D
Deo_Volente
Guest
Grace & Peace!
A lot of people think that legislating morality is sort of part of what law is to begin with–haven’t we legislated the 10 commandments? But I don’t agree. The law is not predicated on a defence of morality, but on a defence of property, for the most part, and is concerned with furthering the ends not of the moral sphere but of the socio-economic sphere–law is principally concerned with providing a reasonable framework within which we can acquire things and keep them or trade them. Secondarily, law is a means by which the state perpetuates itself. Tertiarily, law is part of the state dispute-resolution mechanism. The impulse to legislate morality is the implicitly despairing impulse of those who recognize that the institutions which should be concerned with morality–the church and the family–have failed and failed miserably, necessitating the intervention of the state and use of political machinery to engineer morality. Which is a bit ironic, if you ask me.
Re: homosexuality and marriage, the problem is two-fold:
One–the lack of a distinction between the secular and the sacred. That is, a church or religious body should be able to determine what is or is not proper matter for the confection of a marriage (which is a sacrament), but whether or not a couple should receive state sanctioned benefits and/or penalties by virtue of the fact that it is a couple: that should be determined by the state. Ultimately, gay marriage is a secular fight, fought to secure particular rights and obligations in the eyes of the state, and it’s a fight which suffers from misuse of the term “marriage.” Render unto caesar what is caesar’s–tax benefits and penalties–and unto God what is God’s–the sacrament.
Two (and I’ve written of this before on these boards)–marriage used to be a purely socio-economic institution concerned with the propagation of dynasties, property exchanges, etc. Two or more individuals were not married–two or more families were. This is why polygamous marriages are far more socially useful than monogamous ones. With the invention of romance and romantic love and the subsequent assertion of the individual’s entitlement to such things (leading to a decline in arranged marriages in the West, for instance), marriage (which was never traditionally seen as the realm of romantic love) becomes the seal on an individual couple’s loving relationship, and assumes a more metaphorical as opposed to practical value. The socio-economic value is vastly decreased, and the institution becomes insular: about two people–the socio-economic context in which those two people and exist is rendered rather meaningless.
As long as marriage is principally personal rather than principally socio-economic, then anyone in any sort of loving relationship with anything has a very good argument for having their relationship considered a “marriage”–it’s widely assumed to be a metaphor for love, not something with any real social purpose. And this is why, for instance, gay marriage was never a thought in anyone’s head 'til relatively modern times. Even in homoerotic Greece, institutionalized homosexuality served a very different social function than the institution of marriage–why would two men want to get married?
Until marriage is the doman of the church exclusively as opposed to the church and the state (the latter of which should be in the business of “unions”, not marriages), and until marriage is redefined in purely socio-economic terms and personal romance is removed from the equation, then there will continue to be arguments over how it is defined, who should be allowed to have it, etc.
And those arguments are pretty fruitless and, frankly, worthless until it is realized that you cannot argue for the socio-economic purposes of marriage (which argue for the joining of male and female) while still understanding marriage to be the seal on a romantic relationship. Remove romance from the picture, argue against marriage for infertile couples, call for a return to polygamy or at least arranged marriages, and then the argument against gay marriage will have a leg to stand on. Otherwise, marriage will continue to be the public indulgence of a private romantically inclined couple.
Just my 2 cents!
Under the Mercy,
Mark
Deo Gratias!
Kitteh, I’m biased, admittedly, but these are my biased thoughts–take them for whatever you feel they’re worth:
A lot of people think that legislating morality is sort of part of what law is to begin with–haven’t we legislated the 10 commandments? But I don’t agree. The law is not predicated on a defence of morality, but on a defence of property, for the most part, and is concerned with furthering the ends not of the moral sphere but of the socio-economic sphere–law is principally concerned with providing a reasonable framework within which we can acquire things and keep them or trade them. Secondarily, law is a means by which the state perpetuates itself. Tertiarily, law is part of the state dispute-resolution mechanism. The impulse to legislate morality is the implicitly despairing impulse of those who recognize that the institutions which should be concerned with morality–the church and the family–have failed and failed miserably, necessitating the intervention of the state and use of political machinery to engineer morality. Which is a bit ironic, if you ask me.
Re: homosexuality and marriage, the problem is two-fold:
One–the lack of a distinction between the secular and the sacred. That is, a church or religious body should be able to determine what is or is not proper matter for the confection of a marriage (which is a sacrament), but whether or not a couple should receive state sanctioned benefits and/or penalties by virtue of the fact that it is a couple: that should be determined by the state. Ultimately, gay marriage is a secular fight, fought to secure particular rights and obligations in the eyes of the state, and it’s a fight which suffers from misuse of the term “marriage.” Render unto caesar what is caesar’s–tax benefits and penalties–and unto God what is God’s–the sacrament.
Two (and I’ve written of this before on these boards)–marriage used to be a purely socio-economic institution concerned with the propagation of dynasties, property exchanges, etc. Two or more individuals were not married–two or more families were. This is why polygamous marriages are far more socially useful than monogamous ones. With the invention of romance and romantic love and the subsequent assertion of the individual’s entitlement to such things (leading to a decline in arranged marriages in the West, for instance), marriage (which was never traditionally seen as the realm of romantic love) becomes the seal on an individual couple’s loving relationship, and assumes a more metaphorical as opposed to practical value. The socio-economic value is vastly decreased, and the institution becomes insular: about two people–the socio-economic context in which those two people and exist is rendered rather meaningless.
As long as marriage is principally personal rather than principally socio-economic, then anyone in any sort of loving relationship with anything has a very good argument for having their relationship considered a “marriage”–it’s widely assumed to be a metaphor for love, not something with any real social purpose. And this is why, for instance, gay marriage was never a thought in anyone’s head 'til relatively modern times. Even in homoerotic Greece, institutionalized homosexuality served a very different social function than the institution of marriage–why would two men want to get married?
Until marriage is the doman of the church exclusively as opposed to the church and the state (the latter of which should be in the business of “unions”, not marriages), and until marriage is redefined in purely socio-economic terms and personal romance is removed from the equation, then there will continue to be arguments over how it is defined, who should be allowed to have it, etc.
And those arguments are pretty fruitless and, frankly, worthless until it is realized that you cannot argue for the socio-economic purposes of marriage (which argue for the joining of male and female) while still understanding marriage to be the seal on a romantic relationship. Remove romance from the picture, argue against marriage for infertile couples, call for a return to polygamy or at least arranged marriages, and then the argument against gay marriage will have a leg to stand on. Otherwise, marriage will continue to be the public indulgence of a private romantically inclined couple.
Just my 2 cents!
Under the Mercy,
Mark
Deo Gratias!
