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In a recent reflection concerning Professor Stephen J Heaney’s analysis of the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples, I suggested that any proper list of the characteristics of marriage—even a strictly secular list—must include that marriage is a commitment and that it is a procreative union. Today, I would like to focus a bit more on why, specifically, marriage is and must be procreative—at least as far as the concerns of the greater community (and thus the government) are concerned. I may attempt in a future article to discuss this issue from the perspective of the law as it bears on individual rights and liberties, but I will consider that to be beyond the scope of today’s article.
Traditional marriage proponents argue time and again that marriage must be between one man and one woman because only such a relationship is naturally procreative. What I mean by “naturally procreative” is that a child may be conceived naturally in the course of sexual relations between a man and a woman, but not between the relations of two men nor two women. To be fair, the wonders of artificial insemination now mean that a woman can conceive without intercourse with a man, and recent technological breakthroughs allow for one woman’s bone marrow cells to be “reprogrammed” to fertilize the eggs of another woman (thus apparently rendering men obsolete), but this is discussion for another post*. Suffice it to say that the sexual relations between two men will or two women will never result in the conception of a new life, but the sexual relations between a man and a woman will, or at the very least have a potential to do so without needing any extrinsic aide**.
This last statement is a fact. We know that women do not naturally become spontaneously pregnant absent the participation of a man, or at the very least absent additional human agency. This is so much the case that the only recorded instance of this occurring is considered either miraculous (by those of us who believe in miracles) or a myth--something which didn’t actually take place as recorded--by those whose worldview does not allow for the miraculous. Having established this as fact, though, there is a second question which must be addressed: why does this have any bearing whatsoever on what the definition (and thus, valid legal recognition) of marriage? In other words, having noted that the natural ability to procreate does make an ontological difference, does that necessarily mean that there should still be a legal difference?
I answer that it does. The government makes laws when the state (or the community) has a vested interest in some activity or association. I posit this as a statement of how a government ought to act in making laws, not as a statement of how the government actually does operate. There are all manner of ends to which a law may be ordered--promotion of equality amongst the populace, preservation of the state and community and culture, ordered freedom--but in the end a government makes laws based on the needs of the people and the interests of the state. A proper balance ought to be struck between the two--though this is often not actually achieved and is sometimes not even attempted--but any legitimate use of government authority through the enactment and enforcement of a law should serve at least one of these two ends.
Now let us turn to marriage and ask if and when the latter of these conditions might be met (I shall save the former for another day). When does the state (or the community) have a vested interest in marriage? I answer that there are generally at least two such interests: the first is a matter of public morality (of interest especially to the community) and the second is of the ability to procreate (of interest to both the state and the community). To the end involving public morality, the primary concerns are in reducing the prevalence of adultery and fornication (across the board I all relationships), and also as pertaining to the morality of any given relationship (e.g. are same-sex relationships moral? What about relationships between blood relations? Between species?), but this is primarily a topic for another day.
To the end of procreation, the state and the community have a vested interest only when procreation is naturally (or inherently) a possibility: which is to say, only in a relationship between a man and a woman. Any other form of procreation--adoption, artificial insemination or implantation, artificially inducing a woman’s cells to acts as sperm to be used in fertilizing another woman’s cells--involve additional human agency beyond the marital act itself, and thus are questions which must be settled prior to the state and community having any interest in relationships beyond these types. Should the state decide against all of these artificial forms of procreation, then neither state nor community would have any vested interest in recognizing these relationships***, and thus the question falls entirely on whether or not there is an interest pertaining to ordered liberty.
Assuming, however, that the state does decide that any of these forms of procreation are licit for same-sex couples, this still does not establish that the state (and community) has a vested interest in all such same-sex unions. The reason is this: in a union between a man and a woman, there is, as far as the state is concerned, always the inherent possibility of natural procreation. This is true even if the couple is sterile, if only because the state does not necessarily know whether or not the couple is sterile. In the case of any other union, it is obvious that the couple is naturally sterile, and so the state may exercise more direct control over their ability to procreate: by denying them the license to adopt, by making artificial insemination (or implantation) illegal, etc. In other words, while the state has little if an control over the reproductive capability of a heterosexual couple, it has virtually unlimited control over the ability of a homosexual couple to “reproduce.” Therefore, there is a interest, on the part of the state and/or community, in the marriage of a heterosexual couple, but not on the part of a homosexual couple. The state and community therefore has a need to grant approval to heterosexual unions (in the form of a marriage license) which is not present in the case of a homosexual couple. Therefore, the pursuit of homosexual marriage from the perspective of the state and community is frivolous as pertaining to the major interest that these have in such relationships: procreation, which is the addition of new members to the state and the community.
Therefore, the state itself does not have any particular interest in recognizing relationships between samesex couples. It does, however, have such an interest in recognizing the relationships between opposite-sex couples. Hence, the state has no reason to redefine marriage. This means that any such redefinition must hinge on either the community's interest in promoting public morality--a case which has not been made (not really widely attempted) by proponents of the redefinition of marriage--or to serve some other need of the people. This latter point is the focus of much of the rhetoric of those who support redefining marriage ("It's my right!"). The problem with such a position is that its first premise is an assumption which has not yet been established, namely that any two adults have the right to marry, in this case regardless of sex. This assumption, however, is not born out by actual experience, as there may be any number of reasons to deny a marriage license to two people, even if said couple is heterosexual. The demands of an ordered liberty require that some restrictions be placed on who can and cannot marry. One of those restrictions, ultimately, is that the traditional concept of marriage as a union between one man and one woman must be maintained.
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*It should be noted that the reverse is also true, that scientists believe that male iPS cells may be reprogrammed to become either eggs or sperm, and that this is actually perhaps the more like scenario. See, for example, this article in Science Progress from a few years ago which suggests that because a man’s cells naturally have both X and Y chromosomes, they “naturally” lend themselves to be reprogrammed to become either egg or sperm cells. Interestingly enough, most of these articles which discuss reprogramming cells to become egg or sperm cells begin by stating that this will be a boon to the infertility industry’s quest to “help” infertile couples but then continue by specifically noting that these new breakthroughs may be of particular interest to same-sex couples.
There are a great many additional articles revolving around this field, but I will pick just three, here is one from Bio News chronicling the early successes of a team of scientists who have reprogrammed pluripotent stem cells taken from mouse embryos, and have used them as sperm to fertilize mouse eggs. They are awaiting the birth of these mouse pups to declare final success or temporary failure on this experiment. Then there is the article published by Nature in its news and reviews section which mentions some of the early experiments in this field. Finally, there is the article in Science Daily News about a team from UCLA who is attempting to reprogram human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) to act as egg and sperm cells.
**From a religious standpoint, God is an “external” aide to such a process, but God acts of His own will in this matter. However, the necessity of God for a new life’s creation is not exactly in the same ontological category as say, the necessity for the technological manipulation of one woman’s sexual cells to induce them to become a sperm with another woman may be inseminated, or even of the use of a man’s sperm to artificially inseminate a woman, since both of these acts require additional human agency, whereas the action or inaction of God in the creation of a life during the relations between a man and a woman (or, for that matter, in any of the artificial means of conception, listed or otherwise) does not rely on additional human agency.
***There is still the question of whether they should be allowed as a matter of promotion of public morality. This is actually the reason why many of the homosexualists who support redefining marriage to include same sex couples have taken the position which they have. However, in order to show that marriage must include same-sex unions as a matter of public morality, there are some criteria which must be--and have not yet been--met. First, it must be shown that same-sex marriages are actually moral relationships; that is to say, it must be shown that they are good (and not merely “not bad”) for the community. This has not been successfully demonstrated or proven. It also opens the door to allowing morality into the discussion, which inevitably means that much of the debate will be informed by people’s religious convictions: one morality will ultimately be forced onto the population, whether it be the homosexualist’s or the traditional Judeo-Christian or Islamic morality. When this is done, it leaves no room for the complaint, so prevalently leveled by same-sex “marriage” proponents, that religion ought to be left out of the debate, and that one side is forcing their morality on the other. The proper response to this complaint is “tu quoque.”
Second, those who wish to take the “public morality” route must show that this really is a matter of public--and not merely private--morality. However, they have long used the mantra that the government “does not belong in the bedroom,” so this would entail a sudden reversal on their part. Third, they must also show that redefining marriage to include same-sex couples will actually promote or otherwise reinforce this morality.
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