The primary purpose of marriage is to bind men and women together so that they raise and care for any children they may have. Marriage makes both biological parents take responsibility for their children and ensures that children are raised by their biological mother and father. It is a social institution for safeguarding the well-being of children.[1]
There are three elements of marriage. First, that the spouses are male and female because of the biological reality that male/female sexual relationships can result in children. Second, since children take a long time to raise, there is the life-long commitment of the spouses to one another. Third, in order to avoid children being generated outside the marriage and not being raised by their biological parents, spouses commit to monogamy or exclusiveness.
It is the potential for children that justifies these three elements. Same-sex relationships are different, they cannot result in children. To change the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples is inconsistent with the intent and nature of marriage.
Note on the False Analogy with Anti-Miscegenation Laws
Race has nothing to do with marriage but biology does.[2] Opponents of interracial marriage never denied the meaning of marriage. They just did not want blacks and whites to marry. Same-sex marriage changes the meaning of marriage itself.[3]
Note on Infertility
Marriage as an institution is not affected by the infertility of some who enter into it. This is to confuse the institution of marriage with particular marriages.[4] The institution exists for the typical case.[5]
Note on the ‘Conservative’ Case for Same-Sex Marriage
The so-called ‘conservative’ case for marriage argues that broadening the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples would strengthen the institution of marriage by increasing (or reducing the decline in) the marriage rate and imposing the traditional marriage norms of permanency and monogamy on more relationships.[6]
But evidence presented to the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges demonstrated that in every U.S. state for which data was available, after the adoption of same-sex marriage the opposite-sex marriage rate declined by at least 5 percent – in comparison to a national marriage rate that in the past few years had been fairly stable. Similar or larger declines in the marriage rate occurred in the Netherlands, Spain, Canada and Belgium.[7],[8]
In relation to permanency and monogamy, these norms have a rational basis, that of ensuring a comprehensive commitment of the spouses to one another in order to care for the children of their union. These norms are arbitrary when applied to same-sex marriage. Redefining marriage will thus create a convergence but not in the direction of the traditional norms. It will erode these norms in all marriages.[9] Indeed, there is no longer a logical reason to oppose temporary or polygamous marriages. Removing the foundations of an institution does not strengthen the institution.
Same-sex marriage is a symptom of a collapsing marriage culture, and it then becomes a cause of further and more rapid decline. The damage to the culture of marriage is uneven. It hits hardest among marginal marriage candidates, including the poor, relatively uneducated, irreligious. And then the margins will likely expand, as they did with no-fault divorce.[10]
The so-called ‘conservative’ case for marriage is conservative in name only, it is a rationalization for changing an institution without understanding the profound depths and meaning of the institution itself.
Note on the Social Science of Family Structure
An underlying assumption in the same-sex marriage debate is complacency about the importance of natural marriage. In the choice between adult desires and potential harms from redefining marriage, there is a surprising lack of realism and gratitude for the benefits most people have obtained from being raised by married biological parents.
Social science research clearly and overwhelmingly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage. Social scientists have identified three factors that seem to explain why marriage matters: biology, sex and stability.
A biological connection between parents and children makes a difference. After all, you don’t want to leave a maternity hospital with a child but your child. Likewise, children have an innate desire to know and be known by their biological parents.
Sex matters too. Mother and fathers are not interchangeable. They interact with children in distinct and complementary ways.
Stability also matters. Cohabitation, divorce, and divorce and remarriage entail more instability than faithful marriages.[11]
These facts do not denigrate the love and heroic work of adoptive, single, cohabitating, divorced, and divorced and remarried parents. Family structure is about nature and structure, it does not imply a lack of love.
The research to date on the results for children of same-sex parenting is in its early days but it is reasonable to assume that the lack of the above three factors will also result in worse outcomes for children despite the love and heroic work of same-sex parents.
Now, there have been some studies that claim to show that there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and those raised by their married mother and father. These studies have poor methodologies. As of April 2015, only eight studies have been conducted using rigorous methods and robust samples, and, when properly analyzed (four suffer from coding and interpretive errors), they all support the previous consensus: children do best when raised by a married mother and father.[12]
Sources
[1],[5] “Pity the child of same-sex union” by Dr David van Gend, News Weekly, 22 June 2013, http://www.newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=5621
[2],[7],[10],[11],[12] Truth Overruled – The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom by Ryan T. Anderson, Regnery Publishing, Washington DC, 2015, p.137-138, 159-162, 160, 148-152, 152-158
[3] Book review by Bill Muehlenberg of What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson and Robert P. George, News Weekly, 16 February 2013, http://www.newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=5474
[4] Letter titled “Conservatives and Same-Sex Marriage” by Kerry Boulton, Quadrant, April 2012
[6],[9] What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson and Robert P. George, Encounter Books, New York, NY, 2012, p.66, 67
[8] Brief of Amici Curiae 100 Scholars of Marriage in Support of Respondents, Obergefell v. Hodges
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