Marriage isnâ??t the creation of the state or even of â??religionâ?? (as construed as a syncretistic sectarian entity). Rather, marriage is a pre-political institution with its own nature and contours; people are free to enter into a marital relationship, but people are not free to redefine and reconfigure marriage (for that is simply impossible). That religions have norms protecting marriage or elevating its status doesnâ??t undermine but further demonstrates its natural, primary status. The task of the state, then, isnâ??t to create marriage but to enshrine its nature in law accurately, and to support and promote it in policy. Attempts to redefine the contours of marriage inevitably preclude any principled argument against polygamy, polyamory, and other diverse expressions. If marriage can be between two people of the same sex, why not among three or four people? In fact, a group of prominent scholars have made just these claims, in a document titled â??Beyond Gay Marriage.â??
But there is a deeper, cultural problem. Marriage exists to bring a man and a woman together as a husband and a wife to become a father and a mother for any children their union may yield. The legal imposition of same-sex â??marriageâ?? intentionally deprives children of a mother or a father. It sends a cultural message that mothers and fathers are interchangeable or unnecessary. And just as â??no-fault divorceâ?? and widespread premarital and extramarital sex removed the cultural norms and expectations for adult sexual and reproductive lives, so too same-sex â??marriageâ?? continues this retreat from the marital ideal.
Ryan T. Anderson First Things
