The Oxymoron of "Gay Marriage"

Proposition 8 and the events that have unfolded in the wake of its passage in California have reignited the controversy over so-called “gay marriage.”

Partisans on both sides of this issue invariably characterize it as an issue over the “definition” of marriage: those on the Right want to continue “defining” marriage as a union between “a man and a woman”, while those on the Left seek to expand its definition to encompass unions between members of the same sex.

While the issue at stake here definitely involves “the definition” of marriage, to understand it only in these terms is to both misunderstand and grossly understate what is at stake.

The claim that this debate centers on a disagreement over a “definition” erroneously suggests that the proponents and opponents of “gay marriage” differ with one another merely in degree ; in fact, the conflict between them runs much deeper than the term “definition” would indicate.

Republicans and Democrats entertain (or at least claim to entertain) different “definitions” of government, yet insofar as the one Party champions “Big Government” while the other promotes “Small Government,” their disagreement appears to be one of degree. In contrast, the difference between the two conceptions of “marriage” in question is a difference in kind .

Reflection on the history of the institution of marriage makes it possible to abstract from the contingencies and relativities of time and place an ideal type, that is, a set of presuppositions underlying and, thus, surviving the fluctuations that actual marriage has undergone and in the absence of which it wouldn’t be the institution that it is.

Admittedly, these presuppositions are few in number, but they are unmistakable. Marriage is, first, an enduring, indeed, permanent union; second, it is the permanent union between members of the opposite sex—an inherently heterosexual compact; finally, it is a union from which children can be and are expected to spring.

Those on the Right who oppose “gay marriage” by arguing that marriage is and always has been “the union of a man and a woman” are being less than fully honest. It is much more accurate to say that marriage has always been a union between men and women .

“Polygamy” -- the union of one man and several women -- has been the historical norm. “Polyandry” -- the union of one woman and multiple men -- though much rarer, is not unheard of. Anthropological evidence suggests that history is not without cultures that sanctioned the marrying of sons and mothers! And, of course, marriage has been expressed through the form of monogamy.

The proponents of these various expressions of marriage often disagree fiercely and passionately with one another over the proper form of marriage. Still, their disagreement is one of degree. There is no disagreement that marriage is an inherently heterosexual union, the means by which the human race is replenished and civilized.

The proponents of so-called “gay-marriage” demand not merely a “re-definition” of marriage -- marriage has been continually redefined throughout its history -- they demand, rather, that two fundamentally distinct, irreducible kinds of association, the one “marital,” the other “non-marital,” be collapsed into one another. To paraphrase Aristotle, it was as if they insisted on describing the conclusions of mathematics in terms of “virtue” and “vice,” “justice” and “injustice,” and ethics in terms of “axioms” and “proofs.”

In short, the proponents of “gay marriage” claim a “right” to a contradiction in terms: “same-sex unions” simply cannot be marital. Bearing in mind that the argument in favor of “same-sex marriage” is not simply an argument in favor of but one more revision of the “definition” of marriage, but instead rests upon a fundamental confusion of categories, it is not difficult to recognize the comparison with earlier restrictions on inter-racial marriage that are often made for the spurious analogy that it is. That parties to a marriage be of the same racial background is not a postulate of marriage. Or, to use the idiom of an earlier era, race is an “accidental” feature of marriage, while heterosexuality is “essential” to it.

Mormons have incurred the wrath of the supporters of “same sex marriage” for their endorsement of Proposition 8. In response to the outrageous manner in which members of the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) have been treated, it would be something like poetic justice if they would now assert their “right” to marry whomever and how many ever people they wanted to marry. While our society judges polygamy an undesirable marital arrangement, unlike homosexual “unions,” at least polygamy is a form of marriage.