Same-sex marriage: not near so much like a ball
“I should like balls infinitely better… if they were carried on in a different manner… It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of the day.”
“Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball.”
(Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice)
Peter Tatchell and Peter D Williams recently discussed the question of same-sex marriage. Tatchell is, of course, a well-known human rights activist and supports same-sex marriage. Williams represents ‘Catholic Voices’ and opposes same-sex marriage.
I found it interesting that Williams did not appeal to religious arguments at all. I presume that he chose not to do so for ad hominem reasons (“the other guy doesn’t believe in God, so such arguments won’t get anywhere.” We shouldn’t forget, however, that as Christians we believe that God makes demands on all people, whether they acknowledge him or not). Williams chose to focus instead on what is natural and what is normative. Arising from this is the concern that advocates of same-sex marriage are setting out not simply to open up marriage to non-heterosexual couples, but to re-define marriage itself.
Tatchell’s contribution to the discussion was calm and measured. However, he was too ready to play the ‘homophobia’ card. According to him, if a person supports ‘discrimination’ against same-sex couples, then that person is by definition ‘homophobic’. Williams rightly pointed out that this an unhelpful discussion-stopper; a ‘thought-terminating cliche’. Whatever meanings the gay rights lobby wants to assign to the word ‘homophobia’, it will always imply either hatred or irrationality.
Tatchell is right to say that it would be discriminatory to ban black people, or Jewish people, from marriage, but wrong to say that opposition to same-sex marriage is also discriminatory.
But it is neither hateful nor irrational to oppose same-sex marriage. The reason for this is that same-sex marriage is, actually, something other than marriage.
Marriage is a life-long commitment between a man and a woman. According to the Concise English Dictionary, it is
Other life-long loving commitments – between two siblings, for example, or between a same-sex couple – may be very important and meaningful, but they are not marriage.
Peter Tatchell seemed unable, or unwilling, to take this argument on. It is no answer to state, as he did, that marriage has been abused from time to time. Nor is it any argument to assert that because some heterosexual couples are childless (voluntarily or involuntarily) that the raising of children within the context of marriage is not ‘normative’.
Tatchel argued that British law did not even attempt to define marriage as only between a man and a woman until the early 1970s. But this is misleading. It is quite clear to me that British law – as indeed, British society – simply took it for granted that marriage was between a man and a woman and did not need to state this until it began to be questioned.
Marriage is between a man and a woman. We can discuss whether other kinds of union are good, bad, or indifferent. But let’s not call them ‘marriage’.