights here. Civil legislation cannot create new human rights. Redefining civil marriage cannot confer a human right on same-sex couples that doesn’t exist. And let’s not forget that the kind of reproductive technology under discussion here does not exist for humans and may never exist for humans, either because it is never developed or because it is simply impossible to develop it. So it makes no sense to me to fear that allowing same-sex couples to marry civilly confers on them the human right to have genetic offspring in the way you are contemplating. You can’t make up new human rights, and you can’t confer human rights on people if they are in the realm of the highly improbable or impossible.
I think the only reasonable course to take, especially in a thread about What Is Marriage, is to agree or disagree with the essay (and the book when it comes out), not invent issues that are purely hypothetical.
November 18th, 2012 | 5:49 pm
Thank you David. By correctly recognising that the right to marry flows from the ability – in principle – to procreate, you have defeated your own argument and proved me correct :) Human rights laws recognise and protect inherent abilities. Properly understood, the right to found a family translates as “Nobody has the right to prevent your relationship producing children”. But when applied to any relationship other than one man and one woman, there is no inherent ability to recognise or protect. So the right to found a family then does flow from the right to marry.
I am familiar with the Girgis/George/Anderson paper. By shying away from procreation, and instead refering to “bodily union”, they present a case far weaker/less accurate than they could have/should have.
November 18th, 2012 | 6:46 pm
By correctly recognising that the right to marry flows from the ability – in principle – to procreate, you have defeated your own argument and proved me correct :)
gentlemind,
The one thing I am careful about is never proving anyone else correct. How could I, when I am never wrong??? :P
I was pointing out only that those who make the case for conjugal marriage (as I understand them) would say that the ability to procreate (in theory, if not in fact) is a prerequisite for the right to marry. I did not say I agreed with those who make the case for conjugal marriage, or rather, for those who make the case that civil marriage must conform to conjugal marriage, which it already does not in many respects. It has been a while since I read the entire paper, and rather than read it through again, I am waiting for the book. But it seems to me that the authors frame the debate correctly, or at least they make the best case around for defining marriage as conjugal marriage. So what I am saying to John Howard is that if he is defending “traditional marriage,” and by that he means conjugal marriage, he has wandered so far away from the best presentation of the case that the points he is concerned about is irrelevant.
I am not at all sure that I would say that same-sex couples have a “right” (a human right) to marry. It is something I haven’t thought enough about to take a firm position. That does not mean they may not have a civil right. That also does not mean that if a majority of the people in a democratic election vote for same-sex marriage, that vote would not decide the issue. Seeking a victory in the courts, SSM-advocates pretty much have to demonstrate that there is either a natural right or a civil right to same-sex marriage. However, in a democratic election, all they have to do is convince a majority of people that same-sex marriage is a good thing.
November 18th, 2012 | 7:08 pm
By shying away from procreation, and instead refering to “bodily union”, they present a case far weaker/less accurate than they could have/should have.
gentlemind,
I think they absolutely must make the case the way they do, otherwise sterile individuals could not marry. Women past the age of childbearing could not marry. If the case for a valid marriage were based on procreation itself rather than on consummation of the marriage, it would really be necessary to hold off on pronouncing a man and woman validly married until the woman had a child. But in some ways I agree with you. Their definition of conjugal marriage seems to require only “going through the motions” of conjugal marriage. Consummation (by sexual intercourse) of a marriage between two sterile people is just as valid as consummation of a marriage between two fertile people. Therefore, the institution of marriage is about procreation, but individual marriages of those who can go through the motions of sexual intercourse even though they cannot conceive a child are somehow included in marriage.
As I mentioned before, the arguments against contraception, which most Catholics seem not to accept, rely on some of the same principles of the case for conjugal marriage as the only acceptable view of marriage. Perhaps this is why a large percentage of Catholics support same-sex marriage.
November 18th, 2012 | 7:49 pm
It’s not about ability, for a brother and sister have the ability yet are not allowed to marry. It is about whether we approve of the couple conceiving offspring or not. Society does have a duty to prevent people from reproducing with their sibling, their child, someone married to someone else, etc. Society also has a a duty to prevent people from reproducing with someone of the same sex.
David, you don’t seem to be getting that people don’t have a right to procreate with someone of the same sex and that it should be prohibited, whereas people do have a right to procreate with someone of the other sex (someone eligible to marry of course), and they should never be prohibited. Marriage should always allow and approve of the conception of offspring together, whether it happens or not. Same-sex couples should not be approved or allowed to conceive offspring together.
November 18th, 2012 | 9:29 pm
What is Marriage is an irrelevant obsolete paper because it doesn’t discuss the possibility of same-sex couples attempting to create offspring together. The question of allowing marriage is always the same as the question of allowing conception of offspring together, and it should never be separated into two separate questions. Married couples should always feel that they have every right to have procreative sex and to conceive offspring together, society should always approve of a marriage creating offspring of the marriage, with no time limits or age limits or fitness tests. Society should never approve of same-sex couples attempting to create offspring together, they should be prohibited from attempting it.
I am defending everyone’s equal right to marry and for every marriage to procreate with their own genes. The authors of WIM fail to defend marriage against being stripped of the right to procreate, and they fail to defend marriage against same-sex couples who claim a right to procreate.
David, I showed you John Culhane’s comment that shows he knows about it and thinks they have a right to attempt it. And I had a question about your statement that you support state laws that would prohibit same-sex conception. And I’ve reminded you that thousands of same-sex couples need state and federal recognition, but don’t need equal conception rights. Please mix these points together in your head and see if my Compromise makes sense now. Remember the thousands of families that need security, not conception rights.
November 19th, 2012 | 4:13 am
David, i am not suggesting that same-sex couples are knowingly seeking the right to found a family. I am simply pointing out that states that choose to create same-sex “marriage” – for whatever reason – will then have to obey an international law that grants those “marriages” the right to found a family ie the right to do the impossible. This is all according to international law, not me. Like you, i am never wrong haha We should get on well :)
Nobody in favour of redefining marriage is lobbying the United Nations to “ammend” article 16.1 of UDHR. I would not want them to, as the whole of article 16 is accurate as it stands. But unless it is ammended, everybody campaigning for same-sex “marriage is -whether they realise it or not – campaigning for the right to do the impossible.
November 19th, 2012 | 4:35 am
However, we regulate the relationship so as to legally remove the undesirable. Two women cannot physically marry, as their relationship lies outside of the nature of marriage. They can only ever marry as a legal fiction. It is the same with sex changes. It is physically impossible to change sex, but some countries allow it as a legal fiction.
So, yes, it is about the ability – in principle – to procreate. The law simply regulates that ability. I understand your approach, and it is good to see somebody framing their arguments with one eye on the future/technology.
November 19th, 2012 | 8:31 am
gentlemind, then why don’t we let siblings marry? And it isn’t impossible, they’ve made sperm from stem cells, it’s now just a matter of altering the genomic imprinting with the right chemicals and trying it to see if it works. It shouldn’t be allowed in principle, it should be prohibited. That’s the key, unless we prohibit same-sex conception, we allow it in principle and therefore should let same-sex couples marry. We should do it asap so that kids are not cruelly confused about their future.
November 19th, 2012 | 10:30 am
. . . . will then have to obey an international law that grants those “marriages” the right to found a family ie the right to do the impossible.
gentlemind,
First, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not legally binding on anyone.
Even were this somehow legally binding, I do not see in it any guarantee that same-sex couples who are permitted to marry are given some kind of right to procreate that must be invented by scientists.
I think you would have to demonstrate that “found a family” must be interpreted to mean “produce genetic offspring biologically related to both spouses even if they are incapable of doing so unaided.” If it meant something like that, infertile heterosexual couples and elderly heterosexual couples (in which the women are past childbearing age) would have the same right you claim would be conferred on same-sex couples and could demand science devise a way for those who cannot reproduce sexually to have offspring created for them in the lab.
The future of of assisted reproductive technology, cloning, and genetic engineering is well worth discussing. However, it seems to me irrelevant to the current discussion on same-sex marriage. For those who are concerned that science will be attempting things it has no business attempting—devising alternate ways to create a zygote other than bringing together an egg and a sperm—let them deal with that as an issue. If they feel it should be banned, let them ban it. But such technology doesn’t even exist, and may never. To use it as an argument against same-sex marriage strikes me as irrelevant to the current debate and rather quixotic.
November 19th, 2012 | 12:19 pm
David, you are failing to differentiate between human rights and positive rights. As i said, the right to found a family simply means the state cannot prevent people using their inherent procreative potential. It does not mean that if a particular marriage has difficulty conceiving that that relationship somehow has the right to receive a child from the state. But the relationship between one man and one woman is the only human relationship which has that inherent procreative potential. Thus giving the right to any other relationship does turn the right into a positive right: the state becomes active, rather than passive.
Anyway, the question is this: what happens when the state creates a legal fiction? The answer is that the state has to legally erase physical reality. The state knows full well that in redefining marriage it is redefining the legal understanding of parenthood itself, transforming a legal recognition of a physical reality (permanent, heterosexual, exclusive) into a purely legal concept. Every single father and mother has the legal relationship with their own children reconfigured. Natural, objective, unalienable rights are replaced with state-defined, state-granted, subjective rights. This is pure logic. It is not an opinion. And this is the reason marriage is being redefined. It is the reason why “Equal marriage” is the first state-imposed civil rights movement.
The definition of marriage is the definition of parenthood. It really is as simple as that. It doesn’t quite deal with John’s worry though. See below.
November 19th, 2012 | 12:35 pm
John, we do not let siblings marry for the same reason we do not let two 13 year olds marry: we do not want them being parents. This fits in with your concern. However, we regulate against siblings/13 year olds because they are capable – in principle – of procreation. If i understand you correctly, you are saying that technology brings same-sex couples into that same category,and we should regulate against them for similar reasons. My approach is rather different. When i say that procreation is impossible between anybody other than one man and one woman, i believe i am correct in a way that technology will not prove wrong.
If a human body is created from the genetic material of two women, that body can only ever be a female. And it can also only ever be a sister to the two women. It is not a member of the next generation. The two women have not procreated at all. Ditto cloning. If a human body is made from the body of one human, the created body can only be a replica of the original. It is not a member of the next generation.
Have more faith in nature :) A same-sex marriage really is physically impossible. As impossible as an impermanent marriage (no parent can step outside of the body of their child and cease to be physically related to that child) or a marriage between any number of people other that two (no third/fourth/etc person can step into the body of a child. In the case of one person parenthood, that child can only ever be a clone). Marriage is the physical state of parenthood: permanent, heterosexual (containing both sexes) and exclusive (containing only two people). Only one relationship can achieve that state: one man and one woman.
November 19th, 2012 | 2:52 pm
gentlemind –
Well, yes, but people can be female and human too. I don’t quite follow the relevance of this point.
A sister to two women from two different family lines?
With, er, in vivo reproduction, half the genes come from one parent, and half from another. The child is, indeed, genetically distinct from either of the parents.
In a hypothetical situation like, say, the fusion of two eggs… half the genes would come from one woman, half from the other. The child would be genetically distinct from both women. To my knowledge, no genetic test would even in principle be able to differentiate such a child from one with a more traditionally-derived genetic complement.
What do you take as the definition of “a member of the next generation”, exactly?
(As an aside, I did try to respond to John Howard, but my comment was rejected. I have no idea why.)
November 19th, 2012 | 4:08 pm
We should not ALLOW people to attempt to reproduce offspring with someone of the same sex. It should be prohibited, now, before it is attempted, and before more children are led to believe it may be an option for them someday. It will never be ethical or good public policy and there is no reason to allow it that would justify any risk or cost and bad effect on society, and it would have many. Unlike marrying and conceiving offspring with someone of the other sex, it is not a right. Do you guys agree or disagree?
Marriage should always approve in principle of the conception of offspring together, a marriage should never be prohibited. Do you guys agree or disagree?
November 19th, 2012 | 5:04 pm
(As an aside, I did try to respond to John Howard, but my comment was rejected. I have no idea why.)
Ray Ingles,
I have written a few messages in this thread that did not make it through, and I am at a loss to explain why.
November 19th, 2012 | 7:05 pm
We should not ALLOW people to attempt to reproduce offspring with someone of the same sex.
John Howard,
Why not? I will admit that there is something potentially frightening about scientists manipulating human genes in the lab, but why is it worse to manipulate and combine the genes of two men or two women than it is to manipulate the genes of a man and a woman?
November 19th, 2012 | 7:41 pm
A man and a woman don’t have to manipulate any genes to have offspring together, they are genomically complementary, that’s the definition of “man” and “woman” in this context – being of the sex that provides one of the two complementary genomes that combine into a new organism, it’s how we reproduce as a species. Like virtually every advanced life form, we have two sexes that come together to reproduce. And like many species, and to a greater extent than most, our sex cells are complementarily imprinted with a methylation pattern as they develop in our gonads (testes and ovaries) and the result when they come together is a viable diploid embryo, where some genes come from the mother and some come from the father. That’s why just taking the nucleus out of an egg and putting it in another egg doesn’t work, it has too many genes that are “on” twice, and too many genes that are “off” twice, and it fails early on in its development. So it’s a goal of many labs to simulate or recreate that methylation bath so that stem cells can be grown into viable gametes with the other genomic imprinting. Only same-sex couples would ever need to do that to reproduce, and only same-sex couples would publicly be affected by a ban on using manipulated genomes to create people. And there is no right to reproduce offspring that way, even if there might be a right for a soldier or accident victim to have replacement gametes made from stem cells (which I would also say was unethical and unnecessary and should be banned, but sometimes people try to take that way out, and I want you to see there is no way out – just admit that insisting on a right to do something that isn’t even possible while families suffer from lack of security and recognition is inexcusable.)
November 20th, 2012 | 9:33 am
John Howard –
I tend to come from a libertarian (note: small-l) perspective where I think things should be permitted unless there’s a convincing case against them. So I’d like to hear more about the “risk or cost and bad effect on society”. What are some specific harms that would come from this, in your view?
November 20th, 2012 | 11:10 am
Enabling people to reproduce as either sex or with someone of either sex would become a huge government entitlement, like IVF and sex changes already are in Massachusetts and under Obamacare. It would quickly require regulation and that would lead to regulation of everyone’s reproduction to make sure its “safe.” Libertarians should want to avoid big government in our reproduction and keep reproduction natural and free, they should take a long term view and not just think we should allow labs to do what ever they want to make people. It also puts those people at great risk, they should not be forced into existence as some lab’s experiment in replacing sexual reproduction with something else. There is no right to do it, and prohibiting it would resolve the marriage debate, help children prepare for their future without freaking them out about being able to be either sex. Think about where it would lead to.
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