What is the purpose of marriage?
Many of the advocates of gay marriage say they are for marriage equality. All else being equal, their basic premise can be summed up in that the love and commitment between two partners of the same sex is a sufficient standard to determine the legality of a marriage. Some of these activists might define their position as 2 consenting adults. Because marriage law says it’s between a man and woman only, that is enough evidence to find the law unjustly discriminatory.Their argument does not deal directly with the core problem. The trouble is, that as a society, over many years, we have decided that marriage is an important enough institution to be protected by law and given privileged status. The government has devoted time, resources, and a judiciary to deal with all the problems that arise in such a complicated relationship. Therefore, how important can marriage as an institution really be, if both a same-sex and heterosexual relationship qualify? If marriage means 2 things simultaneously, that is the same thing as saying it means nothing. You cannot gleefully surf the waves of non contradiction forever and never expect to hit the beach of reality. Perhaps the current geneneration of Americans in an expedient fashion would like to see 2 consenting adults as law of the land. But given time and an ever changing world, is it so impossible that at some point our even more liberal anscestors would see the ‘union’ of 3, 4, or even 5 people as a legitimate marriage? Anyone to object will be laughed at and mocked like a caveman from the 2 person rule stone-age. The mormons may have lost that argument once upon a time. But what if Mitt Romney…?
All of this leaves us in desperate need of an objective standard. The real question is, what about a man-woman relationship uniquely qualifies it among all other kinds of relationships? And why do we need the alleged institution of marriage, anyway?
It’s really more of a human being issue, than about male-female relations or sexuality. A man and woman create a one-flesh (spiritual) union that has potential for fruitfulness (children). For thousands of years, Western civilization has respected that spiritual ethic. Marriage is one element of our humanity that separates us from animals. We have many similar features to the animal kingdom, but marriage is different. Has civilization been wrong to elevate this relationship? That really is an issue of authority. God says in the Bible (see Genesis 2) that marriage is a special relationship - and His word is the ultimate authority on the matter. If there is no common ground there, than far larger things are at stake.
