Not only do we have an entirely novel definition of marriage that excludes procreation from its purview. That would be dramatic enough, since it shifts the focus of our most basic social institute from inter-generational concerns to those of present personal gratification, and in doing so eliminates many of the responsibilities that belong to marriage. But we also have the novel idea that the state has the power to re-invent marriage by adopting and enforcing this definition. By claiming such a power the Canadian state has drawn marriage and the family into a captive orbit. It has reversed the gravitational field between the family and the state, putting itself at odds with the founding principles of Canada and with the notion of free men and free women. It has effectively made every man, woman and child a chattel of the state, by turning their most fundamental human connections into mere legal constructs at the state’s disposal. It has transformed those connections from divine gifts into gifts of the state.
Douglas Farrow Nation of Bastards: Essays on the End of Marriage. Yup, this is the Douglas Farrow of Ascension and Ecclesia.
Read lots more Farrow at the wonderful Institute for for the Study of Marriage, Law and Culture
