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‘Same-Sex Couple’ Does Not Equal ‘Two-Sex Couple’
Same-sex “marriage” is in discussion again, as the US Senate seems intent on forcing the issue further down the throats of resistant Americans. There are multiple arguments for why same-sex couples do not qualify for “marriage.” My primary argument is that same-sex couples cannot produce children.
Marriage is socially and legally recognized for couples of two sexes because such a couple may, even is likely to, create new life, i.e., produce children. Those children blend the two families from which the couple came into a new branch on the tree of humanity and perpetuate that blend far into the future. Throughout history and across cultures, it has been and is the expectation of children that drives marriage. “Romance” or “erotic love” are very late additions to the long and broad history of marriage, and not particularly central to why marriage exists.
“Marriage” establishes a social and legal framework so that the new branch on the tree of humanity formed by creating children not only does not wither and die, but grows and thrives. Society (and the law that society creates to govern human behavior) has both short-term and long-term interests in the children that a coupling by people of different sexes may produce. Short-term, we want a structure in which those children are more likely to be protected, housed, fed, clothed, etc. Long-term, we want a structure in which those children and their children on through the generations bolster the society into which they are born.
It is a biological certainty that a couple consisting of people of the same sex will not produce children. Their coupling will end no later than when one of them dies. Societies (especially ours in the US) have legal systems for contracts for people to form partnerships that involve themselves only, and exist during their lifetimes.
In times or cultures in which women might be limited in their ability to own or control property or to conduct business, marriage also helped to protect women from destitution. That’s not really a concern in 21st-century America. So we’re left with children (or at least the possibility of children) as the public justification for marriage.
“Marriage” exists because of the potential for children emanating from the couple. A same-sex couple cannot produce children. “Marriage” designed for two-sex couples should not be extended to same-sex couples.
Published in Marriage
First, thanks for the shout-out.
Second, you may be right, but that’s because we’ve become more and more morally depraved as a country.
I made the case for (real) marriage based on exclusivity, permanence, and fidelity during the SSM wars, but was late to recognize that that really is the purpose of civil marriage — to impose boundaries on couples with the potential to procreate — especially to impose on men with their, um, tendency to spread their seed around. Marriage is about boundaries, not affirmation. It’s why there were repercussions for infidelity, for example, up until no-fault divorce.
With intrinsically sterile relationships (same-sex), society should really be indifferent to their status. It’s strictly a private matter to be dealt with privately (get a lawyer to draw up the necessary contracts and powers of attorney).
But the West is so far beyond reason in this regard, even children are an entitlement now (see Rubin, Dave).
The difference between the abortion issue and the same sex marriage issues is that the US Supreme Court has overturned Roe vs Wade whereas the US Supreme Court has not overturned Obergefell vs Hodges (the 2015 US Supreme Court decision that made same sex marriage the law of the land in all 50 states).
So, currently, the abortion issue is a free fire zone. Each state (and even the US Congress) can, conceivably, pass legislation either legalizing abortion or restricting/banning abortion.
But with same sex marriage, the US Supreme Court decision of Obergefell vs Hodges still stands and about 68 percent of Americans appear (if polls are accurate) to support same sex marriage. So, most Republicans don’t want to touch the same sex marriage issue with a ten foot condom.
Like the passengers of a plane without enough power to clear the mountains ahead.
Nope. People think of marriage as a man and a woman, and will say so unless the answer might get back to the gaystapo.
People despise incest because it is maladaptive, and this disgust is older than mankind. Where do you think disgust comes from?
I understand what you mean when you write, “People think of marriage as a man and a woman.”
But there was a change in public opinion on the same sex marriage issue over the past 15 years. In 2008, the voters of California narrowly endorsed traditional marriage (one man-one woman).
In 2012, supporters of traditional marriage put a referendum on the ballot to enshrine traditional marriage into the Minnesota constitution. When this referendum failed, the Minnesota legislature quickly passed same sex marriage legislatively.
So, I do think that public opinion on same sex marriage has changed and isn’t entirely a case of people expressing views that are publicly acceptable, although there is some of that too, I think.
Why did you change your mind?
It’s funny, but the implication in how narrow this question is asked is that there is a reason why incest isn’t a question for Hetero siblings that doesn’t apply to homo siblings…
Hmmm… I wonder what that is?
??? who said anything about different sexes? 5 men in a group marriage. Or maybe 5 women.
Then the fun part will be when they are not all in the same marriage. Some my only be in a group marriage with only 3 people of a 5 people group. While married to a couple of other people in another group. Since marriage is now nothing more than a contract then anything that can be described in a contract will work.
I participated in some discussions about the issue. This was back in 2004, when President George W. Bush supported amending the US Constitution to enshrined traditional, one man-one woman, marriage into our Constitution.
Over time, my arguments against same sex marriage seemed very abstract whereas the arguments in favor of same sex marriage seemed practical and good.
So principle vs pragmatics? How would you characterize these discussions? Would you care to share the nature / host of the discussions?
From about 2004 to about 2009 they are discussions with friends. Two of us were opposed to same sex marriage and two were in favor of it. Our discussion here contains many of the arguments that were presented in our conversation.
Fast forward to the 2013-2014 time period. At that time I was already living in Indiana. The Indiana state legislature was debating passing an amendment to the Indiana state constitution to not only maintain marriage as a union between one man and one woman, but also to prohibit “civil unions.”
I got a phone call from a group that opposed the constitutional amendment. They asked if I would contact my state legislators to tell them to oppose the amendment.
I did contact my state legislators. But I didn’t tell them to oppose the amendment. However, I did tell them not to eliminate the possibility of “civil unions” for same sex couples. Later I thought back to those discussions I had with my friends back in 2004-2009. At one point, one of my friends who supported same sex marriage said, “If you are willing to allow same sex couples to have all of the legal rights that heterosexual married couples have via civil union, why not just allow them to get married?”
At some point, I didn’t think that this “principle” of traditional marriage was a principle that our government needed to patrol. Sure, churches could have a position on whether two men could get married, just as churches could have a position on whether a divorced woman could get remarried. But in terms of civil marriage, marriage that our government recognizes, I figured that more good than bad would happen if same sex marriage were enacted.
I am not sure why we are discussing this. It is an issue that has been lost and abandoned. Now to even bring it up makes you a Nazi, alt-right or other thing. Most the churches support SSM seeing it as a cause lost.
The O/P had a particular perspective that, while involving SSM, was a more specific take on the whole thing. It was well-thought out and worthy of discussion, which has wandered.
As far as I can tell, socons said none of that. Certainly not as some kind of widespread or mainstream view. Angry marches? Not our style. Sudden disinterest? Well interest has been waning already and my own view is that one possibility is that civil marriage will wither away eventually, but that’s not sudden or all encompassing. As far as civil marriage meaning nothing, I do think that’s already true but not because gays can marry – that’s just the nail in the coffin. Bitterly controversial? It was pretty controversial and then we lost. Unlike with abortion, there was never any organized opposition and there still isn’t. Now,we have bigger problems to worry about.
Agreed. I think what we observed about failing to make distinctions between the sexes (mothers and fathers are not the same) and making all sexual identity subjective is being played out, as predicted, in the transgender contagion spreading among our kids. It’s all part of the post-modern denial of objective truth. Two men and two women can no more be “married” than a man can be a woman or a woman can be a man.
Oh, and we predicted SS “marriage” would be forced on the religious. I suspect the only reason that hasn’t happened yet is because the Left might lose its Muslim constituency. It certainly isn’t because they care about the religious sentiments of Christians and Jews.
Sure, President Tump supported SSM. All us cultists voted for him anyway. Why? Lost cause. Better to move to protect first and second amendment rights considering the things afoot in that time. What pressure could socons have brought? We didnt even have the establishment on our side, and Trump was the only one speaking our language more broadly.
Virtue signaling and political posturing before the mid-terms. I support SSM, but it still looks grotesquely cynical from here.
They can’t even force straight marriage on everybody – and they couldn’t, even when they had the Government and the Churches and society’s prejudices on their side. I think you’re safe.
A true conservative keeps out of other people’s business.
This should be a matter of live and let live. Every state can pass the laws that suit its population best, no one is forced to participate.
As The Donald replied when asked about SSM, (words to the effect of) “What do I care? They’re not hurting me.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trump-same-sex-marriage-60-minutes/
Trump even went so far as to criticize the North Carolina republican state legislature for enacting legislation saying that transgender “women” (men who think they are women) are not allowed in women’s bathrooms.
Trump has the social views of New Yorkers, or so it seems.
I haven’t read all of this yet, but homosexual household formation and heterosexual household formation are not the same thing. There is no reason to make them legally the same thing. They didn’t have to do that and it doesn’t make much sense.
I totally recommend this interview. This guy is really smart. PhD in math. He’s really good at explaining how the whackjob left is trying to deconstruct everything. It’s a really good pitch on why we shouldn’t tolerate this crap.
https://thecharliekirkshow.com/podcasts/the-charlie-kirk-show/dr-james-lindsay-and-charlie-kirk-live-from-defeat
https://omny.fm/shows/the-charlie-kirk-show/dr-james-lindsay-and-charlie-kirk-live-from-defeat
Looking around it seems as if Conservatives just can’t help themselves – they’re ‘triggered’. Maybe raising this issue is political genius on the part of the Democrats?
To me the problem is now and always has been too much government intrusion in the marriage and, well and everything.
Same-sex couples understandably wanted the rights that government had created for married couples including joint-filing income tax benefits, inheritance benefits (in government entitlements and otherwise), rights to medical information about the marital partner (sadly, eroded by HIPAA).
Now, however, the government has become so intrusive into all areas of our lives, it seems impossible to get government out of the marriage business. Even if we can get the federal government completely out of the marriage business, the states would still be in it defining inheritance rights, support rights, and so on.
At this point, same-sex marriage has created an additional business opportunities for wedding venues, non-Christian cake bakers, and divorce lawyers.
As time goes on, of course same-sex marriage will become more entrenched.
As a live-and-let-live kind of person, same-sex marriage quickly disappear from my radar if it weren’t for the demands of the sexual deviant community that we all not only tolerate (acceptable to me) but celebrate their deviancy. The domino effect of such demands forces me to come out in favor of traditional marriage only.
I heard this on Breitbart News this morning. The new Italian Prime Minister is super socially conservative. The EU warned them not to adjust their abortion policy. They are threatening Italy about other stuff as well because they elected her.
Centralization and conservative social policy do not mix.
I don’t think the same sex marriage issue will yield as much electoral benefit for the Democrats as the abortion issue. But I think you still have a point.
49 percent Republicans support same sex marriage, according to recent polls.
So, what the Democrats have done, by introducing the same sex marriage issue (in response to Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in the Dobbs decision that not only was Roe vs Wade wrongly decided, but Obergefell vs Hodges was also wrongly decided), is force Republicans to either take an unpopular position, opposing same sex marriage or offend a significant part of their base voters, those Republicans who remain opposed to same sex marriage.
Still, given that there is no conceivable way that Obergefell vs Hodges will even be revisited by the US Supreme Court, this issue isn’t going to motivate as many voters as the abortion issue will, in my estimation.
I don’t know anything about it, but I think it’s important to understand the legal history of the state’s involvement in marriage. It started out as a critically good idea for easier recourse on deadbeat dads, I think.
For one thing, they can’t include children unless they get vetted by an adoption agency. The states interest in marriage started because they needed easier recourse on deadbeat dads.
The state definitely has an interest in procreating productive people for a variety of reasons and that’s what the state’s interest in heterosexual household formation is largely about.
It’s not the same thing. They didn’t have to name it the same. It didn’t need to be the same thing legally.
LOVE, is what is most important, yes above children, but I would argue it is the basis of children and family. Thank God that my wonderful grandparents (born in the 20’s but unable to conceive ) adopted my mom and uncle. Their love for each other and their faith brought my mom and uncle a life they would never have gotten without my grandparents, and it has spanned into many generations, as I am now a MeMaw.
Love should be the basis of all family, not sex, not gender, not personal enjoyment. Love should be the criteria for marriage. I could not imagine the government telling me I can not marry my husband because we were unable to conceive, sounds pretty disgusting to me. Thankfully we had a miracle baby after 7 years of trying, we have been together for almost 30 years now.
Seems silly to me that conservatives want the government to draw a line, make a law, or exclude rights to some. Government has no business in marriage, or love, or faith, or religion, or anything else in my heart. It would only be a matter of time before that same government is turned on me.