By rearranging the very nature of what it means to be married, gay marriage raises the question of whether family and marriage can be considered pre-political institutions on the basis of natural and biological realities and intrinsic goods. This is because such natural and biological realities are being expunged from the essence of what we are now told marriage.
Since consummation is unnecessary for a same-sex union to be called a complete marriage (even putting aside the question of what would count as consummation within a same-sex context), then what determines whether or not a heterosexual marriage is complete? Either we can have two separate non-equal definitions of marriage, or we can realize the logical consequence of same-sex marriage and say that the only thing left to determine what actually makes something a complete marriage or a legitimate family is the law itself. But have we really considered the implications of saying that traditional marriages and families are entirely the construct of the law?
There is no escaping from this problem. If homosexuals and heterosexuals are really “equal” before the law, then logically heterosexual marriage must collapse into being little more than a legal construct as well. Indeed, marriage and family become mere adjuncts of the state after the removal of the de facto conditions that make the traditional family a pre-political institution in the first place. No longer is family something that, in the words of Douglas Farrow, “precedes and exceeds the state.” No longer is the family a hedge against the totalitarian aspirations of the state because no longer is the family prior to the state.
Let’s make this practical. When a family sits down at the table to eat together, there is a huge practical difference if they think they are only a family because of bonds created by the state vs. if they think they are a family because of bonds that are natural and pre-political. When a son says, “that’s my Dad” or a man says “that’s my wife”, the network of implicit meaning is completely different if you think these relationships are purely legal constructs instead of natural, pre-political realities.
Most people are not aware of how gay marriage will undermine the traditional family because it does so in ways that are subtle and ubiquitous. However, once gay marriage is introduced into a nation, it undermines the integrity of every family and every marriage in the nation. It does this by rearranging the family’s relationship to the state, implying that there are no natural pre-political realities that make us a family. Indeed, the state has then granted to itself the god-like power to declare which collections of individuals constitute a ‘family.’ But by this assumption government declares that both marriage and family are little more than legal constructs at best, and gifts from the state at worst. In the former case, marriage and family lose their objective fixity; in the latter case, we become the wards of the state.
This is not mere hypothetical speculation about what ‘might’ happen if same-sex marriages are legalized. Canadian theologian Douglas Farrow has shown that after Canada legalized same-sex marriage, even traditional marriage began to be perceived as little more than a legal construct, with the result that everyone became the de facto wards of the state. In his book Nation of Bastards: essays on the end of marriage, Farrow criticized “the novel idea that the state has the power to re-invent marriage.” He warned: “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… 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 from the state.” Echoing these concerns in his Touchstone article ‘Why Fight Same-Sex Marriage?’, Farrow observed that:
“Institutionally, then, [marriage becomes] nothing more than a legal construct. Its roots run no deeper than positive law. It therefore cannot present itself to the state as the bearer of independent rights and responsibilities, as older or more basic than the state itself. Indeed, it is a creature of the state, generated by the state’s assumption of the power of invention or re-definition. Which changes everything. Six years ago, when same-sex marriage became law in Canada, the new legislation quietly acknowledged this. In its consequential amendments section, Bill C-38 struck out the language of “natural parent,” “blood relationship,” etc., from all Canadian laws. Wherever they were found, these expressions were replaced with “legal parent,” “legal relationship,” and so forth. That was strictly necessary. “Marriage” was now a legal fiction, a tool of the state, not a natural and pre-political institution recognized and in certain respects (age, consanguinity, consent, exclusivity) regulated by the state. …. In doing so, it effectively makes every citizen a ward of the state, by turning his or her most fundamental human connections into legal constructs at the state’s gift and disposal.”
Why Separating the Civil from the Ecclesiastical is a False Solution
I have argued that gay ‘marriage’ is a threat to everyone because it redefines our relationship to the state. It positions a totalitarian government over us by implying that our most vital connections (such as what it means to be married or to be in a “family”) exist as gifts from state and can be defined and re-defined at the whim of our lawmakers. It thus makes family relations mere constructs of positive law rather than realities that exist within a state of nature that is prior and more basic than the state.
Some Christians will find this argument uncompelling. It is becoming trendy to assert a sharp distinction between civil marriage vs. ecclesiastical or sacramental marriage. This view is particularly attractive to those within traditions—such as the Eastern Orthodox church—that believe marriage is a sacrament. If marriage is one of the church’s sacraments, so the argument goes, then marriages outside the church are not sacraments and therefore not really marriages at all. But if so—the argument continues—then we shouldn’t really be concerned about governments debasing the meaning of marriage because civil marriages have nothing to do with religious marriage anyway.
I have addressed the problems with this line of reasoning in my post ‘Can Ecclesiastical Marriage be Separated from Civil Marriage?‘ and I do not want to retrace the ground I already covered other than to add one thing. Because the state interacts with families in a nation on the basis of civil law and not on the basis of ecclesiastical categories, Christians have a practical interest in civil law being based on justice and truth. Even if there is or ought to be a sharp distinction between civil and ecclesiastical marriage (both of which we deny), the fact that the state’s relationship to every marriage is governed by civil law is itself justification for taking an interest in how that civil law functions and is regulated. I have showed earlier in this article that introducing same-sex ‘marriage’ will drastically change the nature of civil marriage in a way that will touch every person, not simply those within same-sex ‘marriages,’ and this should be a concern even for those who think ecclesiastical marriage can be partitioned from civil marriage. As Girgis, Anderson and George point out, “once the state decides to recognize marriage to all, it is obligated to get marriage right, so as to avoid obscuring its distinctive structure and value.”
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