The "debate" on marriage is "heating up". This and a few other essays I will be posting put forth some pretty decent arguments. Enjoy :)
Quick snap shots or more "critical excerpts" of the essay....
["—“marriage equality,” after all, has been good sloganeering. But it’s sloppy reasoning.
Why? Well, every law makes distinctions. Equality before the law protects citizens from arbitrary distinctions, from laws that treat them differently for no good reason. But in order to know if a law makes the right distinctions—if the lines it draws are justified—you have to know the public purpose of the law, and the nature of the good being advanced or protected.
Just ask yourself: If the law recognized same-sex couples as spouses, would it still fail to respect the equality of citizens in multiple-partner relationships? Are those inclined to such relationships being treated unjustly when their consensual romantic bonds go unrecognized, their children thereby “stigmatized,” their tax filings unprivileged?
And in any case, the question is more fundamental: Once one jettisons sexual complementarity—the bodies of men and women go together—what principle can one offer to limit civil marriage to monogamous couples? For that is the only way to answer the charge that withholding a “fundamental right” from even just one multiple-partner household isn’t a grave injustice.
Such appeals simply beg the question of what is essential to marriage. They just assume exactly what’s in dispute here: that gender is just as irrelevant as race. It is true, of course, that the color of two people’s skin has nothing to do with what kind of bond they have. But the sexual difference between a man and a woman is central to what marriage is. Men and women—regardless of their race—can unite in marriage; and children need moms and dads—regardless of their race. You can’t know either fact, though, without at least a rough idea of what, essentially, makes a marriage.
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