Moral condemnation is no substitute for argument, and the campus Left's impulse to recede from the more rigorous (though admittedly less gratifying) task of substantively addressing its opposition bears a result that is as discouraging as it is unsurprising: The conservative position on gay marriage, like conservative thought in general, is poorly understood by the Amherst student body. All too often have I parsed the topic of same-sex marriage with a fellow student only to find him surprised that my argument appeals neither to scripture nor to bigotry. The majority of liberals at Amherst, it seems, assumes that an opposition to gay marriage must necessarily be either religious or hateful. It would be apt, then, to present the principled argument against gay marriage. Though it does not command the ascent of its opponents, it is reasoned, legitimate and deserves to be addressed on its own terms.
The institution of marriage is a product of both human nature and the moral commitments expressed in our laws. The arrangement is made both possible and necessary by the ineffaceable fact of human gender. That is, for as long as there will be human beings, there will be men and women. Irreducibly grounded in human nature, the purpose of gender is made evident by its very existence. As the unmistakable telos of human sexuality is the act of begetting, there is only one "sexuality" in the most finite sense of the word: The sexuality which is capable of producing children. That claim is an amoral one and, by itself, furnishes no basis for moral condemnation of alternative forms of "sexual orientation." But at the core of marriage must be an understanding of the nature of sexuality, strictly speaking, for the purpose of marriage is to provide a morally suitable framework for the rearing of children.
In the first book of "The Politics," Aristotle remarks, "The polis is prior in the order of nature to the family." Certainly, Aristotle understood that human beings were capable of having sex and bearing children even in the absence of civil society. But the more decisive distinction to which he alludes is that while all animals have sex, to engage in sexual relations within a framework that constitutes a family is something notably different. And as soon as we begin to consider what constitutes a family, we necessarily begin to consider the moral understandings that animate the laws shaping marriage and families.
The relationship between parent and child is not only defined by biology. The filial respect and affection due to a parent from his child do not arise from the mere fact that the two are of the same genetic material. As we consider that no child would be enjoined to respect the father who sired him in the course of a rape, we come to recognize that filial respect derives from a parent's fulfillment of his moral commitment to care for and nurture his child. The framework of marriage allows him to solidify that commitment as a legal one. He pledges not only that he will nurture the child but also that he will not abandon that responsibility may he find it convenient-the defining mark of an obligation. Marriage, as a framework for the begetting of children, provides that a child enter the world with parents committed to his care, and it provides a legal mechanism to ensure that the child will be cared for even in those situations when marriage dissolves. When we speak of binding commitments, then we are speaking of the law, and marriage is the legal incarnation of the commitment of parents to their children. Surely, marriage is imperfect, and the commitment to care for a child must sometimes be made outside of its framework in unfortunate circumstances such as divorce, family tragedy or child abandonment. But it is nevertheless the institution that defines the terms, in principle, on which children ought to be begotten. Marriage must, therefore, by its nature, incorporate both society's moral understandings and the natural telos of human sexuality, namely that only two, one man and one woman, can produce a child.
Marriage, then, is not merely an expression of love or of the commitment of partners to one another. There are many forms of love-between fathers and sons, brothers and sisters and the best of friends-that are unquestionably deep and abiding, and none of them is diminished by the fact that it is not formally expressed in a marriage. But marriage is a framework distinctly suited for procreation, and if it were detached from its natural and moral significance, then it would lose the defining features that establish its coherence as an institution. For if marriage were defined merely by love or commitment, then there would be no principled ground on which to confine its scope to two people. Polygamous or even incestuous ensembles could, with undeniable plausibility, claim a love and commitment as forceful and enduring as that of any coupling. That is not to argue that the proponents of gay marriage support incest or polygamy, but only to point out that the logic of their argument transcends their intentions, for they leave themselves with no principle by which to make such discriminations.
Ultimately, opposition to gay marriage does not turn on any judgment about homosexuals as people or about the legitimacy of homosexuality, but rather is born of the incongruity between homosexuality and marriage. Quite tellingly, however, those who would oppose gay marriage but offer to homosexual couples the status of a civil union reveal something rather tarnishing about their opinion of homosexuals as people. For if John Kerry is willing to extend to gay partners the substance of marriage and all of the legal incidents thereof, then we might wonder why exactly he hesitates to extend the title of marriage. If homosexuality is compatible with the substance of the institution, then he would deny a marriage to that couple, otherwise fit for the arrangement, simply because it happened to be homosexual, a manifestly unwarranted discrimination.
Admittedly, there are alternative renderings of the function and purpose of marriage, none of which I have the column space to address. But this construction, agree or disagree with it, is presented with the force of logic and reason, neither hatred nor bigotry. Hopefully, no longer will the label of vitriol suffice to dismiss as illegitimate the opposition to gay marriage.