Same Sex Marriage
From what Instapundit calls a fascinating column by Donald Sensing:
"If society has abandoned regulating heterosexual conduct of men and women, what right does it have to regulate homosexual conduct, including the regulation of their legal and property relationship with one another to mirror exactly that of hetero, married couples?
"I believe that this state of affairs is contrary to the will of God. But traditionalists, especially Christian traditionalists (in whose ranks I include myself) need to get a clue about what has really been going on and face the fact that same-sex marriage, if it comes about, will not cause the degeneration of the institution of marriage; it is the result of it."
As Sensing says, liberal divorce is widely accepted in the U.S., even or especially in those fundamentalist churches that are likely to refer to marriage as sacred.
The widespread use of the pill was the last straw:
"Sex, childbearing and marriage now have no necessary connection to one another, because the biological connection between sex and childbearing is controllable. The fundamental basis for marriage has thus been technologically obviated. Pair that development with rampant, easy divorce without social stigma, and talk in 2004 of "saving marriage" is pretty specious. There's little there left to save. Men and women today who have successful, enduring marriages till death do them part do so in spite of society, not because of it."
Sensing could have gone back to John Locke, who is often identified as a founder of "conservative" thought within a liberal democratic--especially American--context. He outline the classic defence of the right to property, as determined by labour and a marketplace. He pretty much stated that land in North America was not owned by anyone until European settlers arrived and worked on it, "mixed their labour" with it. This of course could be and was read as an invitation to take it all.
In his First Treatise of government, which is largely presented as a rather interpretation of scripture, Locke argues that Adam did not gain any authority over anyone simply by virtue of being a father. This undermines the traditional Biblical view of authority, and prepares for the modern view that true authority derives solely from the consent of the governed.
#54: "What Father of a Thousand, when he begets a Child, thinks farther then the satisfying his present Appetite? God in his infinite wisdom has put strong desires of Copulation into the Constitution of Men, thereby to continue the race of Mankind, which he doth most commonly without the intention, and often against the Consent and will of the Begetter....those who desire and design Children...do little more toward their making, than Ducalion and his Wife in the Fable did towards the making of Mankind, by throwing Pebbles over their Heads."
Sex is a matter of human appetite. Locke says this is part of God's plan, but human beings may not realize that, and certainly may not intend to have children, or even "consent" to do so. The Bible has God say "Be fruitful and multiply," which provides at least some support for a ban on any use of birth control. Locke says God's plan is "to continue the race of mankind." So perhaps as long as children are being born somewhere, a specific couple might plan to have none. At the very least Locke makes a good start here to giving adults permission to use birth control--three hundred years ago.
(In Second Treatise, #65, Locke argues that any authority over a (helpless) child belongs to anyone who feeds the child--and this may be a total stranger. There seems to be nothing sacred in the biological and conventional relationship between parent and child).
As for divorce, in I. 47 Locke makes it clear that marriage is a contract, and whether a woman must obey her husband depends on the terms of that contract.
There are more details in the Second Treatise, #80 to 83. In #81, Locke suggests the "Compact" between a man and a woman "may...be made determinable, either by consent, or at a certain time, or upon certain Conditions, as well as any other voluntary Compacts...." In #82, he says specifically that the wife should have "a Liberty to separate" from her husband. One of the biggest issues in the history of divorce was that unless women could take substantial property out of a marriage, divorce was hardly an option for them. Iin #83 Locke says "Community of Goods, and the Power over them" are among the issues that "might be varied and regulated by that Contract, which unites Man and Wife...."
This is the modern liberal view of divorce, not the Biblical or traditional one.As Kant said, marriage becomes a contract between two consenting adults to share a bed.
What's fascinating about Americans is that they actually live this doctrine, probably more than anyone. Scandinavians, to take a different example, apparently just live together, and let all the legalities slide. (After all, the welfare state will provide for one's needs, including education). Americans insist on serial monogamy. It is really divorce that is forever, not marriage.
Yet it is also in the U.S. that one actually hears public debate about the sacredness of marriage, more or less in Biblical terms. This is certainly more than, different from, ordinary hypocrisy.
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