John Milbank, Research Professor of Politics, Religion and Ethics at the University of Nottingham, Director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy, and Chairman of the ResPublica Trust argues in a lengthy essay for the Australian Broadcasting Company's "Religion and Ethics" section that redefining marriage obscures the nature of marriage fundamentally and irrevocably.
Here's one of his more compelling arguments (of which he makes many):
...Increasingly, children resulting from anonymous artificial insemination are rightly demanding to know who their natural parents are - for they know that, in part, we indeed are our biology. But on the other hand, this request is in principle intolerable for donors who gave their sperm or wombs on the understanding that this was an anonymous donation for public benefit -- like blood donation properly precluding any personal involvement.
The recipe for psychological confusion, family division and social conflict involved here is all too evident and cannot be averted. In this instance we have sleep-walked into the legalisation of practices whose logic and implications have never been seriously debated.
From this it follows that we should not re-define birth as essentially artificial and disconnected from the sexual act - which by no means implies that each and every sexual act must be open to the possibility of procreation, only that the link in general should not be severed.
The price for this severance is surely the commodification of birth by the market, the quasi-eugenic control of reproduction by the state, and the corruption of the parent-child relation to one of a narcissistic self-projection.
Once the above practices have been rejected, then it follows that a gay relationship cannot qualify as a marriage in terms of its orientation to having children, because the link between an interpersonal and a natural act is entirely crucial to the definition and character of marriage.
The fact that this optimum condition cannot be fulfilled by many valid heterosexual marriages is entirely irrelevant, for they still fulfil through ideal intention this linkage, besides sustaining the union of sexual difference which is the other aspect of marriage's inherently heterosexual character.
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At the risk of offending infertile couples, I think that sperm donations and egg donations in heterosexuals opened the door for homosexuals to claim parenthood, and creates the "homophobic" argument that homosexuals love to make.
If we're being honest, we, as supporters of marriage and people who understand the purpose of marriage, must be prepared to point our fingers at heterosexual couples who deprive a child of one or more of his parents through conceptions involving a party outside of a marriage. If not , we're are forced to make the tenuous argument that it's ok to deprive a child a parent as long as the child is born to a heterosexual couple, but it is not ok to deprive a parent to a child if the intention is for the child to be raised by a same-sex couple. While it is surely better for a child to be raised by an opposite-sex couple than a same-sex couple, it is a weak argument when compared to the argument that it is best for a child to be raised by both of his real parents.
Marriage is about uniting children and the parents who created them.
Moreover, we must attack the no-fault divorce laws, because divorce has the same devastating effects on children as does being born illegitimate: it deprives the child of the right to be brought up in a household of both parents who are committed to the child's upbringing.
Dear god, there was so much profound wisdom in mom and dad's tired old:
- “No!”
- “Ah! But why not?”
- “Because I said so!”
“But can't we please make it to mean the union of any two people?”
“No!”
“Ahhh, please?”
“No!”
“But why not?”
“Because.”
“Ahhh!”
“Now listen to me my dear boy, and do as your mother says. She knows what's best.”
Or should that be: “listen to me my dear, gender-neutral, until you decide what you are, child; and do as your parent number 2 says. 'She' (if that is what number 2 fancies to be today) knows best.” But maybe I should call her 'parent number 1'. I wouldn't want to be considered sexist along the way; that is if she happened to be a 'she' and I happened to be a 'he' during the particular time in question.
Oh boy (girl), this parenting stuff isn't getting any easier.
I hope our public schools will be able to clear things up for the little guys (gals). Oh I give up! You decide what's best my Western World Government. Me, I'm going out to get some fresh air!
Good words Resist! Thanks.
Read BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley. This is exactly what the author predicted..
Thanks, Resist, for another brilliant comment. I've made a lot of comments about manufacturing children in order to fulfill the desires of adults, while ignoring the needs of the children. I agree with you completely.
I do wonder how long it will be before we adopt the Brave New World scenario and begin manufacturing and genetically engineering children for specific tasks. What will we call them?
"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly color. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 2