There Are Good Secular Reasons to Disallow Same-Sex Marriage

My thanks to HonestDiscussioner for his cordial response. I encourage viewers to carefully read through both my OP and rebuttal.The Procreation Argument UnfazedWhy does the government regulate marriage? As I argued initially, the government is interested in marriage because it is interested in children. My opponent responds by noting that homosexuals are also able to contribute to child-well being even if they cannot, strictly speaking, create children. He notes that the state's interest extends to cultivating child development, a purpose which homosexuals are capable of acheiving.This response relies on a misunderstanding of my argument. Certainly there are many different types of social arrangements are capable of raising children, homosexual relationships being one of them; but only marriage is specifically ordered to family life in general in virtue of gender complimentarity. As I argued, same-sex couples are unable to unite comprehensively and thus do not share this dynamic orientation to family life. Earlier I made the point that only those relationships which are intrinsically ordered to family life are deserving of state recognition -- hence my comment about why kind membership is relevant to legal status. Man-woman marriage has an intrinsic public purpose that other types of social relationships lack.Plenty of social relationships are indeed capable of raising children in a broad sense -- be it two homosexuals, a triad of three people, a group of nuns or fraternity brothers. But only a union of a man and woman bound together by norms of fidelity, monogamy, exclusivity, and permanence are ordered toward both toward family life in general as a proper end. This unique orientation to the public good is why the law privileges marriage. Other relationships might mimic some of the functions of marriage, but they remain private unions lacking a public purpose. My opponent's analogy of a hammer that functions in socially useful ways apart from its purpose, is mistaken for this reason. A major part of my opening argument was that the state ought to regulate social institutions based on their kind-membership and purpose, not accidentally useful functions which they may happen to mimic. My opponent has thusfar failed to respond to this argument. Hence, the state's interest in children does indeed extend to child development, but only in connection with a type of union apt for producing them. It is a mistake to seperate the two.Benefits: A Question-Begging ArgumentA benefit is not the same thing as a sufficient reason. There are, as my opponent points out, many benefits associated with marriage; but not all of them act as reasons to justify state involvement. Indeed, I don't deny that same-sex couples may be benefited if allowed to marry; the more important issue should be over whether these benefits are deserved — that is to say, whether same-sex couples have a right to them. It would be absurd to suggest that the government has a duty to give you something simply because it benefits you. These benefits must be the subject of a right to justify the state's involvement. The very issue at stake is whether the government's public rationale for dispensing these benefits can be extended to include same-sex couples. To assert that they are being unjustly denied these benefits is to assume that they deserve these benefits to begin with. This is an assumption that requires independent arguments. My opponent has thus begged the question, for he has not provided independent warrant for thinking that same-sex couples should be given these benefits.Of course, in order to determine just which social arrangements are deserving of the benefits associated with marriage, we must first make an inquiry into what marriage is and why it matters. This is a challenge my opponent has not met. Showing that same-sex couples will benefit does not answer the normative question of whether they should benefit. Same-sex relationships may have their own unique goods specific to their kind of union, but they are not relevant to legal recognition in the way that conjugal unions are. Their relationships do not bear on the common good in a way that merits legal recognition. Why Kind-Membership is Relevant (Again)Given that my argument relies heavily on the relevance of kind-membership to public policy formation, it is worth reiterating (and adding to) some of the points I made earlier. Contrary to what my opponent has said, I did in fact provide an argument as to why an intrinsic link to children matters (see my OP's 2nd paragraph).Social institutions are afforded legal recognition and protection by the state in virtue of serving a public good. The state's job in this regard is to treat public institutions as public and private institutions as private. Acting contrary to this would be to violate basic principles of equality that liberals commonly appeal to. But in order to know whether any given institution is public or private, we first need to know what kind of thing it is and what its purposes are. Kind membership provides us with a benchmark by which we can evaluate the flourishing of a given institution by reference to how it ought to function. [1] It tells us what a thing is and hence how it should be treated. The essential operations of social institutions are determined by their nature. Looking mainly at how a social institution in fact functions, which my opponent proposes, puts the metaphysical cart before the horse. A private institution may at times happen to accidentally benefit a public good, but it is not coordinated to this as an end. It remains private in virtue of what it is ordered to by nature. Let's RecapHere is the essence of my argument: If the state is going to be involved in the business of regulating marriage, then it has an obligation to get marriage right. To get marriage right, we first need to know what marriage is and why it is subject to legal recognition in the first place. Only by answering this question can we determine who gets what benefits. The mere fact that a benefit is being withheld is irrelevant if done so based on criteria relevant to what marriage should be. Every law makes distinctions, and simply because a particular law may exclude some does not mean that there is somethinh problematig about it. What matters is whether the basis on which they are excluded is a relevant one. Relevant to what? In this case, relevant to what marriage is supposed to be.So then what is marriage? I've argued that it's a comprehensive union with a special link to children. This accounts for its public purpose of marriage and its unitive dimension. My opponent obviously doesn't think this is correct, but he has offered no attempt at answering this question. But then how are we supposed to debate whether same-sex marriage is just or unjust without reference to what marriage should be? This is just one of the many challenges that my opponent needs to overcome in order to vindicate his position. The resolution is affirmed. Con's criticisms do not adequately address the case that I have made._________1. cf. Martha Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge, MA: Belknap. 2006)