The movement toward same-sex “marriage” has every appearance of being an irresistible force, with recent elections indicating the inexorability of its spread across the Western world. Those who stand against it will be bowled over by it. The outcome is all but inevitable.

So say its proponents, at any rate. Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson, and Robert George beg to differ. Two years ago the three released an influential paper arguing that there is a solid and permanent reality to marriage that stands despite any social or political force that may challenge it. Although marriages differ widely in form and custom, and especially in each couple’s experience, there is nevertheless a stable and enduring core meaning to marriage itself that will endure any assault.

Their 2010 paper having been widely discussed and widely criticized, they have now extended it to book length in What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, available for pre-order now, and scheduled for release tomorrow as an ebook (Kindle, Nook, iBooks), about two weeks from now as a paperback. The three authors are, as was to be expected, very much holding their ground, as is the marriage defense movement they are helping to lead.

Gay “marriage” versus man-woman marriage—it is as close as a social issue ccould come to “irresistible force meets immovable object.” No wonder there’s so much energy being released around it.

The question asked in the book’s title, What Is Marriage? is the right one, for whether marriage can or should be revised politically depends on what marriage is. If it is the kind of thing that’s open to revision, then there may be no need to stand in the way of its alteration. If not, then change may not only be politically unadvisable but essentially impossible.

And yet that question is also a step or two down the road from the starting block; for in the very question, “what is marriage?” there is the assumption that marriage entails some identifiable is-ness, some inherent or essential reality that defines it (pardon the repetition) definitely; that marriage, whatever it may be, actually is one thing and is not another. This assumption is open to debate.

The Western world in the twenty-first century is deeply infected with an unstudied democratic nominalism, meaning (for present purposes) that we tend to think our institutions, including marriage, can be whatever the majority says they are. We find it hard to conceive of something like marriage possessing or exhibiting any enduring and essential nature. How could it, after all? If biological species—including homo sapiens—are but today’s snapshot in a stream of populations that were once something else and likely will be again, how could mere behaviors be imbued with anything essential or permanent? Nothing is what it was yesterday; everything is becoming something else; and why not marriage, too?

So on that view one might wonder why a question like “what is marriage?” shouldn’t be discarded right off the bat. The right question could only be “what is marriage today?” And  today’s answer could hardly be supplied through philosophical treatises like Girgis, Anderson, and George’s, but only by legislatures, plebiscites, and the courts. The same-sex “marriage” movement could move forward unresisted.

But there are reasons to recognize in marriage an unmoving, unchanging core essence or nature. Girgis, Anderson, and George take up the burden of showing that this is so, what that nature is, and why; band it seems to me they accomplish what they set out to do. They make a persuasive case that  marriage necessarily involves a certain sort of comprehensive union that can only be achieved between a man and a woman. Their arguments are cogent; they handle objections deftly. It is a powerful book: marriage revisionists will find they are quite required to deal with it.

Or not. They could easily choose to ignore it, even if it’s all that I have just said that it is.

For let us imagine, if only for the sake of argument, that the authors have given us not just a good argument for conjugal (man-woman) marriage, but an absolutely unassailable case. Why should revisionists have to pay it any attention? They’ve already won the major public relations battles. Gradually—inexorably, it seems—they are making progress on one political front after another. Theirs is the irresistible force. They can press on regardless. What’s another book when victory is in your grasp?

The answer to that question resides on two levels, the first of which is (to my mind) determinative, the second more consequential yet.

On the first level there are the fatal contradictions in revisionist marriage—which, by the way, is not to be confused with the question of marriage for same-sex couples. The authors define this revisionism as

a vision of marriage as, in essence, an emotional bond, one distinguished by its intensity—a bond that points mainly inward, in which fidelity is ultimately subject to one’s feelings. In marriage so understood, partners seek emotional fulfillment, and remain as long as they find it.

This stands in contrast to the conjugal view they defend:

It is a vision of marriage as a bodily as well as an emotional and spiritual bond, distinguished thus by its comprehensiveness, which is, like all love, effusive: flowing out into the wide sharing of family life and ahead to lifelong fidelity.

Revisionist marriage has been around a lot longer than same-sex “marriage:” it is the form in which many heterosexual couples have been taking their vows (such as they may be) for decades, more or less since artificial contraception allowed childbearing to be decoupled from sex, sex from marriage, and of course marriage from childbearing. It was that decoupling that gave marriage the opportunity to be construed as being primarily of, by, and for the married pair. The same-sex marriage question is simply the same issue extended further in the same logical direction.

This revisionist view is fraught with fatal contradictions, discussions of which form a considerable proportion of the content of What Is Marriage? If, for example, marriage is essentially an intense and romantic friendship, what business does the government have being involved in it? How does such a marriage not interfere with, say, a partner’s friendship with his or her second-best friend? Other than, “my goodness, we’re not asking for that,” is there any principled reason not to invite that other friend in to be part of the same marriage?

But revisionism’s problems extend much deeper than that. Marriage is, the authors explain,

a human good with an objective structure, which it is inherently good for us to live out….

It is a human good. Its goodness stands upon, and flows out of, what we are as human beings. It is good to unite with another person in a comprehensive union. It is good for that union to be of the sort that uniquely completes the one biological function that depends on two persons, male and female. It is good for that union to be of the sort that can and usually does result in offspring, the effusive fruit of the couple’s love. It is good for those children to be raised by their biological parents. It is good for individuals, for couples, for children, for society as a whole, which by the way is the only reason it makes sense for government to be involved in marriage. It is not good to practice or propose any view of marriage that would undermine these goods, just because they are real goods.

They are good because of who we are as humans. And it is our humanity, not any three authors’ opinions, or any religious or conservative political group’s viewpoint, that is the immovable object against which the (seemingly) irresistible force of same-sex “marriage” is pressing itself. There is, after all, an answer to the question, “what is marriage?” In its core (not its accidents but its substance), that answer has been the same the world over in virtually all cultures: a fact which is easily understood in virtue of humans being humans in all cultures the world over.

I do not mean to suggest that there is something less than human about marriage revisionists. I suspect what we’re seeing in them is not a loss of belief in marriage as human, but rather a failure of confidence in marriage as good; and that it is this loss of confidence that leads them to be willing to toss the whole thing up in the air and start all over again. Marriage is a human good, but humans being what we are, not all marriages are good, or experienced as good. But now I have started down another trail, and I had better wrap up before I wander too far in a new direction.

I urge marriage defenders to digest this book. There are better and there are worse arguments in defense of marriage; and to the extent we are losing ground, it may be partly attributed to not knowing the difference. This book should be hugely helpful in that respect.

I do not know whether marriage revisionists will consider it necessary to contend with this book. For all I know, they’ll decide they can continue acting as if their movement is the irresistible force they suppose it to be. I think that they would do themselves a favor to read it, though; for in it they will find a charitably, rationally, and persuasively presented depiction of what they will eventually—inexorably, even—discover: that marriage is a distinctive human good; that it is good that it always involves the comprehensive, effusive union of a man and a woman.

(Also posted at Thinking Christian. Quotations from the book in this review were taken from an advance review copy which included a notice that it was subject to change prior to publication. Although this should go without saying, prior experience with this topic impels me to point out that if it appears I have not presented a complete defense of the conjugal marriage position herein, it is because that was not my purpose. I am rather hoping readers will obtain the book, which is where the arguments may actually be found.)

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?

It’s quite possible that these factors turned the election. If so, how should we think about them?

The storm was unique in our history; it was undeniably an act of God.

Whether or not Barack Obama had manipulative political intentions for working with Gov. Christie, I wouldn’t presume to say, and for the question I’m raising now it doesn’t matter. Whether the timing of the governor’s praise for the President was politically expedient or not, the fact is that is that he was practicing high-integrity leadership in placing hurricane relief above politics. Or so it appears from here, at any rate.

If an act of God and a Republican doing essentially the right thing contributed materially to a Democratic President’s re-election, we who believe in God and are social conservatives should be slow to assume that God’s will was thwarted yesterday.

As if it ever could be.

What Is Politics?
Politics, the art of working with people effectively to accomplish things together, has never been a pure sort of sport. It is an art involving imperfection. If it often seems like a necessary evil, nevertheless God ordained government (Romans 13), and our democratic form is the best devised so far. All of us who are citizens of democracies are inescapably involved in politics. So how do we navigate the imperfections without letting loose of our principles? Where perfect choices are not to be found, we can only seek to make good ones.

Politicians’ Character
For my money that begins with character. True leadership requires the ability to stay the course regardless of temptations to corruption. Every human is subject to that temptation; unfortunately politicians are so widely known for it that cynicism seems justified more often than not. Nevertheless there are distinctions among politicians: some have more clear and obvious track records than others of deceitfulness and manipulation. I can even lay claim (I think) to having met one or two of that rarest breed, the honest politician. I would of course choose a candidate who seems possibly honest over one who has proved she or he cannot be trusted. It is in any event a matter of choosing among imperfect options.

Politicians’ Religion
As for candidates’ religions—the topic of Dr. Prothero’s concern—we are not voting for pastoral leaders but for men and women who will be called on to accomplish public policy agendas. I don’t know why, then, it doesn’t make sense to choose those we think will be most effective in pursuing the best policies, regardless of their religion.

The Integrity of Voting For Less Than Perfection
Still some believers have expressed anxiety over an impossible hope for political purity. Right to life is the most salient issue for which it’s possible to define a “pure” position. Religious belief is another. No candidate could possibly appear perfect on everything that matters to a voter, but usually one is better than another.

God doesn’t demand that we stand on a principle of perfection when we work with people. If he did, then he would be requiring us to be ineffective in working with people. The world he’s placed us in doesn’t work that way. If we are to vote at all, we must vote for imperfect people.

There’s no violation of integrity there. Your vote and mine are not about enumerating all our principles. They’re about accomplishing what we each see as the best possible public policy.

The Rev. Dr. Phil Snider’s pro-gay rights performance before the Springfield, Missouri city council became an overnight sensation last month. More than 3 million people have viewed it. And no wonder: it’s brilliant theater.

I trust he won’t object to my describing it that way: it was he who acknowledged he was play-acting. He presented himself at first as a preacher speaking from the Bible in opposition to gay rights. He played that role for a minute or so until he pretended to stumble over the word “segregation.” Then in a superb surprise twist, he revealed that the lines he had been speaking had actually come from white preachers a half-century ago arguing against civil rights for African-Americans.

He played it well. The effect was dramatic. Shouts of “Bravo!” are echoing around the Internet, and understandably so. For supporters of gay rights, his play was just the thing to catch the conscience of conservatives.

Except for one thing: it was built upon emptiness and fiction.

I do not mean to take anything away from his dramatic effectiveness, but there’s something in the technique he employed that so takes the breath away, and so impresses the audience, that it becomes difficult to distinguish the performance from the argument.

And what was that argument? Apparently it was supposed to be something like this: “Racist white preachers used the Bible to support segregation, which was wrong; therefore conservative Christians who use the Bible today to oppose gay rights today are wrong. Future Christians will be as embarrassed over today’s opposition to gay rights as we are now over the racism in our past.”

But racist preachers (whoever they may have been) didn’t get their teachings from the Bible. To the extent they used the Bible to support racist conclusions, they were twisting it beyond recognition. From early in Genesis, through the ministry of Jesus Christ, even all the way to the end in Revelation, the Bible celebrates and supports the value of “all peoples” (ethné in the Greek, meaning tribes, colors, languages, and nations). There is nothing there that supports racial segregation.

If his point, then, was, “Racist preachers used the Bible’s teaching to support segregation, therefore the Bible is wrong,” honesty should have led him to add that these racists were distorting the Bible’s meaning, misinterpreting it badly.

That wouldn’t have had near the same dramatic impact, obviously. In fact this more honest approach wouldn’t have been worth bringing to the council meeting at all, at least not by any supporter of gay “rights.” The conclusion obviously doesn’t follow. That there are evil misinterpretations of the Bible hardly proves that proper interpretations are evil.

But then it might be that Dr. Snider’s intended point was that it’s a mistake to use the Bible at all. Again, though, you can’t show the Bible is wrong by showing that distortions of the Bible are wrong.

Dr. Snider’s theatrics demonstrated nothing but that bad things come of misusing the Bible. It’s a point well taken: his performance has strengthened my commitment as a believing Christian to handle the Bible accurately.

I doubt that’s the resolve Dr. Snider intended to reinforce.

More likely he meant to embarrass the Bible and all who rely on it. If so, he certainly succeed, based on the reaction around the Internet; except that rational reflection reveals he said nothing of substance, other than that it’s wrong to interpret the Bible wrongly. I’m not embarrassed by that. It’s obvious enough, after all, and Christians been saying it for centuries.

The questions surrounding gay rights and marriage are serious ones. Many of us think the Bible speaks importantly to these questions. Many others think we’re wrong as wrong could be. As divisive as these issues are, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that we’re all fellow human beings on both sides of the issue, and the human thing to do is at least to listen to one another. To shout one side down is disrespectful; to laugh one side down is dehumanizing.

And what did Dr. Snider add to that conversation? Further thoughtlessness, further dehumanizing; cringing among Christians, gleeful laughter among others. For all its dramatic deftness, his contribution only served to deepen the divide that keeps us from working out our differences as human beings.

It was great theater, but it was no help at all.