Ryan Anderson, Robert George, and Sherif Girgis have written a post explaining why the central issue in the marriage debate—even more central than the question of whether the state should recognize same-sex marriages—is the question of what marriage itself is. As they say, “[T]his is not a dispute featuring ‘bigots’ on one side, any more than it has ‘perverts’ on the other. It is a debate of reasonable people of goodwill who disagree about the nature of the most basic unit of society.”
Here is their brief description of the competing views:
THE HISTORIC VIEW
Marriage as a comprehensive union: Joining spouses in body as well as mind, it is begun by commitment and sealed by sexual intercourse. So completed in the acts by which new life is made, it is specially apt for and deepened by procreation, and calls for that broad sharing of domestic life uniquely fit for family life. Uniting spouses in these all-encompassing ways, it also calls for all-encompassing commitment: permanent and exclusive. Comprehensive union is valuable in itself, but its link to children’s welfare makes marriage a public good that the state should recognize, support, and in certain ways regulate. Call this the conjugal view of marriage.
THE REVISIONIST VIEW
Marriage as the union of two people who commit to romantic partnership and domestic life: essentially an emotional union, merely enhanced by whatever sexual activity partners find agreeable. Such committed romantic unions are seen as valuable while emotion lasts. The state recognizes them because it has an interest in their stability, and in the needs of spouses and any children they choose to rear. Call this the revisionist view of marriage.
(You can see how if one begins with the first definition, same-sex marriage makes no sense—not because of bigotry, but because of the unique, natural aspects of a man-woman pairing. But if one holds the second definition, to deny marriage to same-sex couples makes no rational sense, and can only be explained by bigotry. This conclusion is unfair, but it persists because these competing definitions are not understood.)
As they point out, those who hold the revisionist view are not able to give coherent reasons under their defining principle of “people who love each other” for the state setting this kind of a relationship apart from others. Since the revisionist definition isn’t linked to the natural properties of the two people in relationship (as is man-woman marriage), all boundaries end up being arbitrary:
[T]he more candid, and consistent, revisionists have long accepted these points. Years ago, 300 prominent scholars and activists signed a statement arguing that we should recognize polyamorous and multiple-household sexual relationships. These activists agree that making sexual complementarity optional would make all its other norms arbitrary — and therefore unjust to leave intact. We only disagree on whether this top-to-bottom dismantling of the institution of marriage would be a good or a bad thing.
Their post is too brief to go into detail, but you can download their paper, “What Is Marriage,” originally published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, to review their arguments in more depth.
Why must it be two people? Why not three?
Posted by: Alex | May 11, 2012 at 07:48 PM
No one seems to disagree.
Posted by: Tom | May 12, 2012 at 08:52 PM
I disagree with their statement above. The whole point of why we're having this debate is that the debate is being fueled by un-regenerate, un-repentant sinners.
Calvin would argue it this way: since prior to conversion we are dead in our trespasses and sin, we are by our very nature "perverted". Now, not in the sense of how they mean it, but in a very much more true sense. Our entire being is perverted and distorted by our sinful nature prior to God saving us from our sins.
So, yes, one side of the debate is made up of "perverts"; not perverts in the mode of spending hours on the computer trolling the internet looking for deviant sexual fantasies, but perverts in the sense of the un-regenerate heart that is perverted by sinful nature against God's will in all areas of life, not just sexual immorality.
This is important because the real issue here isn't society's definition of marriage. Society can define it any which way it likes and it doesn't make it true. The real issue is how do we as Christian believers use this challenge as an opportunity to demonstrate the Gospel of Jesus Christ to disobedient sinners on the "other side" of the debate in such a way as to reflect both Grace and Truth.
Posted by: a | May 13, 2012 at 09:07 AM
Alex
"Why must it be two people? Why not three?"
Why not the whole country or the world? Let's just make it where every individual can marry the whole planet and be done with it.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | May 13, 2012 at 12:15 PM
That's just using mockery to avoid answering the question.
If three people want to be in a loving relationship, who are you to tell them otherwise?
Posted by: Alex | May 13, 2012 at 12:39 PM
Since when has the government ever cared whether the 2 people love each other as a prerequisite to marriage?
The State's interest in recognizing marriages doesn't include the "love" aspect.
Posted by: Mike Westfall | May 13, 2012 at 03:28 PM
Alex
"That's just using mockery to avoid answering the question.
If three people want to be in a loving relationship, who are you to tell them otherwise?
"
Far from it. I am a proponent of such an arrangement. A mother, a father, and a child in a loving relationship is a wonderful thing. It is called a family. Hear...hear...for the FAMILY!
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | May 13, 2012 at 03:30 PM
Alex
Look, the point I was trying to make is that if you start with three, why not four, if four, why not five, if five, why not five million? It seems to me that not only is age just a number the number of marriage partners is getting to be just a number and how many doesn't seem to matter. So, that a couple may as well mean a crowd of two hundred if you are going to play a numbers game with people's lives. One social experiment leads to another and when it comes to raising children, subjecting them to this kind of social experimentation in rearing, you are looking for trouble of the kind that leads to a bunch of social misfits causing no end of trouble for society. Human beings should not be lab rats in this kind of human experimentation because it can ruin young impressionable lives and that is something worthy of protection by the government through protecting what we know makes well adjusted stable human beings as a rule. That structure is a family with a father, a mother and one or more children. What kind of human being would want to turn their kids into lab rats with his social marriage experimentation? I just don't see that kind of a human being as a loving and caring one. At least not for the most vulnerable members of our society...our CHILDREN, who have been shown (and I can tell you from personal experience just how devastating any other model is) to be the BEST WAY TO RAISE CHILDREN.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | May 13, 2012 at 03:46 PM
Part of the problem here is that they are purposefully defining the revisionist view in order to purposefully weaken the definition in the second view so that it can be contrasted with what is viewed as a stronger view in the first point. Who is saying that gay marriage is purely emotional and will run out when the emotions "cool." That is simply part of what the author of this blog has done time and time again. He tries to redefine positions he does not agree with so that they don't make as strong an argument. This does not mean that his definition (or the one he has cherry-picked) is the correct definition. The second definition is definitely lacking in that it does not acknowledge that the marriages would be the result of a spiritual commitment that is beyond simple emotion.
Posted by: Bahu | May 14, 2012 at 10:00 AM