Is Marriage Nothing More Than Affirming Deeply Held Committments?

You May Hear Proponents of Same-Sex Marriage Argue . . ."Same-sex marriage should be allowed because marriage has become nothing more than affirming deeply held emotion commitments. Marriage in the culture has become nothing more than a public contract conferring social approval to people forming deeply held emotional, financial, and psychological bonds. In this respect, homosexuals are identical to heterosexuals, leaving no public basis for treating homosexuals differently from heterosexuals. Limiting the social approval conferred by marriage to heterosexuals makes sense only if marriage is understood to be intrinsically procreative; but that definition was long abandoned in Western culture. With no public basis for treating homosexuals differently, the state should extend the public approval marriage confers to all deeply held personal bonds whether homosexual or heterosexual. But this argument is wrong."

You Can Graciously Refute This By Saying . . .

Most same-sex couples now demanding freedom to marry view marriage in terms of what one homosexual theorist has called an intensified form of coming out. In other words, they want to redefine what marriage means, and to change how marriage is structured, all as a way of gaining approval for how they choose to live, rather than treating marriage as others do which is changing how they choose to live in order to gain the sort of approval that comes with getting married. They think that the meaning, purpose, and institutional structure of marriage should all be changed as a way of getting others to validate how they satisfy private desires, but have no interest at all in affirming or respecting how marriage is structured to serve well justified public interest in favoring and supporting procreation. While ignoring legitimate public interest in favoring procreation, they wrongly claim that marriage either never was, or is no longer, intrinsically procreative. But public interest in favoring and supporting the procreational structure of marriage has not changed and continues as strong as ever. This very strong and legitimate public interest in recognizing and supporting marriage as a procreative institution has nothing to do with validating or affirming private feelings, but has only to do with getting biological fathers and mothers to cooperate in raising their own children, and as a result also to secure the intergenerational survival of society as a whole.

The Truth Is . . .

Same-sex marriage is wrong because it uses marriage to reach a goal incompatible with the structure of marriage as a social institution.

Excerpts from Why Not Same-Sex Marriage? a forthcoming book by Daniel R. Heimbach, Professor of Christian Ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.