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« on: October 19, 2012, 12:38:41 PM »
**This is a post designed for a mature audience. It uses precise terms and does not shy away from scholarly discussion of human biology and anatomy. **
I think that this is the post everyone has been waiting for. This is meant to be an argument against the legalization of same-sex marriage on purely secular grounds. I am not appealing to God, the Bible, the Q'ran, the Pope, or anything that could be confused for the holy.
Before I begin, I think I have to start with some caveats.Keep these things in mind as you read my post, for they will drive the entirety of the argument. First of all, recognize that I am coming from the perspective of the principle of non-contradiction. Same-sex marriage is either possible or it isn't. Moreover, same-sex marriage is either morally repugnant or it is not, regardless of how many people think it's okay or it isn't. And so, in order to refute me, don't try to use arguments of moral relativity, unless you want to back the argument up to first principles (in which case the argument will no longer be about same-sex marriage but will be about something with much higher stakes).
Next, I should like to frame my argument. I am not talking about the moral imperfection of same-sex acts. That is a related to this argument, but my argument stands without making such claims explicit. In other words, exposing the moral repugnancy of same-sex marriage is not the thrust of my argument, and if you think it so, you are missing a major element of my post, which is more about the government's interest in legalizing and offering marriage benefits to same-sex couples (I know the objection here, which is “if its not immoral, what's wrong with it?” I have two responses. 1. Driving on the right side of the road is not immoral per se but it is not good for society because of the structure of the way things are. 2. I do think they are immoral and I think my argument is weakened if that is not properly in place). Nevertheless, I think what I'm trying to say can be said without having to systematically explain the moral imperfection of same-sex acts. Next, I need to establish what I mean by love: to will the good of another. Love cannot merely be reduced to sentiment or feeling, it needs to be a free choice of the will to work toward another's perfection, perhaps even at the expense of one's own time or own interests. Love so described is by its very nature fruitful. What good is a friendship that does not bear the joys of virtue, mutual enjoyment, and quality time? What good is the love that one coworker shares for another if that work relationship does not bring forth some product? Notice that in in the fruitfulness of each relationship, I am speaking of a fruitfulness proper to its essence: friendship begets quality time, not apples. Work-relationships beget products, not baby salamanders. Musical relationships beget good music, not rocket ships. This will be the thrust of my argument, that a sexual relationship has a fruitfulness proper to its order.
Having established first principles, and having framed the argument, allow me to present a very tentative thesis which will need to be fleshed out in the ensuing argumentation. My thesis is: same-sex marriages ought not be given by the government the same rewards and benefits as a heterosexual marriage precisely because the integral component of childbearing can never be present. While this argument says nothing about whether two people may or may not, of their own choosing, engage in same-sex genital stimulation, it does maintain that because of the nature of a same-sex couple, the government has no interest and is actually harmed in granting the same benefits to same-sex couples as it does to heterosexual couples.
Let us begin with a thought experiment. Suppose I lived in a community with all males. I, a male, might have any number of friends and I might enter into a professional relationship with that person. The government of that community would have interest, for the common good, to regulate my trade affairs with these other gentlemen. Now, suppose, one of these other men and I were to strike up a friendship – not a professional relationship. What interest would the government have in regulating our discussions, the games we play together, or the activities that we do? None, we are acting as private agents with respect to the whole. Our friendship might be a good for the society (as we might model virtuous living and the like) but we do not receive any special benefit for this. Now, suppose, this friend of mine begins giving me very pleasurable foot rubs. This is done without compensation. Does the government have, as its prerogative, to regulate this? No, this remains proper to our friendship, and it is not related in any way to the commerce of the community. In other words, that we give each other foot rubs, which might indeed feel very good, is not sufficient grounds for the government of this community to recognize our friendship as anything more than the fraternization of two private citizens. We might even choose to live together, but the government is not going to reward one of its citizens for finding a very particular or special friend.
Now, let us suppose that one day, I am walking about the country and I come across a new, yes analogous, community of individuals who are like me, but have very different parts. One of these individuals, let us call her a woman, and I strike up a friendship. Again, neither community seems to have much interest that we might enjoy bowling together. Now, however, let us suppose that she and I engage in a copulative act. For the sake of argument, let us imagine that she and I have no idea that this act is conjugal. Soon, she begins to elicit signs that this act has changed her. Her natural rhythms and such are interrupted and changed precisely because of the sort of act in which we engaged. Nine months later, a child appears. Well, not the society has another mouth to feed. Is it now time for the government to step in? Yes. This new couple is the sort of couple that would be able to do something of a completely different order if everything is working (which it is). They can produce a child. The government's interest in this sort of relationship is significant because this relationship ensures the future of the society and provides for the futures upbringing. This is precisely why the government should reward heterosexual married couples.
Now allow me to shift my focus. I am going to be making another argument. Consider your lungs. They are complete with respect to your own body. They execute their function as lungs in a working body complete unto itself. The same is true of the heart, skin, liver, and kidneys. These organs complete their function with respect to the body to which they belong. Both the male and female reproductive organs make little sense on their own. A penis or vagina is incomplete in its functionality with respect to the body to which it belongs. They only do that which they do in terms of one another. To say that stimulation alone is the telos of these organs is a lot like saying the function of the lungs is to hold air, but not to process it. That only identifies a contingent element of the organ's functionality. Thus, the argument can be made that what is going on in same sex genital activity is, at best, mutual masturbation. It is quite analogous to the foot rubs in the above example. It may well feel good to the individuals engaged in it, but it does not provide for the good of the society in the manner that a heterosexual marriage does. Thus, the government should have no more of an interest in making homosexual partners on par with heterosexual marriages (as if it could change or lessen the significance of the sort of relationship which would end in child-rearing) than it does in having an interest in recognizing me and my best friend as partners worthy of some governmental benefits.
Here is another argument. It is often dismissed as a “slippery slope fallacy,” but it could more accurately be called a argument of trajectory. It is the sort of reasoning the Supreme Court uses when trying to establish a ruling. It asks: If we legalize this for reasons x, y, and z, what else, of necessity, must we legalize? If we legalize same-sex unions and grand them benefits equaling those of heterosexual marriages, what else must we also allow? Since the criterion of what can marry is no longer child-bearing but is attraction (cf “Born this Way”) we must allow any person to marry whomever or whatever he or she was born attracted to. What if I am attracted to my brother? I was “born that way,” how can you tell me not to marry him? What if I am sexually aroused and attracted to a dog or a tree? With the emphasis no longer on something discernible but on something flimsy (like attraction), we have no reason to hold back on any of these examples. Moreover, a legalization of marriage that sees child-bearing as peripheral and not contingent treads into dangerous waters. Without a clear definition of who can marry whom, which is written into the very flesh of human beings, marriage as an institution becomes fuzzy at best, and meaningless at worst. Consider somebody who is, for lack of a better term, asexual. He was born not attracted to anyone. How is it fair that he cannot receive any of the benefits of a married person? He could argue that he deserves government compensation for not having the capacity to marry. Attraction being so fragile a criterion, this person could well change his mind and end up taking advantage of the system in new ways.
Perhaps at this point you want to maintain that the criterion is not attraction, but consent. This would solve the problem of bestiality, one might say. It does not, however, solve the problem of incest, nor does it solve the problem of the system being more vulnerable to swindlers. Over and against the criterion of consent, those who would want attraction to be the defining character of marriage would continue to argue, and if the criterion can be shifted from child-bearing to consent so easily, how much easier could it be shifted again to attraction?
And so, there is much at stake here. Much more than recognized at first glance. In short, suffice it to say that the government ought not have any interest in changing the definition of marriage precisely because same-sex marriage offers nothing to society that conventual friendship does not.
I did not cover the moral status of the homosexual act. I did not cover the nature of marital love as such. I did not cover the biological questions that same-sex actions raise. I did not cover the rights of children. I did not cover the significance of marriage in the face of ecclesial institutions or places of worship. There is much to be said, but I suppose we can call it a day.
My only request is that responses be polite, articulate, and well-reasoned. I am certainly open to discuss any of my arguments.
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