Friday, July 09, 2004
Why homosexuals want what marriage has become
As the debate over gay marriage and civil unions hots up, the following is a very insightful and salutary comment from the Howard Centre (the organisation behind the recent World Congress of Families in Mexico):
Once defined by religious doctrine, moral tradition, and home-centered commitments to child rearing and gender complementarity in productive labor, marriage has become a deracinated and highly individualistic and egalitarian institution, no longer implying commitment to home, to Church, to childbearing, to traditional gender duties, or even (permanently) to spouse. Gone is the productive husband-wife bond defined by mutual sacrifice and cooperative labor, replaced by dual-careerist vistas of self-fulfillment and consumer satisfaction. That homosexuals now want the strange new thing marriage has become should surprise no one: contemporary marriage, after all, certifies a certain legitimacy in the mainstream of American culture and delivers tax, insurance, life-style, and governmental benefits—all without imposing any of the obligations of traditional marriage (which homosexuals decidedly do not want). Thus, while the attempt to deny homosexuals the right to marry is understandable and even morally and legally justified, such an attempt is probably foredoomed if it does not lead to a broader effort to restore moral and religious integrity to marriage as a heterosexual institution.
The full article can be found at www.profam.org/pub/fia/fia_1804.htm
As the debate over gay marriage and civil unions hots up, the following is a very insightful and salutary comment from the Howard Centre (the organisation behind the recent World Congress of Families in Mexico):
Once defined by religious doctrine, moral tradition, and home-centered commitments to child rearing and gender complementarity in productive labor, marriage has become a deracinated and highly individualistic and egalitarian institution, no longer implying commitment to home, to Church, to childbearing, to traditional gender duties, or even (permanently) to spouse. Gone is the productive husband-wife bond defined by mutual sacrifice and cooperative labor, replaced by dual-careerist vistas of self-fulfillment and consumer satisfaction. That homosexuals now want the strange new thing marriage has become should surprise no one: contemporary marriage, after all, certifies a certain legitimacy in the mainstream of American culture and delivers tax, insurance, life-style, and governmental benefits—all without imposing any of the obligations of traditional marriage (which homosexuals decidedly do not want). Thus, while the attempt to deny homosexuals the right to marry is understandable and even morally and legally justified, such an attempt is probably foredoomed if it does not lead to a broader effort to restore moral and religious integrity to marriage as a heterosexual institution.
The full article can be found at www.profam.org/pub/fia/fia_1804.htm
