Things to think about Thursday #2

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An article by Robert P. George of Princeton from Public Discourse via the CERC newsletter titled The Struggle over Marriage.

PD: What is the struggle over the legal recognition of same-sex unions a struggle about? Is it about legal benefits? Or is it about something else?

George: It's about sex. Those seeking to redefine marriage began by insisting that what they were fundamentally interested in was gaining needed benefits for same-sex domestic partners. Legal recognition of same-sex partnerships was necessary, they said, so that partners could visit each other in hospitals, extend employer-provided health insurance and other benefits to each other, and so forth. Some people who said this were, I'm sure, being sincere. Most, however, were not telling the truth. Their goal was to win official approbation for sodomy and other forms of sexual conduct that historically have been condemned as immoral and discouraged or even banned as a matter of law and public policy. The clear evidence for this is the refusal of most same-sex "marriage" activists to accept civil unions and domestic partnership programs under which the benefits of marriage are extended, but which do not use the label "marriage" or (and this is very important) predicate these benefits on the existence or presumption of a sexual relationship between the partners. So, it is not really about benefits. It is about sex. The idea that is antithetical to those who are seeking to redefine marriage is that there is something uniquely good and morally upright about the chaste sexual union of husband and wife -- something that is absent in sodomitical acts and in other forms sexual behavior that have been traditionally -- and in my view correctly -- regarded as intrinsically non-marital and, as such, immoral.

It really isn't about benefits, is it?

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This page contains a single entry by MamaT published on July 16, 2009 8:22 AM.

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