{"id":447,"date":"2012-05-09T20:40:10","date_gmt":"2012-05-10T00:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=447"},"modified":"2012-05-09T20:40:10","modified_gmt":"2012-05-10T00:40:10","slug":"thoughts-on-gay-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/05\/thoughts-on-gay-marriage.html","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on “Gay Marriage”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Biden and Barack Obama have finally expressed what many of us, friend and foe alike, have long known is their real position on the contentious issue of \u201csame sex marriage\u201d: President and Vice President alike favor it. All that matters, Biden says, is that two <\/em>people love <\/em>one another.<\/p>\n

Notice, from the perspective of the Bidens and Obamas of the world, the opponents of \u201cgay marriage\u201d are guilty of arbitrariness (and worse) insofar as they insist on defining marriage in heterosexual <\/em>terms.\u00a0 Yet Obama, Biden, and their ilk should attend to their own glass houses before they cast stones at the homes of others: if the criterion of heterosexuality vis-\u00e0-vis marriage is \u201carbitrary,\u201d then how much more <\/em>arbitrary are their<\/em> criteria of monogamy <\/em>and love.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Although we <\/em>are accustomed to thinking of marriage along the lines of both monogamy and love, there are numerous others who are not so inclined.\u00a0 Historically, polygamy has been the rule around most of the globe.\u00a0 Even today, a not insignificant percentage of the Earth\u2019s population continues to opt for this ancient marital arrangement.\u00a0 And love\u2014love!\u2014has been regarded by most human beings as a woefully inadequate basis upon which to root a lifelong commitment.<\/p>\n

For that matter, the self-avowed champions of \u201csame sex marriage\u201d demand that marriage be limited to only those individuals who are not <\/em>related.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Is not this an arbitrary requirement, especially when it is considered that, again, most societies <\/em>have permitted marriage between blood relations?<\/p>\n

But at no place, and at no time, has marriage been understood as anything but a heterosexual union. <\/em>\u00a0\u00a0Given that the champions of \u201cgay marriage\u201d wish to mark a radical departure from a universal <\/em>and timeless <\/em>practice by imposing upon marriage a homosexual character, the burden is upon them to convince the rest of us that this is something other than a fool\u2019s errand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contrary to what radicals would have us believe, the wish to preserve the heterosexual nature of marriage doesn\u2019t need to be anchored to any religious sensibility.\u00a0 An aversion to radical change, an aversion born out by painful familiarity with the innovator\u2019s abysmal record, is enough to render anyone skeptical regarding the proposal to restructure marriage so as to accommodate homosexuals.<\/p>\n

Let me be clear as to what I am and am not <\/em>saying here.<\/p>\n

First, \u201cbigotry\u201d is presumably immoral because \u201cthe bigot\u201d makes arbitrary\u2014i.e. \u201cirrational\u201d\u2014judgments in contexts where sheer preferences have no place.\u00a0 Since marriage has always and everywhere been treated as an inherently <\/em>heterosexual union, those of us who want to continue regarding it as such are less \u201cbigoted\u201d than any partisan on this topic. That is to say, we aren\u2019t \u201cbigoted\u201d at all\u2014at least not in respect to this issue.<\/p>\n

Hence, whatever else can be said about the charge of \u201chomophobia\u201d that the friends of \u201cgay marriage\u201d level against their rivals, we can safely say that it is most certainly not <\/em>justified.<\/p>\n

Secondly, that marriage has been defined heterosexually by all peoples in all places and at all times does not necessarily mean that \u201cgay marriage\u201d should be outlawed.\u00a0 Rather, by alluding to the universality of the heterosexual requirement for marriage, we accomplish two ends.\u00a0 In addition to showing that it is the proponents of \u201cgay marriage,\u201d not its opponents, who are arbitrary and capricious, we show as well that the conflict over marriage boils down to a conflict between the experience of the entire human race\u2014\u201c<\/em>the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages,\u201d as Burke said\u2014and a minority of our contemporaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, that the apologists for \u201cgay marriage\u201d are overwhelmed in numbers by their opponents is not proof that they are mistaken.\u00a0 Truth may very well be on their side.\u00a0 But at the very least, appeal to the experience of the human species constitutes a prima facie <\/em>case against \u201cgay marriage.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

To quote the mighty Burke once more, by looking at our present institutional arrangements as a legacy of the past, \u201can entailed inheritance <\/em>derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity,\u201d we strike upon the means by which \u201cour constitution preserves an unity in so great a diversity of its parts\u201d (emphasis original). \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The problem with proposed changes of the magnitude implied by \u201cgay marriage\u201d is that they threaten to come at the cost of squandering our \u201cinheritance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Joe Biden and Barack Obama have finally expressed what many of us, friend and foe alike, have long known is their real position on the contentious issue of \u201csame sex marriage\u201d: President and Vice President alike favor it. All that matters, Biden says, is that two people love one another. 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