And just which religions or non-religions have defined marriage since the beginnings of history in a way which included homosexual marriage? None that I am aware of. They viewed marriage as between men and women for the very practical purpose of continuing their civilization and their society. Some societies had nothing agaist homosexual practices; but only opposite sex couples could be married. That was taken for granted, as a matter of nature.
That’s quite right. Societies have long recognized marriage as being exclusively being a state existing between male and female. So much so, in fact, that in some cases, as in English Common Law, the state of marriage was simply imposed by legal fiat upon cohabiting couples that met certain criteria, irrespective of the couple never having undergone any ceremony.
What this touches upon is that the state of marriage is recognized by the state not as a validation of love, but for other reasons. Moderns are somehow confused that the state is necessary to validate (insert following here) “love”, or “relationships”, or sex, or something. But marriage does not exist to put the Government OK on Erotic Love. That’s the irony of the whole situation here. Gays hope that the state will allow marriage for that reason, it’s the official approval of disordered sex that will cause, they feel, what they know to be disordered to become ordered.
Marriage as a civil institution exists in order to impose upon males and females responsibility for the offspring that they create, whether they love each other or not. That’s the primary reason for the legal state of marriage. The secondary reason is to give to those who have created children a bit of an economic advantage to aid in their rearing, thereby lessening that chance of children, in both instances, becoming a burden on the state. The final reason that the state recognizes marriage is that it recognizes what the Church has recognized as a fact from day one, which is that married couples really do become one. If you’ve been married for a long time, and I have, you know the extent that’s true. Marriage was recognized by the state as if it wasn’t, a lot of widows, primarily female, would have lost their property upon their husband’s deaths, and additionally marriage provides an estate plan for blood relatives where none otherwise has been created, reflecting the desires of the overwhelming majority of people.
Marriage still serves all of these purposes, although it’s been badly damaged in modern times by legal modifications to the state of marriage (I’ll touch on that in a second).
Homosexual “marriage” serves none of these purposes. The sex act in same sex couples does not create life. It’s noted that gays can adopt, but then singles can adopt in many places too. Gays, from the state’s perspective, do not “risk” creating life, and therefore their sexual behavior does not risk creating wards of the state, eliminating one of the reasons that marriage was recognized by the state. As noted they can adopt (although the jury is out on whether that’s a good idea or not) but then so can singles (for whom the jury is likewise out).
There’s very little to suggest that the bond between same sex couples equates with the same bond that exist between married conventional couples, and in fact the opposite seems to be the evidence. Therefore the property protection aspects of marriage actually probably amount to a legal complication for them rather than a benefit. And in terms of inheritance the same is true, as they cannot create life. In a few years we can anticipate a lot of legal challenges from blood relatives of deceased gays, where they lack a will, as those who have a traditional right to inherit take on those whose claim is based on sharing a bed and a disordered sense of erotic love.
All of these things not only argue for the continued existence of the traditional definition of marriage, but argue against recognizing even “civil unions” of gays. Frankly, it’s a really bad deal for gays, as well as everyone else, and mostly amounts to an increased set of business for lawyers really.
But then. . . (continued below)
