The Inexorable Marriage Slide

Personal repugnance for a particular act does not necessarily translate to legal opposition to that act. Many who would never engage in homosexual acts strongly support homosexual marriage. Many politicians claim to be “personally opposed” to abortion even as they fight to keep abortion legal.

And there are some who are not afraid to take the permissive view of sexuality and marriage to its logical conclusion. Noah Michelson gave a remarkably detailed and frank exposition of the permissive view of sexuality in a column on the Huffington Post:

“I want us to be pushing for queer liberation, which, to me, has always meant that when it comes to sex and love, we all get to do whatever we want with whomever we want as long as we’re not hurting anyone (unless, of course, that person/those people are asking for us to hurt them).

If monogamy works for you, more power to you. If you and your girlfriend want to sleep with other people on occasion (or invite someone home with you at the end of the night), do it. If three men want to live as a throuple, let them live as a throuple. If a husband and wife want to take separate vacations and sleep around while they’re apart, who is anyone else to say that that’s unsavory?

I’m not saying that everyone is — or should be — throwing key parties or hunting for a plot of land to start a sex-based commune with 40 of their closest friends. I’m saying it’s time to start breaking down our antiquated ideas about romance and relationships, many of which are largely based on ideas of control and fear, and start talking openly and honestly about what really works best for each of us.”

Michelson isn’t alone. Hollywood director Nick Cassavetes argued much less elegantly, but in the same vein: “I’m not saying this is an absolute but in a way, if you’re not having kids – who gives a damn? Love who you want. Isn’t that what we say? Gay marriage – love who you want? If it’s your brother or sister it’s super weird, but if you look at it, you’re not hurting anybody, except every single person who freaks out because you’re in love with one another.

But few are as logically consistent as Michelson or Cassavetes. Many Americans accept contraception yet reject gay marriage, or accept gay marriage but refuse to acknowledge consenting incestuous couples as legitimate candidates for marriage. They understand that homosexual marriage and incest are clearly wrong, but accept the logic of the permissive worldview that marriage, reproduction, and sexuality can be separated from one another.

Marriage advocates often speak in vague platitudes about how the Bible forbids marriage or that allowing gay couples to marry will destroy the sanctity of marriage. And although they are completely correct, they are unsurprisingly unable to effectively defend true marriage by using that line of argument.

Platitudes about the “sanctity of marriage” or “traditional marriage” are worse than useless in a world that celebrates pleasure and “progress” – especially considering the penchant of many “family values” politicians and “good Christians” to fail to uphold Christian ideals in their own married lives. Marriage advocates who have already accepted the premise that reproduction is not a major purpose of intercourse by accepting contraception naturally find that their arguments against gay marriage are unpersuasive.

Slowly but surely, young people are being persuaded of the permissive view of marriage through the ethic of “tolerance” promoted by the public education system, the lifestyles promoted by entertainment industry, and growing awareness of the logical inconsistency of their parents’ position. In modern America, sexual intercourse is being reduced to a biological itch to be scratched by any consenting adults, and marriage is becoming merely the legitimization of the relationship of any number of consenting partners who wish to cement their bond.

And the “taboos” inevitably fall from generation to generation. In America, contraception became popular in the 1960s; abortion became legal in all 50 states in 1973. Now gay marriage is on the verge of full legalization in America. What domino will fall next? The inexorable slide towards the permissive view of marriage will continue, if the logical inconsistency of marriage advocates concerning the nature of sexuality continues.

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Paul Wilson is a M.A. Candidate at the Catholic University of America. He is the founder and editor of Gray Matters, and is a regular contributor to The Subsidiarity Times and LibertyBlog.org. You can contact him at [email protected], and follow him on Twitter at @PaulWilson34.

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