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Same-Sex Marriage Can marriage be redefined? by Peter D. Williams
All booklets are published thanks to the generous support of the members of the Catholic Truth Society
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY publishers to the holy see
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Contents The Contemporary Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 An emotive and neuralgic Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
What is Marriage? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 A history of marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The nature and purpose of marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Same-Sex Marriage – Why? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Same-Sex Marriage – Why Not? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Family & children’s rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Deleterious political precedent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Religious freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Glossary of Polemical Terminology* . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Further reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
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The Contemporary Debate On December 21st, 2000, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legally re-define Marriage as a gender-neutral institution, and thereby introduced the possibility for same-sex relationships to be solemnised as matrimony. Such a move is colloquially (albeit misleadingly) called the introduction of ‘same-sex marriage’, and in the last twelve years, nine other countries and seven U.S. states have also legally re-defined marriage to recognise same-sex relationships. Calls for similar legislation have been made across the Western world, to intense debate. On the side in favour of such moves have been same-sex rights lobby groups and their sympathisers, and on the opposing side have been those who wish to conserve marriage in its historic form, and oppose its re-definition. A foremost group in the latter camp has been the Catholic Church, which has taken a principled stance against what it sees as a move that undermines the institution of Marriage itself. It is important therefore, for all Catholics to be made properly aware of the duty they have to defend marriage against attempts to re-define it, and what reasons they are able to draw upon in making this defence.
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An emotive and neuralgic Issue Unfortunately, as so often with issues that are related to sexuality, this topic has become a deeply sensitive cultural and political issue, and one which many people approach with deeply and keenly-felt views, but seldom with great understanding. In particular, many of those in favour of same-sex marriage commonly default to denunciation of their opponents, reflexively referring to anyone who opposes the redefinition of marriage as ‘homophobe’ or ‘bigot’. Even when this is not openly stated, the implication is made that it is really prejudice that is at the heart of support for keeping marriage as it is currently defined. At the expense of rational discussion, the use of such terms act as ‘thought-terminating clichés’ that smear their target as merely antediluvian and hateful, and thus chill debate by encouraging those who hear them to ignore those against whom such words are employed. (It is worth knowing the strict definitions of these terms, in order to correct their abuse, and a Glossary of Polemical Terminology may be found at the back of this booklet for that very purpose.) The irony of this unfortunately widespread method of poisoning the well, is that it generally reflects more on the person using it, than it does on the person against whom it is used. To be unable to empathise with your opponent, and understand their position, at least enough to even
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imagine how they can hold their position sincerely without holding prejudiced and intolerant views, is itself a form of bigotry. This constitutes a profound social disability, and prevents reasonable, calm, and productive dialogue. Those of us however, who oppose the re-definition of marriage, and who counsel our opponents against employing such cynical and uncharitable rhetoric, have a responsibility to discuss this subject in a tone, and using language, that is as impeccably moderate, generous and calm as possible. Too often, those who passionately defend marriage can say or write things that are unnecessarily strong or inflammatory, and this frequently worsens what is already a fraught and emotive debate. Worse, it can enable our opponents’ unjust caricatures of us to seem justified or plausible. As so often then, it is light and not heat which is truly needed to help the discussion progress. As an antidote to the disingenuous or insensitive rhetorical manoeuvres and the many unnecessary misconceptions that surround attitudes to this issue, this booklet will describe the true nature of the controversy, and set out the reasons why same-sex marriage should be seen as the profoundly bad idea that it is, and rejected. It is the author’s hope that this will enable proper understanding of the issue, and allow Catholics to be able to defend Marriage in an informed and effective way.
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What is Marriage? Before we can examine the problems raised by proposals to re-define Marriage, we need to have a clear appreciation of its historic nature and purpose away from which same-sex marriage would move our society. As the legal historian John Witte once pointed out, throughout most of its history in the West, Marriage has simultaneously been perceived as a material institution giving expressions to many natural needs and tendencies, a contractual institution requiring social control, a public institution contributing to the common good, and a religious institution seen as covenant or sacrament and witnessed and sanctioned by God. Many of these elements are relevant to the subject we are considering, but principally, it is important to note the nature of Marriage, as a Natural, Social, and Political Institution. A history of marriage Anthropology The subject of the origins of Marriage, and of its correlate the Family, is controversial in the study of human anthropology. This is due in great part to the implications of what one concludes about this subject
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on a host of controversial issues (including, as we shall see, same-sex marriage), conclusions about which many anthropologists are ideologically pre-committed. Be that as it may, it can be said that many, if not a majority, of biological anthropologists hold that the foundations of human marriage are found in the evolutionary history of our species – specifically in the behavioural transition of our ancestors from sexual promiscuity to ‘pairbonding’ (the formation of life-long monogamous sexual relationships) that led to ‘stable breeding’ (i.e. having children with one mate). These pair-bonds in our primate ancestors, which have a biological basis, constituted the evolutionary precursors of marital unions. In many animal species, reproduction comes about through a fleeting sexual encounter between a male and female, leading to pregnancy. The child or children brought about by this event are then brought up by their mother alone, and once grown go on to replicate that reproductive behaviour. However, for human beings, the physical costs of maternity are relatively – and disproportionately – high (as but one example, the energy costs of lactation for human females are known to be at least twice as high as those of mammals in general), leaving impregnated women in a very vulnerable position during and after pregnancy. This threatens the chances of successful reproduction, therefore leaving the woman in such a position is contrary to the reproductive interests of the
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male who mated with her. Since the assistance of the father of the conceived child helps alleviate the risks to the mother during this time, pair-bonding developed due to the advantageous mate-guarding that it provided. Also beneficial was the innate parental collaboration that pair-bonding involved, due to the comparatively vulnerable and dependent nature of human babies, who rely on their parents for sustenance for years beyond their reliance on breast-milk (by contrast, chimpanzees are selfsufficient for acquiring food after they are weaned). In these male-female pair relationships, the father could hunt to provide food for his mate and their children, whilst the mother could nurture the growing children and forage for other forms of food. Other reasons can be given for the evolution of the pairbond in human beings, such as paternity recognition, in which a male might be as sure as possible that the progeny of his mate are indeed his own. In general however, a core feature of the familial life of humans is the cooperative childcare between parents, and this gender division of labour in which both mother and father look after and raise their children gave advantageous adaptive evolutionary functions, and because of this humanity evolved with pairbonding as a hugely important element of our personal and social nature.
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Biological foundations Human beings are not the only species, nor even the only primate, in which pair-bonding has evolved. Across mammals, when fathers matter in child-rearing, as they did for our hominid hunter-gatherer ancestors, sexcomplementary pair-bonding mechanisms evolved. This fact highlights an important inference – just as pairbonding evolved in those species, so it evolved in our own, as a biological phenomenon. Evidence for this biological foundation is manifest in the various physiological, neurobiological and emotional processes that are involved in the formation and maintenance of long-term pair-bonds between modern humans. The biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, in her book, Why We Love, investigates the ‘chemistry of love’ and provides some account of the emotional categories that lead to natural human enduring attachments. Other biological underpinnings of human pair-bonding, such as the hormonal, are only just beginning to be researched. In any case, that such unions are embedded immutably within our nature is a fact supported by the available evidence. A Natural institution What we can see then, already, in this element of the palaeo-history of our species, is a pair-bonding covenant between one man, and one woman, for the purpose of providing the ideal conditions for the creation and raising
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of their children. This forms the universal, biological, and definitional core of what we would socially sanction, and signify, as ‘Marriage’, in which our natural human pairbonding is formally recognised by our kin and by society at large. Marriage evolved as a natural institution in the evolutionary history of our species, and proceeds from our basic biological human nature, and is in this sense a natural institution. What it became later, during the developed history of humanity, was a social (that includes, cultural) institution. In the words of the American anthropologist Leslie White, ‘Marriage is the humanisation, the institutionalisation, the sociocultural expression of the relatively durable union between the sexes in subhuman primate society. In the transformation of anthropoid society into human society mating became marriage’. A political institution and a sacrament As human beings developed rituals and formulated religious beliefs, the pair-bond between a man and a woman would often attain formal ceremonies, and customs and traditions would surround the uniting of two people together. Literature and poetry dealing with erotic love would involve marriage as a matter of course. In Christian Europe, Marriage was raised to the level of a Sacrament, and it became customary for the Church to be the sole public body that solemnised Marriages. However, after the Reformation, in Protestant countries Marriage was seen
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as a secular matter, and the State became the institution responsible for it. In the United Kingdom, this happened with the Clandestine Marriage Act of 1753, which codified into civil law the requirements for Marriage (reading of Banns, obtaining of a license, etc.) that had hitherto only existed in the Canon Law of the Church. The Marriage Act of 1836 allowed non-religious civil marriages to be held in registry offices which were set up in towns and cities across England and Wales, and allowed non-Anglican Christians (including Catholics) to marry in their own places of worship, according to their own rites, but with a civil official present to document the Marriage. With all of this, Marriage would become not only a natural and social institution, but a political institution as well, in which the State had a direct interest. The nature and purpose of marriage We see in the logic of this evolution of Marriage, from being the natural institution of human pair-bonding, to the culturally-sanctioned and recognised social institution, to the Government-established political institution, a development in the seriousness with which society has treated it, and the interest it has in its integrity. Marriage exists to provide the stability of formalised monogamous fidelity, which not only benefits the man and woman who enter into it, but forms the best atmosphere in which the children who result from their union can best be brought
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