I was not calling anyone a bigot. I was pointing out that throughout the history of the expansion of civil rights, those who have opposed that progress are generally seen through the lens of history as having been bigots. Therefore, I recommend looking closely at one’s motivation, and the validity of one’s rationalizations. We know that religious arguments have been used to justify racism and persecution of various minorities. We know that the “natural law” argument has been used historically to oppress women, and to justify racism.
The question I pose, which remains unanswered, is what makes us think that this issue is somehow different in that respect.
I certainly did not take your comments as an accusation of bigotry. But I do not think that the civil rights argument can be applied to every conceivable new right just because it is deemed a civil right. It is certainly a new idea to apply it to gay marriage. Will it next be applied to polygamy and pederasty? Who knows? And why do the civil rights of adults take precedence over the rights of children, who are often harmed by the civil rights exercised by adults? For example, the abortion right enables adults to kill unborn children. Gay marriage often means that children will be placed with same sex couples without regard to their natural right to know and be connected with a natural mother and father.
There is no denying that men and women are not identical. That is not a natural law argument, that’s just a fact of nature. They are different in that they are sexually complementary. It is that difference which led to the institution of marriage. Not every marriage results in children but most do, and that is how the human species continues. It is how civilizations continue. For that reason governments have an interest in the regulation of marriage. It has no similar interest in same sex marriage, which is inherently incapable of producing the next generation of citizens.
A union between a man and a woman is simply not the same thing as a union between two
men. Why should they be called by the same name or accorded the same civil recognition?
One can call nuts and bolts by the same name but it might cause some confusion. One can call them by the same name as long as one recognizes that they are really different things. You wouldn’t want to build a machine without recognizing that intrinsic difference, nor would you want to build a society without recognizing the intrinsic difference between very different kinds of unions even if you call them by the same name.
But I don’t blame same sex marriage for the disintegration of marriage or the dissolution of society. In order for gay marriage to become a possibility, marriage had first to be destroyed. Contraception destroyed the link between sex and procreation. In doing so, it destroyed the link between marriage and procreation. It destroyed the link between parents and children. Divorce and cohabitation further knocked chinks out of marriage, creating fatherless kids and split households. And since marriage and family has been the building block of civilization, society itself began to crumble. Already, among heterosexuals, marriage is becoming increasingly unpopular. It seems to be a dying institution.
It was only after that destruction was begun, and continued—by heterosexuals—than same sex marriage could become a possibility. What distinguishes same sex marriage is that it not only undermines marriage, like divorce and contraception, it turns it inside out, by making an oxymoron into something recognized in civil law.
Personally, I don’t doubt that the trend toward recognizing same sex marriage will continue. So I am not hopeful for the future. Eventually the collapse of families combined with the collapse of the welfare state will create a social crisis from which we may hope to rebuild.
