Get Herald RSSIn a recent column my friend William Martin '10 writes that "the process of cultural liberalization will proceed too slowly for many homosexual couples currently petitioning for access to marriage" ("Hold your horses," Mar. 20). Indeed, if this process takes root at all, it will proceed slowly - and rightfully so.
Two Anglo-Saxon traits, deeply ingrained in the American ethos, will inevitably upset the ambitions of gay marriage advocates: First, a traditional opposition to cultural tyranny and, second, a respect for marriage, the most basic institution of human social organization.
Marriage logically, and chronologically, preceded government and its laws. A true marriage only requires the assent of the man and woman entering into it - a civil magistrate or a member of the clergy is dispensable, though frequently employed in legal ceremonies.
Marriage is, in many ways, a purely religious institution, meant for those who accept the Creator, although atheists often partake in order to capture marriage's positive social benefits. In Christian tradition, and under the common law of many jurisdictions, a simple affirmation that a man and a woman are married is all that is required for a marriage to have taken place. Government has no theoretical role in marriage, whatsoever.
Government's sole place in marriage, if it must have one, lies in its ability to encourage and facilitate the pre-existing institution of marriage - after all, government has a legitimate interest in strengthening the cultural bonds that already tie a people together.
Martin sets up a straw-man argument by claiming that people who oppose legal same-sex marriage are simply bigoted, biblical literalists. The charge of bigotry applies equally well to those who would mischaracterize and stereotype the opposition, so evaluating the arguments on publicly accessible terms is a more constructive approach.
Most limited-government conservatives and culturally-conservative libertarians oppose legalizing gay marriage not for scriptural reasons, but because they see it as a disquieting form of cultural tyranny whereby the government artificially manipulates the customs of the people who united to establish it.
Some of these detractors also have moral objections to sodomy and the perceived decadence of homosexuality, yet they understand that persons engaging in those behaviors will have to answer to a higher power and to their communities, through social ostracization. The primary reason for opposing gay marriage is the fundamental principle that people and history, not governments, should determine culture.
The argument that I would like to proffer is that governments, at all levels, in this country and others, should either maintain, encourage and facilitate proper marriage, or remove themselves from the institution altogether. A piece of paper cannot validate a marriage; it can only grant legal recognition to a marriage that exists independently of the law.
Supposing that gay marriage is even conceptually possible, why do gay Americans demand a piece of paper? Is marriage truly their aim? What seems more likely is that they crave social sanction for their lifestyles, and attempt to effect it by demanding that legislators, judges and executives impose acceptance on society.
The gay community can enjoy many of the benefits that the average, heterosexual married couple enjoys under the auspices of a contract. For instance, upon Tom's death, Harry can inherit Tom's property, in accordance with a written contract or the expressed wishes of Tom, as verified by witnesses.
There are, of course, other benefits that accompany heterosexual marriage (hospital visitation rights, for example). But this is, at best, a reason to get rid of policies that arbitrarily restrict certain benefits to legally married couples. The claim that "justice" and "equality" are the true ends of legal gay marriage is belied by the fact that such an arrangement is unnecessary to achieve them.
I have faith that if Americans in every state, or the country as a whole, were allowed to confirm their culture (perhaps through voting), gay marriage would be annihilated. This might explain why the gay lobby vociferously opposes a popular vote on gay marriage in Massachusetts. They know that they will lose, and wisely - tyrannically - seek top-down governmental intervention to compel society to accept their worldview and culture.
Most people, despite the pretensions of some, still adhere to long-established understandings of the appropriate places of both society and government, and of the natural imperatives which preclude the homosexual lifestyle. But Martin's point is nonetheless well-taken: Left-wingers should proceed more cautiously, lest Americans realize what they, and their friends in the Democratic Party, truly believe.
Sean Quigley '10 attended an all-male, Roman Catholic high school
