Here is the gay marriage question no-one seems to be asking: If it’s all the same, then what’s the difference? With so much talk about equality, love, commitment and stability, is there simply no difference between gay marriage and marriage between a man and a woman? Is there absolutely nothing distinctive about marriage as it has traditionally been understood?
The answer is obvious but too easily forgotten: A life-long commitment between a man and a woman is a relationship involving sexual difference, involving male-female complementarity. For this reason, it allows children to be conceived and born within the life-long union of their own natural parents, and it is a form of commitment and family life that allows children to grow up with their own natural parents over a lifetime. This simply isn’t possible for a same-sex couple.
This doesn’t mean that a man and a woman are obliged to have children, or that they are always capable of having children. It’s simply a recognition that one distinctive aspect of this kind of male-female relationship is that, in ordinary circumstances, it can involve conceiving and bringing up their own children. (It’s not uncommon to talk about the ‘distinctive characteristics’ of something, even if there are exceptions. For example, it’s a distinctive characteristic of human beings that we use language; and the fact that some human beings cannot talk or choose not to talk does not undermine this).
This is not a religious argument (appealing to the Bible, the Anglican marriage service, or the Pope); it’s not a historical or sociological argument (highlighting national traditions or cultural norms); it’s not even a moral argument (although it does have moral implications). Nor is it a crude ‘biologist’ argument, reducing people to their genitalia and their reproductive capacities, because sexuality involves the whole person and not just procreation.
It is actually a humanist argument, appealing to an irrefutable truth about human nature that any rational person can acknowledge: that children can only be conceived by a man and a woman, and that marriage between their own parents is a form of family life that will allow children to grow up within the life-long embrace of their natural mother and father.
We have a word for this kind of life-long and public commitment between a man and a woman: it’s called marriage. It doesn’t exclude the fact that there are many other kinds of relationships, some of them involving love, stability and life-long commitments; nor does it rule out other forms of family life that come about for all sorts of different reasons. We have an assortment of words to help us understand some of the distinctions (‘marriage’ being one of them), and we need these words for the sake of clarity and honesty about some of the differences there are between different kinds of relationships.
This is why it’s misleading and even deceptive to claim that allowing gay marriage would make no difference to traditional marriage and to all those men and women who are already married. It’s often asked, rhetorically: What harm would it do? What difference would it make? Is it not just about allowing more people to share in the benefits of marriage? Is it not just about adding something rather than taking something away? Are we not simply increasing rights and widening the franchise?
This is simply untrue. If marriage is redefined to include gay marriage, it means that the core understanding of marriage will no longer include that aspect of sexual difference and complementarity, and that aspect of creating a family where one’s own children may be conceived and raised (even if this doesn’t happen for every couple). The definition of marriage will be narrowed (or perhaps we should say widened) to a relationship of love, friendship and mutual support. This is not just an addition or a minor change; it is a radical undoing of marriage as it is commonly understood. It makes it impossible for a man and woman to have their marriage recognised as a union that involves sexual-difference, because they are being told – in the new definition – that their sexual difference has nothing to do with the nature of their marriage. A right has been taken away and not just added.
There is a strange and perhaps unintended effect of the proposed legislation. It will not actually allow gay people to marry (where marriage keeps its traditional meaning); it will change marriage into a form of civil partnership. It will mean that marriage as it has traditionally been understood will cease to exist; and for a man and a woman wanting to commit themselves to each other in a life-long partnership, their only option will be a form of commitment that replicates the present civil partnership commitments for gay couples.
The fact is, of course, that many men and women will continue to marry, and the majority of them will conceive and raise their own children. Marriage as it has traditionally been understood will seem to go on, but we won’t have a specific word or public institution for it any more; and the irony is that if we are not allowed to use the word ‘marriage’ we will have to invent one which describes exactly what the word marriage used to describe.
But this is not just about words and definitions. Our whole society, not just ‘the state’, has until now recognised that marriage (as a life-long commitment between a man and woman) has been a relationship that deserves special recognition and special privileges. This is not because it is the only kind of life-long or loving relationship (it’s obvious that there are many others); nor is it because society scorns these other relationships (it’s got nothing to do with homophobia or gay rights); it is simply because – to state the obvious once again – marriage between a man and a woman, unlike a same-sex relationship, allows children to grow up with their own natural parents.
This non-religious and non-moral humanistic fact does lead to a moral question: Is it good and desirable, all things being equal, for parents to conceive and bring up their own natural children, and for children to be brought up within the loving union of their own natural mother and father? Most people would say yes. This isn’t to discriminate against other forms of relationship and other forms of parenting and family life, it is simply to acknowledge the unique meaning of marriage between a man and a woman, and to recognise that this distinctive relationship brings particular benefits to individuals and to society. That’s why we have a special word for this relationship, ‘marriage’; and that’s why this relationship is ‘institutionalised’ and given a special place in our society.
To deny the distinctive nature of marriage between a man and a woman, and to promote gay marriage, is actually to deny the commonly held assumption that (all things being equal) it is good for children to be brought up by their own natural mother and father. This might seem like a big leap of logic, but it’s true: To define marriage only in terms of love, commitment, stability, etc – to make gay marriage ‘equal’ – means that there will no longer be any social or legal recognition of the particular family unit where children are conceived and raised by their own natural mother and father in a public and life-long commitment. At present, we recognise different kinds of family life, and we preserve a special place in our society for the kind of family where parents can try to raise their own natural children in the context of a life-long and public commitment, and where children can grow up with their own natural parents in this same context. If gay marriage legislation is passed, it will no longer be possible to promote the idea that marriage between a man and a woman has a distinctive meaning and a particular benefit for children and for society.
Let me try to summarise all this. The distinctiveness of marriage between a man and a woman is not something that depends on religion or tradition or morality: it is a fact of human nature and of the nature of society, that this kind of relationship (unlike a same-sex relationship) involves sexual difference and complementarity, and that this kind of relationship (unlike a same-sex relationship) is a union in which parents can conceive and raise their own natural children – even though there may be particular reasons why a particular couple are unable to do this.
But the argument against gay marriage is a moral one, because it involves what is understood to be good for children, for family life and for society. This is not because of any prejudice against gay people; it is because society recognises the particular benefits that come when children can be brought up by their own mother and father in a loving and life-long relationship, in a commitment that has been made to each other and before others. This isn’t always possible; but when it is possible, it’s a good thing – to be loved by your own natural mother and father, and to be supported by their own continuing love for each other; to love your own children, and to know the continuing love of the person with whom you conceived these children. Very few people would deny that these are good things, for individuals and for society, even if they are sometimes difficult to achieve. That’s why we should acknowledge the particular relationship that can allow and nurture them. That’s why we should keep marriage as it is.
[Last edited – in response to feedback – on 19 Dec 2012]
Rubbish. MArriage is not a requirement for procreation, nor is procreation required for marriage. Heterosexuals have changed the institution of marriage decades ago. Easy divorce? You betcha! 50% children born out of wedlock? No problem. Let s the gays marry? Whoa….not so fast….we might ruin marriage for everyone else. You don’t like gays, we get it. Thank you.
Well said Kevin!
Traditional, heterosexual marriage isn’t just about husband and wife, it’s, also about 1. procreation and children, and 2. bringing up the children in as stable an environment as possible. Marriage is the best solution for that. This is first and foremost a secular argument. Society needs couples to procreate and to bring those children up in as stable an environment as possible.
Gay marriage simply dilutes the meaning and importance of this overall meaning and purpose of marriage. And at a time when marriage is really under threat for a host of reasons.
Kevin,
1) easy divorce is not an idea propagated by the church.
2) children born out of wedlock is not an idea propagated by the church.
3) stop playing victim.
http://www.turtlebayandbeyond.org/2013/family/we-all-are-born-from-a-man-and-a-woman-1-3-million-demonstrate-against-same-sex-marriage-and-adoption-in-paris/
“that marriage between their own parents is the only form of family life that will allow children to grow up within the life-long embrace of their natural mother and father.”
Whilst I have no personal desire to redefine marriage Stephen, the above statement is one that I have witnessed to be false.
It is both the most natural, beautiful and sacred union to make Love and conceive a child and have a life long commitment together.
There is so too a beautiful way of children growing up within the life-long embrace of their natural mother and father, even when the mother and father are (as in my annulled marriage) living in the same village in loving kindness and who care for one another in friendship. Far more so than living locked in a volatile marriage.
Sorry Stephen.
But even if children born to parents is the ideal, the fact is it doesn’t happen – 50% of ‘marriages’ fail, so those children aren’t going to grow up with both their parents. And a lot of couples are infertile, so does their marriage not count as marriage?
The struggle lies between Humanitarianism and Catholicism (Protestantism is dead; I’m not sure what will become of Islam or other eastern religions). The Catholic Church is the only church which claims supernatural authority and should once again orientate itself to claim allegiance of all Christians who have any supernatural belief left.
In the last century materialism and socialism, without religion, was too crude and rapidly descended into barbarism; the echoes of which remain. The new humanitarianism is become an actual religion, although anti-supernatural. It is pantheism and its creed is; God is man. Its new pagan gods being equality and diversity, environmentalism, women’s rights, homosexual rights, and let us not forget ‘eugenics’ – and so on. It has a real food of a sort to offer to man’s religious craving; it idealises, but makes no demand upon the spiritual faculties.
Now the humanists having long recognised that a supernatural Religion must necessarily involve absolute authority, must also therefore, in order to establish their own ‘pagan religion’, restrict ‘freedom of all religion’. You could call the new state religion, Sentimentalism.
The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church needs to prepare Herself, once again, for a long period of man’s descent into barbarism and Her own persecution.
In assuming that this particular battle will surely be lost, the Church should distinguish true marriage from the redefinition with the term ‘Holy Matrimony’.
I agree with what you say about humanists but I don’t think offending Protestants is a good way to prepare for our own persecution.
I disagree with you, and i think your comment is a bit triumphalist.
I consider myself an orthodox Catholic (no to contraception, no to women priests etc) and that the Roman Catholic Church (because of its sacraments / doctrine etc) is the safest road for grace and ultimate salvation (please God) but there are evangelical-like Protestants who mirror / overlap Catholic moral teaching (and approach to Christianity in general in so many key ways) (as well as Orthodox and Coptic Christians).
And we need to work closer with other Christians to defend and expand Christianity in general.
“This is not because of any prejudice against gay people; ….
Sorry Father Stephen, this does seem to suggest some anti Gay rhetoric. Our Church needs to be seen to be more inclusive. Inclusive of everyone our God created regasrdless of sexuality.
I really disagree with you.
I think the substance of this argument was spot on. And that this is the argument the Church must get across.
Problem is the way you do that. I think the substance of this article is spot on but the style in which it has been communicated needs some refining so that it leaves no room for unnecessary attack.
Overall, though, great article but i do think the Church really needs to come together to work out how best to communicate this really tricky and sensitive argument.
“Inclusive of everyone our God created regasrdless of sexuality.” – sure, this is already the position of the Catholic church.
That does not imply redefining marriage though.
shieldsheafson has pointed out that we do have another term which we could use if the term ‘marriage’ does get redefined. The term ‘Holy Matrimony’ could be reserved for what we call ‘true marriage’ ie that between a man and a woman.
In France there have been huge demonstrations against the plans by their government to bring in ‘same-sex marriage’. Many different sections of the public have joined marches not only in the capital but in large cities all over France. The next one is called for in Paris on January 13th and promises to be enormous. Our media have so far unfortunately ignored these protests. Why have there not been calls to protest here? Why have so many of our Bishops been silent?
Our Church IS inclusive – everyone is welcome but we are expected to try and toe the line. Because we do not believe that same-sex marriage is possible does not mean we are homophobic. After all we are taught that sex before marriage is a sin even for heterosexuals.
I don’t see what benefits there are to society of a same-sex couple sticking to a relationship after the love has faded. Marriage has encouraged heterosexuals to try and work things out for the sake of the children and as an example to the next generation. Over the years divorce has become easier but I think when you define marriage as just a loving relationship between any two persons society is throwing in the towel. Traditional marriage is difficult but just because something is difficult it doesn’t mean it’s not worth keeping, valueing and promoting.
“Marriage between their own parents is the only form of family life that will allow children to grow up within the life-long embrace of their natural mother and father.”
I have to agree with the above because the minute I read this statement I thought, “that’s just not true”. I know people who grew up in family life within the life-long embrace of their natural mother and father – but their mother and father just didn’t happen to be married! I also know people who grew up with married parents in a traditional marriage but the family life was unhappy and certainly not a life long embrace for those children. And, of course, there is every shade inbetween and all sorts of families, most of which are not “perfect” but are “good enough” providing there is love and respect and support.
I can see a lot of anti-Catholic and anti-Christian persecution in the years to come. I don’t think we’re quite there. But we’re getting there. And i think we need to be prepared. To really know what we believe in and why. To really know our Bible, catechism, apologetics, theology. How to pray. And to really get to know and love Christ now and experience the heavenly now. Then i’m quietly confident we can – with God’s help – get through any persecution, and preserve and increase something of God’s Kingdom (the infinite beauty, glory, love, peace and joy) here on Earth.
Be prepared (i think).
Thank you for an interesting and helpful post. Part of my problem in discussing the subject of same sex “marriage” is that it is so patently absurd that it is hard to credit its proponents with any intelligence at all. The very idea seems about as sensible as attempting to consume soup with a fork.
And when commenters contend that opposition is merely the result of a dislike of “gay” people it suggests that their real problem is narcissism.
Indeed Patricius, the very idea of ‘same-sex marriage’ is a metaphysical absurdity. What is at issue here is a matter of objective fact that it is the business of reason to discover what ‘marriage’ is, or whether religion is a good thing or not, rather than the law to stipulate.
The metaphysics underlying natural law theory that marriage is, not by human definition, but as an objective metaphysical fact determined by its final cause, inherently procreative, and thus inherently heterosexual.
The question is, if someone wants to try eating soup with a fork, who are you to stop them?
Of course the Church can refuse marriage rites to whomever it pleases, provided that it’s merely a religious matter. But state recognised marriage comes with certain rights and I see no reason why the state should refuse those rights to same-sex couples, thereby imposing religious doctrines on those that don’t accept them. Thankfully, we don’t live in a theocracy!
Great post which I thoroughly enjoyed, Fr Stephen.
When I’ve tried to debate this sensitive issue with others, the most common response is to ignore the main thrust of your argument – the sexual complimentary of the male/female union (as if to say it means nothing and is therefore unimportant!)
Likewise too for the defense of children growing up with both biological parents. There are many sets of statistics which show that children thrive when living in a home with both parents who are married to one another!
I look forward to anyone arguing against this, because the truth of the marital union is in who we are – so obvious, yet so blind to many!
Thanks again!
Joseph was not Jesus’ biological parent.
I think he made a wonderful father.
What’s the connection, exactly, between this and gay marriage?
How does gay marriage help / improve the traditional concept of marriage of a man and a woman coming together to procreate and bring up the off-spring of this in a long-term, stable relationship? And when this concept of marriage has been under threat for various reasons the last few decades, in particular.
You’re trying to make a point about using religion without even first responding to the secular argument why gay marriage dilutes and threatens the purpose of traditional marriage.
I really, fundamentally, disagree with you (and haven’t even got onto the religious argument yet).
A said above Ed, I do not have a personal desire to redefine marriage.
As said above Ed I uphold my experience that this statement is not true.
“that marriage between their own parents is the only form of family life that will allow children to grow up within the life-long embrace of their natural mother and father.”
Jesus grew up within a wonderful embrace one of whom was not his biological father.
What are you fundamentally disagreeing with exactly?
“because the truth of the marital union is in who we are – so obvious, yet so blind to many!”
Spiritual marriage is the way.
“Spiritual marriage is the way.”
Secular marriage without understanding the spiritual covenant is not Holy Matrimony.
When we marry with God in a spiritual covenant (as did Mary) that marriage alone is sacred and all our actions and intentions thereafter are committed in him. A child or many children may flourish in the security and Love of that union as did Jesus, even though Joseph was not his biological father.
And even a childless marriage committed to in this deepest highest most spiritual of ways, gives birth to virtues and a highest possible understanding of Love, which without Him is a commitment not sacred.
Stephen, many thanks for this. I think it is the clearest articulation of the distinctiveness of marriage that I have read, and as such is an eloquent exposition of the creation account in Gen 2
Excellent post. I am impressed with the replies also. I think it a shame that two people who love each other have to struggle to have that relationship recognised. However, I think there is a difference between unable to have children because of some biological “fault” and being unable to have children because of necessary body parts being missing. Marriage is about family. All other relationships are either sexual or legal arrangements. Being heterosexual comes with the possibility of procreation, being gay does not come with that option. Its not fair, but that’s how it is. If being gay was “normal” mankind would cease to exist within 100 years. Our babies are born helpless and are designed to be breast fed. Technology can intervene but that’s not how its is meant to be.
But if you love someone of the same sex, I say go for it. Love is too precious to mdiss out on because you choose to live a lie and pretend to be straight when you aren’t. I say protect the relationship. Bind legally if you can, but you want to start a family it is going to be messy.
Oh and for the record, I am yet to meet anyone who had an “easy” divorce.
I have to say I’m not at all convinced.
First, marriage is not “the only relationship where children can be conceived and born within the life-long union of their own natural parents”, since children can be born out of wedlock and their parents may still stay together.
Second, even if this was distinctive to marriage, it would suggest that we need a word not for lifelong union of man and woman but rather lifelong union of man and woman raising their biological children, if that’s what’s so special.
This isn’t what marriage means, as the author concedes (“This doesn’t mean that a man and a woman are obliged to have children, or that they are always capable of having children.”) These examples apparently don’t dilute the meaning of marriage, since it’s still the case that marriage ‘ordinarily’ means lifelong union of man and woman raising their biological children. But, if this is so, then I don’t see why gay marriage is any threat, at least provided it’s not so common as to change the ‘ordinary’ case. Then marriage ordinarily means lifelong union of man and woman raising their biological children, or relevantly similar cases, such as childless couples of either sex.
Thanks for the criticisms. In the second paragraph I was trying to make a point about the difference between same-sex and male-female relationships, and you are right that I went too far in saying that marriage is ‘the only relationship where…’ So I have simplified the argument in this paragraph.
I agree with the revised Stephen. Well done. Max I love your piece of writing. And of course Tragic circumstances also can mean that marriage for some (after the committment) is just not something that because of their own Truth they can live with. It’s very sad.
That’s better. You’re right that a heterosexual couple ordinarily can have their own children, whereas a same sex couple cannot. But it’s still the case that some heterosexual couples cannot have children. You apparently don’t think that they should be denied the chance to marry. I still don’t see why same sex couples are different.
Fr Stephen, G K Chesterton had a wonderful way to describe the present moral struggles we as Christians face in defending tradition. Taken from an essay entitled “Eugenics and Other Evils”, he wrote:
“Suppose we are all standing round a field and looking at a tree in the middle of it. It is perfectly true that we all see it in infinitely different aspects: that is not the point; the point is that we all say it is a tree. Suppose we are all poets… a conservative poet may wish to clip the tree; a revolutionary poet may wish to burn it. An optimist poet may want to make it a Christmas tree and hang candles on it. A pessimist poet may want to hang himself on it. None of these are mad, because they are all talking about the same thing. But there is another man who is talking horribly about something else. There is a monstrous exception to mankind. Why he is so we know not; a new theory says it is heredity; an older theory says it is devils. But in any case, the spirit of it is the spirit that denies, the spirit that really denies realities. This is the man who looks at the tree and…says it is a lamp-post…the difference between us and the maniac is not about how things look or how things ought to look, but about what they self-evidently are”
And on marriage he was clear about what it self-evidently is:
Marriage is a fact, an actual human relation like that of motherhood, which has certain habits and loyalties, except for a few monstrous cases where it is turned to torture by insanity or sin.”
Interesting. I was watching Question Time on Thursday, in which this very debate was discussed. One woman claimed that by ‘not forcing churches to allow gay marriage is just a way of bending the new proposed law’, and she was, I believe, suggesting that if gay marriage was legalised then ALL churches should allow it. It made me think, if I were in a homosexual relationship wanting to get married (I am not) would I really be comfortable having my relationship finalised in an environment and by a priest who was being forced to do so? I don’t think so.
It makes me sad that in today’s world we can’t allow two people to love each other without debate. It makes me sadder, though, that in today’s world we can’t respect the traditions valued by a religion for thousands of years
Reblogged this on Life. Love. Discernment. and commented:
I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post!
It so saddens me to see the state humanity has come to. Tradition, moral values, fear of God no longer has a place in today’s modern world. It is a struggle to lead a life that is pleasing to God. Those who do it are mocked at, challenged, penalised and know not what more awaits us.
But I urge you children of God to hold firm to your faith for we a house built on a rock. We will continue in prayer for our God is a loving, mighty and a just God who reigns over all things and is in complete control, although it may not seem so, for we are called to walk by faith and not by sight. Let us continue to walk through that narrow way saying ‘Come Lord Jesus come’.
As St. Paul says in Romans, ‘For, i am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes’. So shall we be!
[…] to it, because it was a really excellent response, and is summed up on Fr Stephen’s blog here. I have used this approach since when the topic has come up with cynical friends. It goes something […]
It’s a moot point. Even if the argument that marriage should be reserved for those who have the potential to procreate naturally wasn’t entirely specious, wasn’t factually disingenuous and wasn’t an exercise in sophistry (and frankly, the argument is all those things), the bald fact is that gay marriage is going to happen. Gay people will have the right to enjoy the “special privilege” of marriage whether you like it or not; finally the last stronghold of two millennia of prejudice and civil rights abuses is going to be torn down. I will have the same right as my fellow citizens to marry the person I love, and have that love acknowledged by the state; the same right you all enjoy. You are on the wrong side of history, and future generations are going to look back on you and count you among the same crowd of people who opposed votes for women or racial equality and all those other civil rights movements which have gradually dragged us out of the dark ages of insincere moral and social conservatism, and towards something that far better reflects the spirit of Christ’s message.
Hi Justin,
Well said! It is a crying shame when so many of our fellow church members are subject to such bias. I am a Catholic and proud of it, BUT I really feel that our Church should drag itself out of the dark ages and recognise that it should be fully inclusive in order to show the love of God to all equally.
[…] to it, because it was a really excellent response, and is summed up on Fr Stephen’s blog here. I have used this approach since when the topic has come up with cynical friends. It goes something […]