There Are Good Secular Reasons to Disallow Same-Sex Marriage

HonestDiscussioner and I have agreed on terms. I will launch immediately into my opening statement.~The state regulates marriage for a reason. It dispenses benefits for a reason. Understanding what this reason is will tell us what criteria are and are not relevant to marriage, and thus whether any rights are being denied. If the state excludes same-sex couples from entering into legal marriages on the basis of criteria relevant to the public purpose of marriage, then it is clear that no rights or benefits are being denied to them; for it is not unjust to deny a group a right that they do not deserve. Our answer to questions relating to the level of scrutiny, suspect classification, and fundamental rights will depend on what this reason is, as it provides a standard from which the debate can be framed. This reason, whatever it is, must advance a public purpose. Social institutions are afforded legal recognition and protection in virtue of their being purposed toward some good which benefits society as a whole. There must be something intrinsic to a certain kind of relationship that bears on the common good for there to be a legitimate state interest in regulating it. Private relationships with no such purpose do not deserve legal recognition. The state has no right – and arguably an obligation not to – recognize private institutions as public; public institutions should be treated as public and private institutions as private. Determining whether an institution is public or private requires knowledge of its purposes and kind. A private institution may at times happen to accidentally benefit a public good, but it is not coordinated to this as an end. As such, it remains private in virtue of what it is ordered to by nature. Thus, kind-membership is relevant in determining the legal status of a particular relationship.What is Marriage?In order to discern why marriage is afforded legal recognition, we first need to know what marriage is. So what is marriage? Here is one popular answer: Marriage is the lifelong union of two persons who love each other. [1] Marriage functions as a way of publicly acknowledging one’s love and commitment for their spouse. Because same-sex couples are capable of loving in the same way as everyone else, the law ought to make provisions for recognizing their unions as legal marriages.I don’t have anything against love. Love is essential for a marriage to flourish in the way that it should, but love alone cannot be sufficient for legal recognition. For one, not every loving relationship is afforded legal recognition. There are many different kinds of valuable social relationships that are simply not relevant to the public good in the way that marriage is. Companionships, for example, involve love, but nobody is calling for the government to legally recognize friendships. Love certainly motivates a couple to enter into marriage, but it is mistaken to think that marriage is essentially about love. Moreover, what public purpose would legally recognizing a loving relationship serve? Love is an essentially private matter that concerns only those people in a relationship. The state has no business poking around in this domain of life, since the state exists to regulate public goods and institutions. Some bring up the various benefits and incentives already associated with marriage as a reason to legalize same-sex relationships. According to this argument, same-sex unions should be afforded legal recognition in order to take advantage of the benefits that opposite-sex couples currently enjoy. But this is question-begging. Why should anyone deserve these benefits to begin with? It cannot be because they love each other, since that’s the very issue at stake. Let me propose what I think is a better answer: Marriage is a comprehensive union with a special link to children. [2] It is a private union with a public purpose. Private in that comprehensive union exemplifies the love of the spouses. Public in that their comprehensive union is directed toward a purpose beyond the love of the spouses: children.Marriage is a comprehensive relationship. It is different in kind from a friendship or partnership in which the respective parties are bound together merely by a common interest. It is something much deeper than that – a relationship in which both parties are joined together by an element of their humanity. Their union is real, not imagined or constructed. But in what sense are they united? Consider the various parts of a plane – the engines, wings, and avionics. What unites all of these parts together into a single whole is their coordination toward a common end: flight. Unity is thus achieved by mutual striving toward a single goal. Similarly, on this (conjugal) view of marriage, unity is achieved when the bodies of both spouses biologically coordinate toward a common goal. This involves more than just a mere coming together of bodies, as bodies come together all the time in surgery, contact sports, large crowds, and the performing arts. Their bodies must strive together to fulfill a common goal that neither individual can fulfill on their own. This common goal is none other than procreation, the only biological function with respect to which everyone is inherently incomplete. Marriage completes this by uniting both spouses in the context of the sexual act. This union is reflected in the creation of children who bear the marks of both their mother and father. The nature of comprehensive marital union is such that it can only be achieved by one man and one woman. The bodies of two men or two women can never be deeply united in the way which marriage demands, for within the context of a same-sex relationship, their sexual organs necessarily fail to work together for a common end. On this point, the use of artificial reproductive technology is irrelevant, since their type of relationship lacks an intrinsic link to children.The state regulates marriage because it has an interest in children. Marriage produces and cultivates the development of future citizens within a family unit held together by norms of fidelity, monogamy, exclusivity, and permanence. The flourishing of children is directly connected with the public good. The state incentivizes marriage both because it recognizes child-rearing to be a difficult task and because it wants to encourage men and women to form family units. The claim isn’t that you need to be married to have children, it is that marriage is oriented toward child well-being in a way that other sexual relationships are not. Infertile Couples?Of course, not all married couples have children; some are infertile. Nevertheless, all married couples of the opposite sex – infertile or not – are still capable of engaging in the kind of act which unites them comprehensively. They are still of a procreative type even if not all members of that kind can act on its characteristic effects. Their union is still ordered toward procreation as an end in the same way that a blind eye remains an eye in virtue of the kind of thing it is. The state still takes an interest in infertile/childless marriages because it wants to promote a view of marriage as it really is, not just as a means to an end. Interracial Marriage?It will not work to compare same-sex marriage to interracial marriage, for the analogy assumes without justification that there is no relevant difference between race and gender. How does it follow that because race is irrelevant to entering into a legal marriage, that therefore gender is also irrelevant? There must again be an independent argument to support the parallel between race and gender, otherwise one begs the question. The resolution stands affirmed.SOURCES 1. John Corvino, "The Case for Same-Sex Marriage" in Gallagher and Corvino (eds), Debating Same-Sex Marriage (OUP: 2012)2. Sherif Girgis, Robert P. George, and Ryan T. Anderson, “What is Marriage?” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 34:1 (2010)