Sologamy

Another prediction of mine comes to fruition. Sologamy: marriage to oneself (or, rather, "marriage" to oneself). What's the video provided in the link.

It was always a lie that by expanding marriage to include gay "marriage" it would strengthen marriage. The very idea is Orwellian. Rather it would "fundamentally transform" marriage into whatever anyone wants, as long as what one wants is not the real thing, namely, a life-long commitment of sexual fidelity between male and female.

GSA: Genetic Sexual Attraction

Mother and adult son defend their monogamous, loving, incestuous relationship against discriminatory law.

“True love can do anything. This whole case is about whether I have the right to love somebody and I sure as hell have the right to love Monica. You can’t tell me who to love, who not to love.”

The mother and son said they hope their story will raise awareness of Genetic Sexual Attraction (GSA).

Same-Sex Marriage and Heresy

Some Progressions are More Progressive Than Others

Ryan T. Anderson:

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, many people have been wondering what do we do now. In my just-released book, Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom, I argue that the pro-marriage movement should take its cue from pro-lifers after Roe v. Wade. At The Federalist earlier this week, I highlighted three practical tactics:

1. We must call the court’s ruling in Obergefell what it is: judicial activism.
2. We must protect our freedom to speak and live according to the truth about marriage.
3. We must redouble our efforts to make the case for it in the public square.

In my book I flesh out these three strategies, and then close by suggesting a larger framework for thinking about these challenges as a whole.

The two-thousand-year story of the Christian Church’s cultural and intellectual growth is a story of challenges answered. For the early Church, there were debates about who God is (and who is God). In response, the Church developed the wonderfully rich reflections of Trinitarian theology and Christology. In a sense, we have the early heresies to thank for this accomplishment. Arius’s errors gave us Athanasius’s refinements on Christology. Nestorius’s blunders gave us Cyril’s insights. In truth, of course, we have the Holy Spirit to thank for it all. He continually leads the Church to defend and deepen its understanding of the truth, against the peculiar errors of the age.

A thousand years later, with the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the Church saw renewed debates about salvation—building on those Augustine had waged with Pelagius, no less. Whichever side you favor in the debates of the sixteenth century, they left the Church as a whole with a much richer theology of justification, ecclesiology, and soteriology.
[...] TB: Anderson doesn't say this explicitly, but part of his point is that theological and philosophical theorizing often does not take place until there is a substantial division in the Church which calls for theoretical argumentation.  Theoria often follows praxis. 

This false humanism in John Paul II’s time was on powerful display in the political order, where totalitarianism grew. Today, blindness to the truth about the human person has led to a crisis of family and sexuality. But then as now, we see clearly the Church’s latest intellectual and cultural challenge: not the nature of God or redemption, but of man and morality. Our task is to explain what human persons most fundamentally are, and how we are to relate to one another within families and polities.

For us, as for John Paul II’s generation, nothing less than authentic freedom is at stake. For a freedom based on faulty anthropology and morality is slavery. Only a freedom based on the truth is worthy of the name.

Read the rest.

Justice Kennedy: Pro-Polygamous "Marriage"

Here are some of the most memorable quotations from Kennedy's recent SCOTUS opinion.  I have taken the liberty of modifying his words to fit with polygamous marriage.  As an exercise for the reader, see what other types of marriage you can come up with.  Once the reader gets a feel for the point of this little exercise, feel free to skip to Scalia's remarks below.

“The ancient origins of marriage confirm its centrality, but it has not stood in isolation from developments in law and society. The history of marriage is one of both continuity and change. That institution — even as confined to opposite-sex relations — has evolved over time.”

“Until the mid-20th century, polygamous intimacy long had been condemned as immoral by the state itself in most Western nations, a belief often embodied in the criminal law. For this reason, among others, many persons did not deem polygamous people to have dignity in their own distinct identity. A truthful declaration by polygamous people of what was in their hearts had to remain unspoken.”

“The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight [what insight?] reveal discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed.”

“The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, at least two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality. This is true for all persons, whatever their sexual orientation…There is dignity in the bond between at least two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices.”

“Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there. It offers the hope of companionship and understanding and assurance that while both still live there will be someone to care for the other.”

“[W]hile Lawrence confirmed a dimension of freedom that allows individuals to engage in intimate association without criminal liability, it does not follow that freedom stops there. Outlaw to outcast may be a step forward, but it does not achieve the full promise of liberty.”

“Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser.”

“Polygamous people are consigned to an instability many monogamous couples would deem intolerable in their own lives. As the State itself makes marriage all the more precious by the significance it attaches to it, exclusion from that status has the effect of teaching that polygamous people are unequal in important respects. It demeans those who seek polygamy for the State to lock them out of a central institution of the Nation’s society.”

“Especially against a long history of disapproval of their relationships, this denial to polygamous people of the right to marry works a grave and continuing harm. The imposition of this disability on polygamous people serves to disrespect and subordinate them. And the Equal Protection Clause, like the Due Process Clause, prohibits this unjustified infringement of the fundamental right to marry.”

“It is of no moment whether advocates of polygamous marriage now enjoy or lack momentum in the democratic process. The issue before the Court here is the legal question whether the Constitution protects the right of people seeking to be in a polygamous relationship to marry.”

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, at least two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

Now Scalia:

“The world does not expect logic and precision in poetry or inspirational pop-philosophy; it demands them in the law.”

“If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: ‘The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,’ I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.”

Against Polygamous "Marriage": A Bad Case of Lovin' Yous

Don't Hate.  Be a Mate.  Don't Discriminate.

In response to a previous post about an argument against polygamous "marriage" but for same-sex "marriage," Dr. M. Douglass (aka "Dr. M.D.", aka "Dr. Doctor.") responds with a different argument against legalizing polygamous "marriage," and he also supplies some supplementary arguments and thoughts (these were in the comments section on Facebook so forgive Douglass's typos; also I don't know if Douglass endorses all of the arguments) :

[A] Here's an argument against polygamy that would not also apply to monogamous gay marriage: 1. If polygamy were legal, Q could game the system by marrying lots of people in order for Q's health insurance (or whatever) to extend to his/her handful (dozens/thousands/millions) of spouses. 2. It should not be legal for Q to be able to game the system in such a way. 3. So, polygamy should not be legal.

[B] As for relationships in which one party cannot give consent (pet-o-philia, objectophilia, etc.), how about this argument: 1. Marriage is a life-long mutually agreed-upon union of individuals. 2. One cannot be form a mutually agreed-upon union with a pug or a toaster. 3. Therefore, one cannot be married to a pug or a toaster.

[C] Child marriage meanwhile, could be rejected on the grounds that it is inherently abusive in nature or on the grounds that children should not be allowed to form life-long civil unions, since they cannot give consent. I would guess that incestuous relationships are often (perhaps usually) abusive in one way or another, and thus should be illegal as well.

[D] As I understand it, arguments that compare gay marriage with polygamy/incest/objectophilia/petophilia amount to this: "There is no plausible principle that would give us good reasons to legalize gay marriage without also allowing the other the other stuff." (Or, contrapositively: Any non-ad-hoc argument against the latter "marriages" would also apply to gay marriage.) The above polygamy argument seems pretty plausible to me.

Let me start with [D].

The Social Meaning of Marriage

A must read from Keith Burgess-Jackson with several useful links:

Ralph Wedgwood on the Social Meaning of Marriage

Marriage is more than just a relationship that is publicly avowed, or a cluster of concrete legal rights and obligations. It is a legal relationship that has a generally-understood social meaning of a certain kind. None of the options currently available to same-sex couples—'commitment ceremonies' with sympathetic clergymen, private contracts, or 'registered domestic partnerships'—has a social meaning of this kind; none of these options is as familiar and widely understood as marriage. As a result, these options will be less effective than marriage for couples who want to affirm their commitment in a way that the community will readily understand. To fulfil this desire effectively, same-sex couples need to enter a relationship that has a social meaning of the appropriate kind. For this, they need the legal status of marriage, since, as I have argued, the social meaning is tied to this legal status. In effect, they need to be able to say that they are married. Suppose that same-sex unions had a different name—as it might be, 'quarriage'. There will presumably be many fewer same-sex quarriages than opposite-sex marriages; so the term 'quarriage' would be much less familiar and widely understood than 'marriage', and for this reason quarriage would be less effective at fulfilling this serious desire than marriage.

There is no reason to doubt that same-sex couples could have access to a relationship that has the social meaning of marriage. True, the current social meaning of marriage involves the assumption that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. But if same-sex couples could legally marry, it would presumably soon become common knowledge that some marriages were same-sex marriages. So introducing same-sex marriage would change the social meaning of marriage. But there is no reason to think that it would change society's core expectations of marriage (that marriage involves sexual intimacy, domestic and economic cooperation and a voluntary mutual commitment). Thus, we may presume that the legalization of same-sex marriage would give same-sex couples access to the social meaning of marriage.

(Ralph Wedgwood, "The Fundamental Argument for Same-Sex Marriage," The Journal of Political Philosophy 7 [September 1999]: 225-42, at 241 [italics in original])

Note from KBJ: Wedgwood and other supporters of homosexual "marriage" are in for a shock. They think that the social meaning of marriage will transfer automatically to anything the law deems a marriage. To see why this is unlikely, suppose the law decreed, today, that human beings are married (or can becomemarried, by taking proper steps) to their companion animals, such as cats and dogs. Are people likely to start thinking of these relationships as marriages? Obviously not. What they'll do, almost certainly, is reserve the word "marriage" for unions of one man and one woman. If people refer to the new relationships as marriage at all, it will be with a modifier, such as "animal-human marriage," or "animal-human 'marriage'." You can't (thank goodness) change the social meaning of a thing through legislation or court decree. I predict that very few people will refer to homosexual "marriages" as "marriage." The language will be either (1) "traditional marriage" (a retronym) and "homosexual marriage" or (2) "marriage" and "homosexual marriage." If you think this is unlikely, consider how often you hear the term "male nurse," many years after men went into nursing.

Note 2 from KBJ: My friend Bill Vallicella (a.k.a. Maverick Philosopher) has some thoughts about terminology.

Note 3 from KBJ: Perhaps "real marriage" and "homosexual marriage" will catch on. By the way, don't you love it that progressive elites can go only so far in ramming homosexual "marriage" down our throats? They can confer a bundle of legal rights on two men or two women (just as they can confer rights on chickens by requiring that egg-laying chickens be given so much cage space), but (1) they can't change people's minds (beliefs, values, attitudes), (2) they can't change the way people speak, (3) they can't change church doctrine (in Roman Catholicism, homosexuality is "a disordered sexual inclination"), and (4) they can't make something that is morally unacceptable (or widely believed to be morally unacceptable) morally acceptable. How long ago was it that homosexuality was a diagnosable mental disorder? Here is the text from page 44 of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 2d ed. (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1968), commonly known as DSM-II:

302 Sexual deviations This category is for individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward objects other than people of the opposite sex, toward sexual acts not usually associated with coitus, or toward coitus performed under bizarre circumstances as in necrophilia, pedophilia, sexual sadism, and fetishism. Even though many find their practices distasteful, they remain unable to substitute normal sexual behavior for them. This diagnosis is not appropriate for individuals who perform deviant sexual acts because normal sexual objects are not available to them.

302.0 Homosexuality

302.1 Fetishism

302.2 Pedophilia

302.3 Transvestitism

302.4 Exhibitionism

302.5* Voyeurism*

302.6* Sadism*

302.7* Masochism*

302.8 Other sexual deviation

[302.9 Unspecified sexual deviation]

How many of these sexual deviations are already normalized? Which will be next to be normalized?

Note 4 from KBJ: Homosexuality was removed from the DSM in 1974 as a result of political protests by homosexual activists and their sympathizers. The psychiatric community caved. Think about that.

The Case for Gay "Marriage" & Against Polygamous "Marriage"

That case is rarely argued for.  The left is driven largely by emotion, fluctuating between misguided empathy and outrage, as can be seen over and over by the lack of understanding when someone makes the comparison of homosex with incest and polygamy.  There is a ubiquitous failure to understand that the comparison is made because the reasons being given for the permissibility of homosex and for mandating homosexual "marriage" also entail the permissibility of certain incestuous and polygamous relationships.  Instead of offering an argument for the one which excludes the others, the proponent of gay marriage reacts with offense and indignation ("How DARE you compare them!").  As the saying goes, truth hurts.

But occasionally one does come across an argument for gay "marriage" but against polygamous "marriage."  Here is one such argument.

Some excerpts with commentary interpolated:

After SCOTUS: Withdrawing From Society

The final installment of Bill Vallicella's recent posts on the same-sex ruling.

Excerpt:

SCOTUS and Benedict

In the wake of recent events, Rod Dreher renews his call for the Benedict Option:

It is now clear that for this Court, extremism in the pursuit of the Sexual Revolution’s goals is no vice. True, the majority opinion nodded and smiled in the direction of the First Amendment, in an attempt to calm the fears of those worried about religious liberty. But when a Supreme Court majority is willing to invent rights out of nothing, it is impossible to have faith that the First Amendment will offer any but the barest protection to religious dissenters from gay rights orthodoxy.

This is especially the case, as it seems to me, given the Left's relentless and characteristically dishonest assault on Second Amendment rights.  The only real back up to the First Amendment is the exercise of the rights guaranteed by the Second.  You will have noticed that the Left never misses an opportunity to limit law-abiding citizens' access to guns and ammunition. What motivates leftists is the drive to curtail and ultimately eliminate what could be called 'real' liberties such as the liberty to own property, to make money and keep it, to defend one's life, liberty and property, together with the liberty to acquire the means to the defense of life, liberty and property. 

Indeed, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito explicitly warned religious traditionalists that this decision leaves them vulnerable. Alito warns that Obergefell “will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy,” and will be used to oppress the faithful “by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.”

[. . .]

It is time for what I call the Benedict Option. In his 1982 book After Virtue, the eminent philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre likened the current age to the fall of ancient Rome. He pointed to Benedict of Nursia, a pious young Christian who left the chaos of Rome to go to the woods to pray, as an example for us. We who want to live by the traditional virtues, MacIntyre said, have to pioneer new ways of doing so in community. We await, he said “a new — and doubtless very different — St. Benedict.”

Throughout the early Middle Ages, Benedict’s communities formed monasteries, and kept the light of faith burning through the surrounding cultural darkness. Eventually, the Benedictine monks helped refound civilization.

I believe that orthodox Christians today are called to be those new and very different St. Benedicts. How do we take the Benedict Option, and build resilient communities within our condition of internal exile, and under increasingly hostile conditions? I don’t know. But we had better figure this out together, and soon, while there is time.

Last fall, I spoke with the prior of the Benedictine monastery in Nursia, and told him about the Benedict Option. So many Christians, he told me, have no clue how far things have decayed in our aggressively secularizing world. The future for Christians will be within the Benedict Option, the monk said, or it won’t be at all.

Obergefell is a sign of the times, for those with eyes to see. This isn’t the view of wild-eyed prophets wearing animal skins and shouting in the desert. It is the view of four Supreme Court justices, in effect declaring from the bench the decline and fall of the traditional American social, political, and legal order.

There is a potential problem with the Benedict Option, however. 

Read the rest.

Why Not Privatize Marriage?

Excerpt:

Being a conservative, I advocate limited government.  Big government leads to big trouble as we fight endlessly, acrimoniously, and fruitlessly over all sorts of issues that we really ought not be fighting over.  As one of my slogans has it, "The bigger the government, the more to fight over."  The final clause of the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution enshrines the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  So the more the government does things that grieve us, by intruding into our lives and limiting our liberties, the more we will petition, lobby, and generally raise hell with the government and with our political opponents.  If you try to tell me how much soda I can buy at a pop, or how capacious my ammo mags must be, or how I must speak to assuage the tender sensitivities of the Pee Cee, or if you try to stop me from home-schooling my kids, or force me to buy health insurance, or force me to cater a same-sex 'marriage' ceremony, then you are spoiling for a fight and you will get it.  Think of how much time, energy, and money we waste battling our political enemies, working to undo what we take to be their damage, the damage of ObamaCare being a prime example.

So if you want less contention, work for smaller government.  The smaller the government, the less to fight over.

Along these lines, one might think it wise to sidestep the acrimony of the marriage debate by simply privatizing marriage.  But this would be a mistake.  There are certain legitimate functions of government, and regulating marriage is one of them. Here is an argument from an important paper entitled "What is Marriage?" by Sherif Girgis, Robert P. George, and Ryan T. Anderson.  (I thank Peter Lupu for bringing this article to my attention.)

Read the rest.

Same-Sex Marriage: No Surprise Conservatives Lost

Philosopher Bill Vallicella has three excellent posts on the recent same-sex "marriage" issue.  I was going to put them all together in one post, but in case anyone wants to comment here or on Facebook I will separate all three.

Excerpt:

Four reasons off the top of my head.

1. Conservatives don't know how to argue and persuade.  In the main, conservatives are not at home on the plane of ideas and abstractions where one must do battle with leftist obfuscation.   Conservatives are often non-intellectual when they are not anti-intellectual.  I am talking about conservatives 'in the trenches' of ordinary life, politics, and the mass media, the ones with some clout; I am not referring to conservative intellectuals who are intellectual enough but whose influence is limited.

Conservatives, by and large, are doers not thinkers, builders, not scribblers.  They are at home on the terra firma of the concrete particular but at sea in the realm of abstraction.  They know in their dumb inarticulate way that  there is something deeply wrong with same-sex 'marriage,' but they cannot explain what it is in a manner to command the respect of their opponents.  George W. Bush, a well-meaning, earnest fellow whose countenance puts me in mind of that of Alfred E. Neuman, could only get the length of such flat-footed asseverations as: "Marriage is between a man and a woman." 

[...]

2. Conservatives muddy the waters with religion, when the topic ought to be approached in a secular way. After all, we need to convince secularists and that will be impossible if we rely on religious traditions and doctrines.  You may believe that traditional marriage is an institution with divine sanction.  But that will cut no ice with an atheist!  Sorry to say something so bloody obvious, but it needs to be said.

[...]

3. Liberalism is Emotion-Driven.  Just as one cannot hope to persuade people using premises they adamantly reject, one cannot get through to people whose skulls are full of emotional mush.  To the emotion-driven, the obviously discriminatory exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage ends the discussion.  They won't stay to listen to an explanation as to why some forms of discrimination are justified. 

4. The Conservative Disadvantage.

Read it all.

Why Same-Sex "Marriage" Advocates Can Be So Intolerant

David Mills:

It’s basic good manners not to ask people to do something they don’t think they can do. They’re happier and you’re happier if you find someone else who wants to do the job. You might call this “anticipatory tolerance.” It’s one of the things that makes a diverse society work. I don’t push you if I can help it, you don’t push me if you can help it, and we can keep saying “hello” to each other when we pass on the street.

Not everyone does this. Bakers, wedding photographers and bed-and-breakfast owners, are being abused for declining to support causes and behaviors they can’t support. Some homosexual activists, and their allies, can’t leave them be.

I can understand being hurt or annoyed or even angry, but their reaction to disagreement is often excessive, even hysterical. The rest of us would just shrug and go to another baker or call another photographer. If a local baker has a big picture of Richard Dawkins in his window, I’m not going to ask him to make a cake saying “God Loves You!” or “Jesus is Lord” or “Atheism is stupid.” I definitely won’t ask him to do it and then sue him if he doesn’t.

The Way People Rub Along Together

Most of us see the dangers of taking unnecessary offense. Live and let live, give and take, different strokes for different folks, even turn the other cheek: these are the slogans of a mutually respectful society. Being courteous may inconvenience me from time to time, but it’s a fair trade, since being nice to me will sometimes inconvenience others.

But, as I say, not everyone feels this way. Some same-sex attracted people and their allies refuse to practice the anticipatory tolerance that others find a natural part of living with people who are different from you. You must do what they want or else you’ll hear from their lawyers and any state agency they can pull in. They could just walk down the street and find another baker, but no, you’re going to suffer for saying no. You Can’t Be Allowed To Refuse Them What They Want. You Will Submit.

This strikes me as odd. I understand that their sexual attraction is for them part of “Who I am” and that they don’t like someone implying “There’s something wrong with who you are.” I wouldn’t like it either. But the extremity of their reaction, that’s a little puzzling, especially their siccing the law upon the poor baker who hasn’t done anything to hurt them.

St. Paul helps explain this kind of reaction. 

Judge Posner on Homosexual "Marriage"

This is posted at lawyer and philosophy of law professor, Keith Burgess-Jackson's blog:

Richard A. Posner on Homosexual "Marriage"

A decision by the Supreme Court holding that the Constitution entitles people to marry others of the same sex would be far more radical than any of the decisions cited by Eskridge. Its moorings in text, precedent, public policy, and public opinion would be too tenuous to rally even minimum public support. It would be an unprecedented example of judicial immodesty. That well-worn epithet "usurpative" would finally fit.

(Richard A. Posner, "Should There Be Homosexual Marriage? And If So, Who Should Decide?," review of The Case for Same-Sex Marriage: From Sexual Liberty to Civilized Commitment, by William N. Eskridge Jr, Michigan Law Review 95 [May 1997]: 1578-87, at 1585)

Note from KBJ: By 2014, Posner had changed his mind. I wonder what changed in 17 years. The text of the Constitution certainly didn't change

A Question for the (Il)liberal Christian Audience

For those of you who were in favor of yesterday's historic, Supreme Court decision (and it was a decision and not an interpretation) what do you honestly think about private institutions like colleges who refuse to hire practicing homosexuals?  I will presume that most of you were against the recent Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, so you have little problem with the government using its coercive power to either fine/imprison small business owners or make them violate their conscience.  And you were in favor of forcing every single state in the union to recognize gay "marriages" rather than letting the people of the states decide.

Are you also in favor of coercing every single private college either to hire practicing homosexuals or be denied federal aid in the form of grants and loans?  I don't see why you would be opposed to this given the reasons I have seen (and I know what a lot of my secular colleagues think.)  I assume that you would be in favor of coercing them too by cutting off funds.  But I'll be interested to hear whether my assumption is wrong and what your reasons are.  (I'd be particularly interested to hear from any of my colleagues but I'm open to thoughts from anyone).

No Fundamental Right to Marry...PERIOD?

Public Discourse typically has some pretty good articles.  This is not one of them.  The author argues, in short, that homosexuals have no fundamental right to marry, since no one has a fundamental right to marry.  There just are no rights when it comes to marriage.  Like playing the violin, marriage is good, but there's no right to it.
The author is wrong.

The Infertility Argument for Same-Sex Marriage

The Maverick Philosopher explains:

The Infertility Argument for Same-Sex Marriage

Suppose two 70-year-olds decide to marry.  They can do so, and their marriage will be recognized as valid under the law.  And this despite the fact that such elderly couples cannot procreate.  But in many places the law does not recognize marriage between same-sex couples who also, obviously, cannot procreate.  What is the difference between the opposite-sex and same-sex cases? What is the difference that justifies a difference in legal recognition?  (Bear in mind that we are discussing legal recognition of marriage; the issue is not so-called civil unions.)  Let us assume that both types of union, the opposite-sex and the same-sex,  are guided by the following norms: monogamy, permanence, and exclusivity.  So, for the space of this discussion, we assume that the infertile heterosexual union and the homosexual union  are both monogamous, permanent, exclusive, and non-procreative. 

What then is the difference between the two cases that justifies a difference in treatment?  If the  only difference is that the one type of union is opposite-sex and the other same-sex, then that is a difference but not one that justifies a difference in treatment.  To say that the one is opposite-sex and the other same-sex is to tell us what we already know; it is not to justify differential treatment.

Here is a relevant difference.  It is biologically impossible that homosexual unions produce offspring.  It is biologically possible, and indeed biologically likely, that heterosexual unions produce offspring.  That is a very deep difference grounded in a biological fact and not in the law or in anything conventional.  This is the underlying fact that both justifies the state's interest in and regulation of marriage, and justifies the state's restriction of marriage to opposite-sex couples.

There are two points here and both need to be discussed.

(Friendly to Religion) Atheist KBJ on Denying Dignity in Denying Same-Sex Marriage

Keith Burgess-Jackson:

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Justices’ Opinions Collide on Right to Gay Marriage” (front page, April 29):

In June 2013, a reporter from The New York Times interviewed my partner and me. He asked me how I felt after both the United States v. Windsor decision, invalidating the Defense of Marriage Act, and the overturning of Proposition 8. I responded, “Today is the first day I feel like a real citizen in my country.” The Times made it the Quotation of the Day and included a photo of both my partner, who is now my wife, and me in an article about West Coast same-sex couples.

After hearing the arguments before the Supreme Court, I would like to rescind that quote. Several justices reinforced the notion that I am not a full citizen. Of course, they have all the power. I just have my life, which I try to live with dignity, love and understanding.

KATHLEEN M. SULLIVAN

Los Angeles

Note from KBJ: It's sad that this woman's feeling of dignity depends on approval, by the state, of her relationship. What low self-esteem she has! Also, it's absurd to think that, unless she is allowed to marry someone of the same sex, she is being denied the status of "full citizen." Is a pedophile not a full citizen because he or she can't marry a child? Are polygamists not full citizens because they are not allowed to marry one another? I have yet to see, after all this time, a convincing argument (or even a plausible argument) in favor of homosexual "marriage." What I see are tendentious claims, question-begging arguments, abusive epithets ("homophobe"! "bigot"!) and uses of manipulative rhetoric (such as the term "marriage equality"). Everybody has the same legal right: to marry someone of the opposite sex. Nobody has a right, legally or morally, to participate in an institution that was not designed for him or her.

TB: I would add that in the Supreme Courts' oral arguments, the argument was raised about dignity by those arguing in favor of a Constitutional right to same-sex "marriage."

Perhaps I'll have more to say about this article tomorrow if I get the chance.

Highlights From the Oral Arguments Over Same-Sex "Marriage"

Ryan T. Anderson:

Tuesday’s oral arguments at the Supreme Court were excellent. There were so many good points made about what marriage is and why redefining marriage would cause harms.

This serious consideration of the harms of marriage redefinition stands in stark contrast to outrageous lower court rulings that had declared no rational basis to state marriage laws defining marriage as it always had been in America: a union of husband and wife.

Most importantly, it was clear that the nine Supreme Court justices do not have any greater insight on ideal marriage policy than do ordinary American citizens. The Constitution itself is silent about it. So the justices should uphold the authority of citizens and their elected representatives to make marriage policy in the states.

Here are some of the best portions of Tuesday's arguments.

What Is Marriage?

What I REALLY Believe About Marriage

"I believe that marriage is not just a bond but a sacred bond between a man and a woman. I have had occasion in my life to defend marriage, to stand up for marriage, to believe in the hard work and challenge of marriage. So I take umbrage at anyone who might suggest that those of us who worry about amending the Constitution are less committed to the sanctity of marriage, or to the fundamental bedrock principle that exists between a man and a woman, going back into the mists of history as one of the founding, foundational institutions of history and humanity and civilization, and that its primary, principal role during those millennia has been the raising and socializing of children for the society into which they are to become adults."  -Hillary Clinton

Well said.




Hillary, though, no longer agrees with her former self (you can catch that from the tail end of the video below.)  So there appear to be five plausible options for why this might be (I can think of a few others but this will do for now):

1. Hillary previously, secretly believed in gay-marriage but lied about it for political advantage.
2. Hillary has not changed her mind on gay marriage but is currently lying about it for political advantage.
3. Hillary once held that marriage should be between a man and a woman without good reason, and she came to be persuaded by good arguments that same-sex marriage is morally permissible (not to mention naturally possible), moreover, that a right to it is enshrined in the Constitution.
4. Hillary once held that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but she was swept away by the Feelings of the Age and came to believe that same-sex marriage is morally permissible, moreover, that there must be a right to it enshrined in the Constitution.
5. Hillary once held that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but she was swept way by the Feelings of the Age and came to believe that same-sex marriage is morally permissible but she doesn't think there really has been a right to it enshrined in the Constitution for all these years.

If I had to bet I'd opt for 1, 4, or 5.  At any rate, the probability that one of either 1, 4, or 5 are true seems to me far greater than 3.

What is Marriage?

From yesterday's oral arguments before the Supreme Court...

Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli, as amicus curiae, arguing that there is a Constitutional right to same-sex marriage in the 14th Amendment on behalf of the Obama administration:

JUSTICE ALITO:  What do you think ­­­­ are the essential elements of marriage as it exists today?   

GENERAL VERRILLI:  Well, I think the essential elements of marriage are the ones that are ­­that­­ the, the obligations of mutual support and responsibility and the benefits surrounding marriage that State law provides to ensure that there is an enduring bond, that enduring bond that continues over time and lasts, hopefully, till death do us part, through the end of life.  And that,­­ and with and­,­ and, certainly, childrearing is bound up in that.

It is really difficult to make sense of this definition among all the stuttering (and coughing which didn't make the transcript), but here is a go at it:

Marriage is an enduring bond that continues over time and lasts, hopefully, till death.  And childrearing is (somehow) bound up in that.

So on that definition, if my wife and my brothers' wives were (God-forbid) to die, and we brothers were to choose to rear our children together, and we do so until we die, we would be married.  After all, we have an enduring bond that lasts until death and child-rearing is certainly bound up in that.  Bonus: I don't even have to make a till-death-do-us-part promise of fidelity; but it would be nice (maybe) if the bond continued until death (or maybe not.)

Notice that there is no mention that the bond be between two people.  That's not odd, for why should marriage be between two people rather than three or four (especially if they are sterile and have no children)?  Why hate on polyandrous marriages?  But a little later he summarizes his view of marriage with the following, again in response to Justice Alito:

JUSTICE ALITO:  As far as the, ­ the benefits that Federal law confers on married people, such as in Windsor, the effect on estate taxes, what would be the reason for treating [unmarried siblings who have lived together for 25 years and a same-sex couple who has lived together for 25 years and then gets married due to a change in law] differently?

 GENERAL VERRILLI: Well, ­ I, ­­ I'm not  entirely sure there would be, but, of course, marriage  is something more fundamental than that.  It is an enduring bond between two people.

Ah.  So marriage is an enduring bond between two people.  That is why the unmarried siblings should be treated differently.  [?]
And so I couldn't be married to both of my brothers.  But why couldn't I be married to one of them?  In fact, if I do have an enduring bond then I am married to one of them, it would seem according to this definition--that is, according to Verrilli, the definition of marriage which the Constitution has always recognized implicitly entails that. (Which brother I wonder?) Don't you tell me, hater, that we don't have an enduring bond!

Cue Justice Kennedy's infamously enigmatic statement in Casey v. Planned Parenthood:

At the heart of liberty is to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

There's a Constitutional right to everything imaginable if you just look hard enough.

Same-Sex Marriage Erodes Fundamental Rights

From Dawn Stefanowicz

Excerpt:

I am one of six adult children of gay parents who recently filed amicus briefs with the US Supreme Court, asking the Court to respect the authority of citizens to keep the original definition of marriage: a union between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, so that children may know and may be raised by their biological parents. I also live in Canada, where same-sex marriage was federally mandated in 2005.

I am the daughter of a gay father who died of AIDS. I described my experiences in my book: Out From Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting. Over fifty adult children who were raised by LGBT parents have communicated with me and share my concerns about same-sex marriage and parenting. Many of us struggle with our own sexuality and sense of gender because of the influences in our household environments growing up.

We have great compassion for people who struggle with their sexuality and gender identity—not animosity. And we love our parents. Yet, when we go public with our stories, we often face ostracism, silencing, and threats.

I want to warn America to expect severe erosion of First Amendment freedoms if the US Supreme Court mandates same-sex marriage. The consequences have played out in Canada for ten years now, and they are truly Orwellian in nature and scope.

Canada’s Lessons