Ideas and Society

Turn on the television virtually any evening.  Watch virtually any sitcom.  Within an hour, you will be subjected to a sophisticated form of “sensitivity training” aimed at promoting “tolerance” for homosexuality and same-sex marriage.  Now, don’t get me wrong:  I am truly, sincerely and honestly in favor of tolerance and love for individuals who choose to live within the burgeoning homosexual culture in America.  But I am also alarmed at how that homosexual culture is attacking the most fundamental norms that support civilization:  childbearing and childrearing, sexual fidelity, and the institution that (for millennia) has protected and fostered these values – marriage.  In this battle, while the cry is for “tolerance,” the ultimate aim is something much more sinister:  not “tolerance” but the deconstruction (which is really just an academic term for “destruction”) of marriage.

This deconstruction is now well under way within the U.S. court system.  Several states have already mandated that homosexual couples be granted the same rights, privileges and status accorded marriage.  The federal courts are not far behind.  Unless action is taken soon to halt this judicial assault upon the foundation of society, the notion of marriage between a man and a woman may soon seem as antiquated as the Model T Ford.

That outcome would be dangerous indeed.

Marriage between a man and a woman serves as the very foundation of society.  The Supreme Court has had frequent opportunities to expound upon the fundamental importance of marriage to society.^[i]  Over a century ago, the United States Supreme Court called marriage “the most important relation in life.having more to do with the morals and civilization of a people than any other institution.” ^[ii] More recently, the Court described marriage as an “association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects.””^[iii]  But, however ornate the rhetoric, the Supreme Court’s discussions of marriage emphasize again and again a surpassingly important reality that (quite curiously) is often overlooked in the modern debates surrounding same-sex marriage:  the unquestionable biological and historical relationship between marriage, procreation and child-rearing.

As the Supreme Court noted in Skinner v. Oklahoma, “Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.”^[iv]  The Court reemphasized this connection between marriage, procreation and child-rearing in Zablocki v. Redhail. ^[v]  There, the Court placed the “decision to marry” on “the same level of importance as decisions relating to procreation, childbirth, child-rearing, and family relationships” precisely because “[if the] right to procreate means anything at all, it must imply some right to enter” the marital relationship. ^[vi]  The very conception of marriage, in sum, is indissolubly linked to the societal imperatives of procreation and child-rearing.

As a result, organized society has a substantial interest in drawing legal lines that responsibly channel and encourage procreation.  This theme has dominated Supreme Court decisions from the beginning.  All the family cases (from the earliest to the latest) recite that individuals have a unique interest in marriage because of its close connection to procreation and child-rearing. ^[vii]  Judicial recognition of this individual right to marriage and procreation, however, necessarily demands recognition of a correlative social interest held by the state:  a substantial – indeed compelling – interest in channeling and promoting responsible procreative behavior.  Only individuals marry and procreate.  But society has a surpassing interest in the conduct and outcome of these individual behaviors because these activities are fundamental to society’s “very existence and survival.”^[viii]

These interests continue to survive despite modern claimants for alternative marital unions who seek to sever sexuality completely from any relationship to procreation and child rearing.  Such a severance of sexuality from reproduction has profound sociological, moral and philosophical consequences that have been discussed by, among others, Professors Robert George, Gerard Bradley ^[ix] and Hadley Arkes.^[x]  According to these scholars, heterosexual relationships (and, in particular, marital relationships) differ significantly from other possible sexual acts.  Sexual relations between a man and a woman bound in marriage are described as an “intrinsic (or.’basic’) human good.”^[xi]  This is due, in large part, to the fact that a heterosexual marital relationship has the biological potential for reproduction.  Indeed, stripped of this reproductive potential, sexual relationships become nothing more than physically (and emotionally) agreeable physical sensations.

At this point, homosexual activists might argue that, if marital law exists to further society’s procreative imperative, why should legal protection be extended to infertile (whether by choice or otherwise) heterosexual unions?  The argument, however, is wide of the mark.  Traditional marriage, unlike any other sexual relationship, furthers society’s profound interest in the only sexual relationship that has the biological potential of reproduction:  union between a man and a woman.

Procreation requires a coupling between the two sexes.  Sexual relations between a man and a woman, therefore, even if infertile, fundamentally differ from homosexual couplings.  Homosexual couplings do not have the biological potential for reproduction:  children are possible only by means of legal intervention (e.g., adoption) or medical technology (e.g., artificial insemination).  Accordingly, and by their very nature, sexual relationships between a man and a woman (even if infertile) differ in kind from couplings between individuals of the same sex:  heterosexual couplings in general have the biological potential for reproduction; homosexual couplings always do not.  This potential procreative power is the basis for society’s^[xii] compelling interest in preferring potentially procreative relationships over relationships founded primarily upon mutually agreeable sexual sensations.

One need not dispute that mutually agreeable sexual relationships can have emotional, mental and physical overtones.  Such stimulation may be the result of – or perhaps result in – intense attachments to a sexual partner.  Nevertheless, absent any relation to potential procreation, the sexual act is reduced to a purely sensory experience (whether the sensation is physical, mental or emotional). ^[xiii]

The institution of marriage furthers not mere sensory experience, but society’s “very.survival.” ^[xiv]  The law, therefore, has never been ignorant of the vital distinction between purely sensory experience and procreation.  And constitutional law, for its part, must take cognizance of this biologically obvious distinction.  Constitutional decision making, above all other forms of judicial decision making, must be grounded in both principle and reason.^[xv]  And, when it comes to the constitutional definition of marriage, the undeniable and well-grounded principle that has guided mankind for generations (including state legislatures and the Supreme Court since this country’s founding) is straightforward:  there is a fundamental difference between procreative sexuality and non-procreative sexuality.

Reproduction is the only human act for which the two genders indisputably require the other.  A woman can do everything in her life without a man, except reproduce.  Vice versa for a man.  Thus, the sexuality that unites a man and a woman is unique in kind.  This uniqueness, in fact, is the very basis of the religious, historical and metaphysical notion that “marriage” indeed joins two flesh as one. ^[xvi]

Furthermore, should constitutional law abandon the principle that reproductive sex has a unique role, we will be left with no basis upon which to draw principled constitutional distinctions between sexual relations that are harmful to individuals and/or society, and relations that are beneficial.  In fact, the same arguments that would seemingly require constitutional protection for same-sex marriage would also require constitutional protection for any consensual sexual practice or form of marriage.  After all, once the principled line of procreation is abandoned, we are left with nothing more than sex as a purely sensory experience.  And, the purely sensory experience cherished by any given sexual partnership will be no more or less precious than the purely sensory experience valued by another sexual partnership, no matter how socially repugnant.  Should courts depart from the established heterosexual definition of marriage, therefore, there will be little (if any) principled ground upon which to deny marital status to any and all consensual sexual groupings.^[xvii]

For precisely this reason, America needs the Federal Marriage Amendment.  That Amendment would ensure that the United States Constitution cannot be used by homosexual advocates to foist same-sex marriage upon the American public.  Because of the importance of the Amendment, I have founded a small grass-roots effort in the State of Utah called Defend Marriage.  Defend Marriage commits candidates at the State and Federal level to support the Federal Marriage Amendment.  Visit our web page at www.defendmarriage.org.  But, perhaps even more importantly, organize a similar group in your State.

The very future of marriage – and our children – is at stake.