THE CITY
bigotry cannot explain opposition to opening up the institution to include same-sex couples. He notes that the public has not objected to gay parents having custody of children or to same-sex couples adopting children. He thinks that the public opposes same-sex marriage not because it normalizes homosexuality, but because it abnormalizes the conventional family.
Same-sex marriage, in this view, is in some sense the ultimate symbolic assault on what is left of the unity of sex, marriage, and procreation. ‘Ultimate,’ I might add, in both senses of the word: ‘extreme,’ but also ‘last,’ the blow that completes the most destructive demolition work of the sexual revolution. After gay marriage… how can sex, marriage, and procreation ever be put back together again? Because Rauch deals honestly and fairly with those he opposes, his arguments in favor of same-sex marriage are more convincing than those who cry “bigotry” at the slightest opposition. Federal Judge Vaughn Walker falls in the latter camp. He dismissed support of traditional marriage as nothing more than irrational religious bigotry when he ruled in August that California’s voterapproved ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Like my friend who favors same-sex marriage, he stated that marriage has nothing to do with gender difference or procreation. Less explained was what marriage is if it’s not defined as it has been traditionally. hroughout history, marriage has been nothing if not a framework to manage sex and procreation. But it is also true that the institution has been tremendously weakened by changes in law over the last few decades and a concurrent culture-wide disregard for its importance, much less its relationship to sex and childbearing. Still, no matter how much people may wish it were otherwise, the fact is that the procreation of offspring is the natural byproduct of sexual congress, something only possible between man and woman. While two members of the same sex may never procreate, members of the opposite sex do it all the time. Marriage was the institution created to ensure that children that result from sexual congress would be taken care of by their parents. Now judges and advocates of same-sex marriage say that marriage has nothing to do with gender difference or procreation, but they 58