Why homosexual marriage is wrong

The definitional argument asserts that marriage just is the union of one man and one woman, and that the definition alone is a sufficient defense against claims for gay marriage. The procreation argument claims that marriage's central public purpose is to encourage procreation, and so the exclusion of same-sex couples is justified.

The slippery-slope argument claims that the acceptance of same-sex marriage logically entails the acceptance of other public policy changes - notably the acceptance of polygamy - that would themselves be bad, independent of whether gay marriage is bad.

While each argument has some appeal, and each has adherents both inside and outside the legal academy, each is badly flawed as a matter of logic, experience, politics, or some combination of the three. The article suggests that in the interest of focusing on the most important concerns about gay marriage, commentators should move on to other arguments against it that seem stronger and thus better test the affirmative case for gay marriage.

But, while there is place for appeal to, and deference to, authority, that place is not in philosophical argument about the merits of theories or the right response to practical problems, and so is not in this book.

They are. These principles of natural law are considered self-evident as some principles of logic. These principles are also indemonstrable, undemonstrated, and incommensurable. But how could we grasp these principles of natural law? Reason directed to a purpose is practical reason. And we can find in practical reason not only our ability to formulate reasons that explain the judgment about what is desirable or not, but also our capacity to act based on these very reasons - in pursuit of what is considered good and valuable FINNIS, a FINNIS, John.

Reason in action - collected essays. New York: Oxford University Press, a. From practical reason, we can delimit what is relevant for our lives and for common life. A summary of his position can be found in the postscript on the second edition of Natural Law and Natural Rights. They are: knowledge, skillful performance, bodily life, friendship, marriage, practical reasonableness, and harmony with ultimate source FINNIS, d, p.

The human goods are considered basics in three fundamental dimensions. First, each one is equally a self-evident good. Second, a basic human good cannot be reduced to an aspect of another good. Third, each one can be reasonably considered the most important one when subject to our attention - what does not mean hierarchy between them, for basic human goods are incommensurable.

But we need more elements to answer the key question in morality: what should be done? From which goods must we participate, and how can we establish our order of priorities? Thus, the practical reasonableness is a complex value which involves freedom and reason, integrity and authenticity. Among the requirements of practical requirement, the seventh one is essential for this paper: we must respect every basic value in every action.

For sure, life contingencies imply the recognition of our liberty and self-determination - we can see the participation in some goods as more important than others as a scientist who can be concerned with the good of knowledge but does not care about making significant friendships.

What is relevant for this seventh requirement is that basic human goods should not be subordinated to any project or personal commitment or sentiments or cost-benefit considerations - for this will correspond to treat these basic goods in a commensurable way FINNIS, d FINNIS, John. This point is particularly important. As explained below, Finnis regards homosexual acts as contrary to the basic human good of marriage.

As mentioned, John Finnis considers marriage a basic human good that we can participate and must valorize. Marriage: a basic and exigent good. New York: Oxford University Press, e. There, Finnis delimits the focal meaning or point of marriage. Marriage's point is twofold: procreation or parental care and friendship between spouses. Furthermore, these points demonstrate marriage goes far beyond its legal dimension. The procreation act does not forcefully depend on generating children, as they do not constitute an inexorable consequence of marriage.

Reproduction is viewed by Finnis as a function that operates through the union between the reproductive organs of a man and a woman, uniting them biologically. Therefore, the fundamental question is not related to offspring generation but to reproductive sort of acts - which Finnis calls the biological union:. Biological union between humans is the inseminatory union of male genital organ with female genital organ; in most circumstances it does not result in generation, but it is the behaviour that unites biologically because it is the behaviour which, as behaviour, is suitable for generation.

Therefore, biological union can only take place through the union between a man and a woman. Sterile or not, their genital organs are nonetheless reproductive organs. Is homosexual conduct wrong? The New Republic, November 15, p. Thus, homosexual acts could be similarly criticized as copulation between humans and animals: they are dissociated from the expression of an intelligible common good, treating the human bodily life as merely animal FINNIS, b FINNIS, John.

So marital sex, by definition, can be the only rational use of man and woman's reproductive organs - and as reproductive organs, can only perform their function when united. Homosexual sex acts are for this reason deemed as the instrumentalization of individuals involved in them as well as heterosexual sex acts which do not correspond to biological union - e.

Even if these sex acts were mutually delightful, they are incompatible with the very idea of marriage. At this point, we must recall the seventh requirement of practical reasonableness, that each human good must be respected in all our actions. For Finnis believes that non-marital sex acts i. So, individuals who have a homosexual inclination should remain with no active sexual life. Otherwise they would be confronting the good of marriage and acting immorally.

In addition to the biological union, the other marriage's point substantiates a special link between spouses, in an affective, emotional way. This link is not a pure and simple friendship but a kind of relationship where spouses passionately participate, oriented towards the practice of reproductive sex acts.

This marital friendship matches what Aquinas conceived as fides , as interpreted by Finnis. Fides does not only involves abstaining from extramarital affairs i. Sex and marriage: some myths and reasons. New York: Oxford University Press, f. But Finnis argues the commitment and marital exclusiveness are particularly hard to keep among gay couples, precisely because same-sex partners are unable of reproductive acts.

Thus, Finnis raises not only philosophical but also empirical arguments which would render implausible the defense of same-sex marriage.

Thus, even at the level of behaviour - i. For them the permanent, exclusive commitment of marriage - in which bodily union in such acts is the biological actuation of the multi-level bodily, emotional, intellectual, and volitional marital relationship - is inexplicable. Of course, two, three, four, five or any number of persons of the same sex can band together to raise a child or children.

That may, in some circumstances, be a praiseworthy commitment. In short, Finnis conceives only the unity of a man and a woman as genuine marital union. The sex act, as the biological union, is only reasonable and moral when addressed to participation in the good of marriage. Therefore, protecting heterosexual marriage is a moral requirement. It has few presentable counterparts in the real world outside the artifice of debate.

Marriage, on the other hand, is the category of relationships, activities, satisfactions, and responsibilities which can be intelligently and reasonably chosen by a man and a woman, and adopted as their integral commitment, because the components of the category respond and correspond coherently to a complex of interlocking, complementary good reasons: the good of marriage. Homosexuality and the conservative mind.

Georgetown Law Journal, v. For Macedo, the very idea of biological union would only make sense if reproduction could actually happen - but this is not the case of infertile heterosexual couples.

The decline and fall of the case against same-sex marriage. University of St. Thomas Law Journal, v. A sterile person's genitals are no more suitable for generation than a gun whit a broken firing pin is suitable for shooting. The gun's pin might be repairable, perhaps not; perhaps medicine can in some cases cure infertility.

We must remind that marriage is a basic human good just because its twofold point is a basic good on rational human action, in evident and indemonstrable ways. Thus, the biological union is a self-evident good in human action as well. As behavior, it is necessary to procreate even if procreation does not occur by reasons adverse to personal wishes. Two men or two women cannot unite biologically, but a man and a woman can.

As result a sterile couple can marry, while this union does not correspond to marriage's focal meaning but a peripheral or secondary case. At last, a gun is nonetheless a gun - and therefore designed to kill. It does not matter if it is loaded or not. Thereby, I think Finnis and other natural law authors are not incoherent when they argue infertile heterosexual couples can marry. The idea of biological union prevents, at least formally, the analogy between sterility and homosexuality.

No one could have children by performing sodomitical acts. Yet, this is not true of the kind of act performed by sterile married couples when they engage in coitus. A man and woman who are not temporarily or permanently infertile could procreate by doing exactly what the infertile married couple do when they consummate or actualize their marital communion. The behavior is identical and the intention - the actualization of marriage considered as a multileveled union founded upon organic bodily union - can be identical as well.

Thus, the difference between infertile and fertile married couples is not a difference in what they do or in the act they perform. There is no difference in their voluntary conduct. But other problems can arise. Of course, there is no need of hypothetical thought in that matter: in real world, there are hundred cases of transsexual people who go through sex reassignment surgery.

These questions emphasize Koppelman's criticism about the essentialism in the way Finnis and other natural lawyers conceive the reproductive function of sex organs. And the reproductive function is no longer relevant in the sense of power or potential, but in a taxonomic sense:. NNL [New Natural Law] might, finally, appeal to the essentialism implied by the ordinary meaning of words.

A dead man's heart, which will never beat again, is still a heart, and his stomach is still a digestive organ. So to speak! Don't put lasagna in it.

So the penis of a sterile man is still a reproductive organ. But the only aspect of reproductiveness relevant to NNL's argument - the reproductive power of the organ - does not inhere in this particular organ. It is not reproductive in the sense of power or potential, even if it is a reproductive organ in the taxonomic sense.

It is mysterious why its being taxonomically a reproductive organ should have any moral significance. This is an interesting point. A seeming rite of passage, supporting gay marriage is the Nirvana of a free, nondiscriminatory republic. Some erroneously, I think try to compare the gay struggle for equal marriage rights to Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement. Same-sex marriage advocates falsely assume that making a distinction between heterosexual couples and homosexual couples is discriminatory, and the only way to solve this is to redefine marriage.

But, is marriage anything we proclaim it to be or is there a reason why societies for millennia have chosen to regulate marriage law based on the traditional marriage definition? There is a reason, and it has everything to do with bearing and raising children who will become leaders in the coming generation. If the state declares present marriage laws to be discriminatory against romantic unions of any kind, the logical outcome will be one that is neither philosophically defensible nor good for society.

Using the same-sex marriage advocates' logic, what will the state say to those desiring to enter into polygynous romantic unions one husband, many wives or polyandrous romantic unions one wife, many husbands? To deny them marriage rights would make the state discriminatory. What about polyamorous romantic unions group marriage? What if a brother is romantically drawn toward his sister? By the new marriage definition marriage is a romantic relationship between people the state would be guilty of discrimination if it held to present laws against incestuous unions.

I believe that making a distinction between heterosexual couples and homosexual couples is neither hateful nor discriminatory.