One of the important topics that we address on these Engaged Encounter weekends is the fact that in marriage a family is formed. When a man and a woman join together in marriage they become a family. Often we think of the beginning of a family with the birth of children, but that is just the natural growth of the already formed family unit of a husband and wife.
A Marriage is a Family
Why do I say this? Because our society seems to be under the false impression that marriage is adult-centered, involving only the public recognition of a loving relationship between two adults. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Marriage, in fact, is the “conjugal union of a man and a woman designed to unite husband and wife to each other and to any children who may come from their union”. This is where the problem lies.
“There are really two different ideas of marriage being debated in our society right now, and they cannot coexist: Marriage is either a conjugal union of a man and a woman designed to unite husband and wife to each other and to any children who may come from their union, or it is a relationship for the mutual benefit of adults which the state recognizes and to which it grants certain benefits. Whoever is for one, is opposed to the other.”
The battle to redefine an age-old institution that predates most cultures, governments, and even religions is nonsensical. For marriage is not something that we as humans have designed for ourselves, so we can’t really redefine it. What we are actually doing is devaluing and demeaning it. An apple is not an orange. No matter how bad I desire that it be so, that does not change the natural fact that apples and oranges are two distinct things. The same is true with marriage.
We know what marriage really is and to seek to redefine that by calling a union of two men or two women a marriage is to call an apple an orange. If it makes people feel better to pretend that apples and oranges are the same, no matter, for the truth is the truth and there is no changing that.
It’s Not About Feelings
Those of us who rationally understand and seek to protect marriage as it has been known since the beginning of humanity aren’t trying to deny the rights of anyone. We aren’t seeking to hurt anyone’s feelings. We aren’t even relying solely on religion. We only want to defend marriage because we value it above the emotional, political correctness of those who hold the opposing view.
The defense of marriage does not keep same-sex couples from being together and doing what they want to do. It does not impinge on sexual equality. It protects marriages from being made equal to same-sex relationships, when they are not the same. It also protects the right of every child to have a mother and a father. We always talk about protecting children, but this redefinition of marriage basically says that there is no difference between a mother and a father, that they are interchangeable.
“To legalize marriage between two people of the same sex would enshrine in the law the principle that mothers and fathers are interchangeable or irrelevant.”
I am not attempting to share all the possible defenses against the attempt redefine marriage here, but only a brief explanation. For an even better explanation, and perhaps a more articulate one, I encourage you to check out the USA Today interview with Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco.
And let me call upon a higher authority to sum up my words:
“To defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to con- demn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution. In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to “dis- parage,” “injure,” “degrade,” “demean,” and “humiliate” our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homo- sexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence— indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.”