No longer seeing the point of public ratification of a strictly personal relationship, many people would cease to get or stay married. As the marriage rate fell, we would also see higher rates of divorce, cohabitation, and non-marital childbearing. As marriage came to be understood as simply a private relationship, the sense of its importance would erode. Traditional marriage would become one lifestyle and family choice among many ”” one that could not legitimately be given a privileged status in law. That would eliminate the ideal of marriage as the place to bear and rear children. We’ve already seen these developments in several European nations.
To take Kmiec’s reasoning to its logical conclusion entails state recognition of polygamy and polyamory. Some, no doubt, will cry that this is just extremist slippery-slope reasoning, but the conclusion follows strictly from Kmiec’s principle: If some religions favor polygamous and polyamorous relationships, and if the state is supposed to be neutral among competing voluntary arrangements of adults, then on what grounds could the state refuse to recognize polygamous and polyamorous civil unions?
No matter what, the law will teach. Either it will teach that marriage exists as a natural institution with the public purpose of joining one man and one woman as husband and wife, ready to become father and mother to their children; or it will teach that marriage (or whatever we now call it) is just a creation of the state meant to recognize adults’ private sexual choices and fulfill their desires. Neither option is neutral. And, contra Kmiec, neither is sectarian. But, for children and for society, only one is sound.
Sadly it was no great surprise to see Kmiec abandon another Catholic teaching. I have come to conclusion if you abandon one tenent of Christian belief you will soon abandon them all. And that applies to the orthodox teachings of any Christian denomination.
I think too why so many progressives are hostile to the idea of marriage being defined as between one man and one woman is that is viewed by them only as a product of orthodox Christian/Jewish religion and not also as a natural development arising from what is best for children, society and the couple themselves.
Their goal is not just the so called equality of marriage but of have anything that even hints of Judeo Christian teachings removed from public policy.
I also think Anderson is correct in his conclusion.
This is an excellent summary of what’s at stake. I agree with #1 and with Anderson.
I have long contended that the downfall of traditional marriage is the cause of gay marriage – not the result.
To oppose gay marriage, we need to strengthen and renew traditional marriage.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Traditional marriage is the truest and most substantive “feminist” concern. It is women and children who suffer the most by tradtional marriage’s cultural demotion. The pain, in fact, is indescribable.
Before the cultural virus was introduced, men and women knew how to deal successfully with one another and sustain marriage. They succeeded by negotiating real gender difference because they were not antagonistic to its existence. Any hope of restoration will involve a return to the embrace of gender realities now foolishly thought to be arbitrary and fluid. Bottom line, you can solve this problem with the grievance agenda and world-view of the 70’s Feminist movement.
That is, “you can’t solve this problem….”
Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. The consequences follow regardless of the intentions of the “improvers”.