It goes without saying that civil society thrives best when it is structured by an array of non-coercive social institutions, including families, marriage, churches, clubs, unions, and other non-government organizations.
The more such institutions shape and inform societal norms and practices, the less the government has a pretext to. Strong families deter the need for the state to compensate with large, costly welfare programs.
For this reason and more, maintaining family norms is vital to maintaining human liberty. Marriage and family insulate the individual from the government, providing spaces of autonomy that state forces are trying to shrink.
The only pretext most governments have generally dared to use to invade the autonomy of the home is the physical protection of children from extreme abuse or neglect. This illustrates how the family has so far resisted the state and jealously guarded its boundaries. We do not and should not want the state to abandon the norms by which the state has treated marriage and family as formal units worthy of distinction.
Many of the legally respected duties and privileges of family and marriage are a natural endowment of united procreation, and therefore precede and transcend state authority. Redefining marriage to include inherently non-conjugal unions assumes instead these marital duties and privileges are grants of the state to give to whomever the state pleases, and this will jeopardize the strength of the family unit in its contest with the state.
The historically-recognized autonomy of the procreative unit may come to be seen as an invention of the state, to be modified or even rescinded at the pleasure of the state.
In contrast, the conjugal understanding of marriage preserves the idea that the duties and privileges of marriage such as autonomy in domestic affairs philosophically precede the state. Religious freedom includes more than just the freedom to believe particular doctrines, or the freedom to worship within the walls of churches and similar institutions. In addition, U. However, redefining marriage may undermine religious freedom, by requiring individuals and organizations to treat same-sex marriages as interchangeable with man-woman marriages in the public sphere, despite objections of conscience.
Marriage laws, by their very nature, usually require private and public entities to treat couples whose marriages are recognized by the state as genuinely married. Religious individuals in the wedding industry have already been disproportionately affected by recent changes in law, and there is no reason to believe that the consequences will be limited to them.
The same arguments that were used to trump democratically enacted state laws can also be used to treat religious organizations that dissent with contempt in the eyes of the law. Religious non-profits that hold to a doctrinal understanding of marriage may no longer be treated as equal in standing with otherwise equivalent secular organizations. The tax-exempt status and accreditation of religious schools may be jeopardized, and the ability of students, teachers, and researchers to use public funds to advance their education and research at religious universities may be undermined, placing religious institutions at a distinct disadvantage to their secular competitors.
Preserving religious freedom and the equality of religious institutions under the law is a good reason to oppose same-sex marriage unless protections can be secured for individuals and organizations of religious faith. Many people disagree with the arguments listed above. We live in a society that is divided on a whole host of moral and legal issues, including abortion, the death penalty, fiscal policy, immigration, war, privacy, voting procedures, etc.
Reasoned arguments can be made on both sides of all of these debates, and same-sex marriage is no different. At the very best if you happen to be right , it just makes them wrong. We find them very persuasive, and for these reasons and more , we support man-woman marriage policies. But it does mean that we think that changing marriage policy to include same-sex couples would change the underlying institution in crucial ways, ways that concern us about the future of marriage and its stabilizing family norms.
None of these arguments requires a religious belief — all of these arguments are grounded in robust, secular moral reasoning. The question at hand is about the nature, purpose, and norms of civil marriage , and the consequences of redefining the institution.
Yes, the Supreme Court ruled that states can no longer define marriage as between man and woman. No, the debate is far from over.
Roe v. Wade ruled that states cannot prohibit elective abortions, but that did not end the debate over the morality of abortion, nor have states stopped trying to discourage abortions. Public opinion has shifted against abortion, and if Roe v. Supreme Court decisions are not permanently set in stone. Many of us believe that conjugal marriage is a bedrock principle of civil society, and that it is essential for preserving crucial family norms.
We should not let the Supreme Court keep us from raising awareness of the nature and purpose of civil marriage as a social institution, and we should resist the idea that unelected judges can decide this issue once and for all. The Supreme Court got marriage wrong — that does not mean that we have to as well. The challenge ahead is not in the courts, but in the hearts and minds of ordinary citizens. We should continue to express our views of marriage, and the opinions of five men on the Supreme Court should not keep us from doing so.
In short, if not used with caution, the accusation can make bigots out of those who use it. The accusation is simply untrue. People on both sides of the argument have acted in bigoted ways, but the arguments on neither side are rooted solely or primarily in bigotry. The arguments listed above do not presume an irrational fear or hatred of those who are different.
In fact, people can believe that homosexual sex is good and virtuous, and still embrace every argument made earlier in this article. Nothing about these arguments presumes that same-sex couples are inferior or undeserving of a whole variety of legal accommodations. On its face, this is a naked appeal to popularity — an attempt to shame those who disagree into silence, rather than rationally persuade them to change their mind. The popularity of same-sex marriage today is certainly not the result of strong arguments in its favor — those arguments exist but are not often discussed among the sound bites and catch-phrases that have popularized the movement.
Growing support for same-sex marriage can best be described as a consequence of social rather than purely rational factors. Traditional marriage is still viewed as a vital norm in the vast majority of the world where community values and traditions are paramount.
If history can be anthropomorphized so that it can comment on current affairs, does it get its opinion only from U. Further, political victories are often temporary: While the U. Procreation can still be the unifying good of a martial union even when the couple does not succeed. For example, the practice of systematically testing truth claims against empirical evidence science can be considered an intrinsic fullfiling human good coordinated towards the pursuit of new knowledge, even if the scientist fails to make any significant discoveries.
Further, excluding infertile couples actually endangers important marital norms — it teaches that as long as proper birth control is used making a couple functionally infertile , the stabilizing norms of marriage fidelity, permanence need not apply, which can harm children conceived unintentionally. There are many more reasons: Infertile couples can still serve the social purpose of marriage by providing a father, a mother, and a stable home to children who do not already have them.
Screening couples for fertility is invasive in ways that basing marriage on gender is not. Fertility testing is sometimes inconclusive, and infertility is not always untreatable.
Infertile couples can participate in the marital act connected to procreation coitus , while same-sex couples cannot. Letting infertile couples marry does not conceptually separate marriage from the very idea of procreation, and thus does not endanger central marriage norms.
Yes, very much so. However, the romantic, sexually-charged infatuation that we see depicted in most Hollywood films is heavily influenced by hormones and other factors that are sometimes outside of our conscious control. That is, we end up implying that the longevity of marriage depends entirely on factors outside of our control — norms of permanence and fidelity become the slaves of passion.
This kind of love is a great benefit to married partners, but it should not and cannot be the defining feature of marriage. We think that married couples ought to love each other — in fact, love is just as much a marital norm as permanence, fidelity, and sexual activity.
A home without mutual respect, consideration, and service becomes a breeding ground of familial conflict, and a dangerous place to raise children. Emotional infatuation and strong sexual attraction are a great benefit to procreative partners in marriage, but this latter kind of love mutual respect, forgiveness, consideration, and service is an essential component of marriage. A good marriage can — and probably should — be personally fulfilling. There is nothing about the conjugal view that shuns or even downplays some of the most enjoyable aspects of a marriage relationship.
We can value personal fulfillment in marriage, and even value it highly — the conjugal view simply states that it is not the highest good or the defining feature of the institution.
Personal fulfillment can and most often does flow from marital relationships, but it is not the overriding good of marriage. Think of it this way: if personal fulfillment were the unifying good of a marriage relationship, as soon as the relationship becomes less enjoyable and other, more enjoyable prospects arise , there is no basis on which one can say that the couple ought to stay together.
Thus, the norms of permanence and fidelity become less important. But if the unifying good of the marriage is procreation, the oughtness of permanence and fidelity begin to make much more sense. This assumes that public policy can effective promote these norms as public expectations in relationship where they are best described as matters of personal preference.
Most of those who oppose same-sex marriage do spend their efforts discouraging divorce as well. But more importantly, we think the best way to discourage divorce is to educate others about what marriage really is. If we think that marriage is all about mutual adult fulfillment or personal self-expression, then it becomes difficult to articulate a strong reason to oppose divorce in the first place.
It is the conjugal view of marriage that provides the strongest answer to that question. Should marriage be recommended here? Further, this assumes that formalizing same-sex marriages will actually promote permanence in homes of same-sex couples. This may be the case for the near future, but if the revisionist view of marriage is adopted as state policy, we think that these norms will weaken over time for all families. While we agree that a stable home life and stable parentage benefits children, there is also another ideal that must be considered: having both a father and a mother in the home.
Gender Roles In traditional marriages the division of responsibilities was clearly designated by gender. Freedom of Choice Traditional marriages locked the spouses into their predefined roles without any opportunity to allow for individual choice. Role of Sex Traditional marriages provided a safe and socially acceptable sexual outlet. Roles of a Married Couple. What is the Typical American Family? Importance of Family Structure in Reasons Why Women Get Married.
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