Before the sexual revolution, marriage was primarily seen as the foundational relationship on which families were built, so as to raise the next generation. Now, however, marriage is often more about people attempting to fill their emotional and intimate needs and desires. It's not that marriage didn't do those things before, but those were considered side benefits of marriage. Now the focus has shifted so having a stable relationship on which to build a family is considered a nice side effect for those that want that kind of thing, but not the primary role of marriage.
Now don't get me wrong. The fact that a gay couple cannot produce children is not sufficient reason to refuse to recognize gay marriage. We don't refuse to recognize marriages between heterosexual couples who can't have children. But the institution of marriage needs it's central role back. I don't personally have a problem with gay marriage, but the arguments often used to support it further pull the definition of marriage away from its primary purpose. I would be happy with a proposal that could recognize gay marriage and also strengthen and support the institution of marriage as the foundation for families, especially in their role of providing for children in the healthiest way possible.
However, the way the current debate is framed, support for gay marriage is also seen as support for the arguments made in its favor, which really do seem to erode the importance of marriage as the foundation of the family and of child-rearing. That makes it very hard for me to come into the argument on either side.
Those are all excellent points!
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the idea of marriage becoming a way for people to fulfill their emotional needs rather than being the foundation for family and social order originated with Gays. The ever increasing, disgusting, dehumanizing trend of brides to orchestrate expensive parties and live out some pathetic fairy tale for a day has done much more to undermine what you are calling traditional marriage (let's not forget that for the majority of recorded history marriage was about property and social order more than making a happy home for children).
ReplyDeleteThat being said more and more gay couples are looking to become parents in various ways. I am part of one of those gay couples. Neither of us considered entering into a marriage contract (it is legal in our state) before we met each other and have established a relationship in which we both want to parent and we want legal and social stability for our future adopted children.
Marriage as we know it is a new thing anyway, and if you look back a few hundred years it seems a good thing there have been some changing. Nobody wants to be owned; women and children were...chattel.
I think you are entirely correct, Anonymous. The decay of the traditional role of marriage is not something that originated with the homosexual community. In fact, I think that the GLTB community is sometimes made a scapegoat for the decay of traditional family values. I hear family advocates point to gay marriage and children in those marriages as the main problem when I think their focus should be fighting rampant divorce and infidelity. The value of strong marriages and families needs to be reinforced by our culture and our laws. I think that can co-exist with gay marriage. It just bothers me when the arguments that are used to support gay marriage also undermine family values. I would prefer to frame the debate differently.
ReplyDeleteHow is it a debate though? You either agree that all people deserve equal rights or you do not.
ReplyDeleteAnd the traditional family - what tradition would that be? The one most people are referring to - mom, dad, kids- is only a few hundred years old. If one speaks of Biblical marriage, then they are speaking about polygamous marriages where women are property
Thank you for the perfect example of the limited choice fallacy. Your claim that there are only two possible opinions is fundamentally designed to drive people apart. That's one of the problems with the fallacy, it drives away communication and encourages discord. The nature of the options you describe is also an example of the straw man fallacy. I should do a post on that one sometime. You are vastly oversimplifying a very complex situation in order to attack another's point of view.
DeleteAs for the term traditional family, I'm referring to the traditional role of the family -- to raise the next generation. I think that has been the primary purpose of marriage and family for most of human history, but there definitely have been exceptions (especially for super elite classes like royalty where marriage is sometimes more for political reasons than for child-rearing).