A Christian Perspective on Gay Marriage

Let me say it upfront. I don't mean this to be a condemnation of gay people. But I do intend to clarify why the issue of gay marriage matters so much to Christians.

1. Our philosophical commitments constrain us to defend metaphysical realism (the view that there is such a thing as objective reality). As such, we deny the postmodern tendency to "redefine marriage," as if anyone could make it whatever he wants it to be. Our conviction in the Christian community is that marriage was instituted by God at the creation of the first man and woman, and is meant to be the foundation of society, the basis of instruction concerning the sexes and the ideal place to forge unity between the sexes. God also made us so that our love making is life producing when it is between a man and woman. We believe that God designed us for that marvelous and mystical experience when the union of two produces new life. And of course God did not let humanity think this could be done without guiding principles. The principles God provided safeguard the dignity of his image-bearers and establish that his people are not to be merely used for sexual gratification.

But even if you deny this view of reality and adopt a wholly naturalistic view of human sexual origins, then you must acknowledge that the "will of evolution" is that we join in male and female pairings in order to secure our evolutionary future.

The interesting thing on this matter of sorting out a definition of marriage is that the gay marriage proponent doesn't really offer a definition of marriage. He merely demands that homosexuals be included (presumably his definition would be something to the effect of "any two people gathered for the purpose of committed monogamy, etc."), but why should that be the definition that reigns? Surely Muslims and Fundamentalist Mormons would want for polygamy to gain a hearing, that is if we are merely "defining marriage" according to cultural norms. And many would want to add, "for the purpose of lifelong fidelity." I wonder how many gay couples would be comfortable with such an addendum? Perhaps along with legalizing gay marriage we should also tighten divorce laws. Would we find wide support for such a move?

I suppose what we have now is a liberalizing tendency with respect to marriage along with free and open access to divorce. It makes one wonder if lawyers are doing this to us. Perhaps what our culture is after is a cheapening of the definition of marriage to an equivalent of "recurrent dating." And for the record, I don't oppose a gay couples right to recurrent dating, but I do oppose equating recurrent dating with marriage.

The question simply remains, are we swapping out one arbitrary definition of marriage for another arbitrary definition, or are we approximating the truth of what marriage is? And who is to be the judge of this?

It is odd to hear so many vilify the Christian for his power politics, and then promise to impose his view once he gathers enough political power.

2. We believe homosexuality is unnatural.

The Christian view is simply that God created Adam and Eve for a physical and spiritual submersion into one another, a unity that produces other beings out of the abundance of the love shared. This can never be experienced by a gay couple, unless they presume upon God's heterosexual design and co-opt it for their own use through adoption, surrogacy, in-vitro fertilization, etc. But even in such circumstances, the child produced by a gay couple will not be a reflection of their unity, but of some other unity. In that sense, homosexuals desiring children in marriage must initially require the participation of others in creating new life while infertile couples desiring children only require the participation of others accidentally (that is, in those rare cases where it is required).

Surely eliminating God from the equation complicates the problem. If God does not exist, then one would be forced into acknowledging that nature did not build us to survive, in the evolutionary sense, homosexually. If the human population was reduced to two people of the same sex, then the politics of the question would be irrelevant. The fact is that this would be an extinction event. Homosexuality would sterilize the human species in such a state of affairs. So how is it outrageous to conclude that homosexuality is unnatural, even in a purely evolutionary sense? (I have much more to say on this in my blog series titled "An Evolutionary Argument Against Homosexuality.")

3. We believe homosexuality is an act of violence against design, and thus deprives gay people of the riches of God's creation.

If it is true that either God made us for heterosexuality or nature did, then surely to act contrary to God or nature is to strive against design. Clearly to strive against design is unproductive, to say the least. What kind of love is it that allows another human being to do violence against his nature? Is it loving to make it more efficient for a loved friend to destroy himself through drugs? Is it loving to pretend the rage of a friend is merely his nature? Are we to let our bulimic teens do what they will because they are in process and it makes them happy now?

As odd as it sounds to the opposition, the reason we oppose gay marriage is because we love them.

4. We believe that loving heterosexual marriages have deep unitive significance.

I saw a debate once on this topic. One gentleman asked a simple question: If two couples, a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple, wanted to adopt a child, would there be any reason to prefer the one over the other? It was fascinating!

The gay marriage proponents of course had to suggest that there is no essential difference between the two couples, and thus no reason to prefer the one over the other.

The advocates of heterosexual marriage thought that male/female marriage had, as Francis Beckwith puts it, "unitive significance" as the foundation of society. This is an impressive phrase, but lets think about it for a moment. What does it mean? Why would one prefer a man/woman, mother/father set of parents as an ideal? Perhaps one would gain a clearer understanding of male and female relations in such a home. Perhaps one would gain a clearer understanding of gender roles and identity in such a home. Perhaps one would even gain a greater appreciation for both sexes in such a home. And finally, perhaps one would find the qualitative unity required to carry on rich and abiding relationships through the bearing and nurture of children in such a home.

Now one could counter all this by saying that maleness and femaleness are outdated concepts cherished in patriarchal texts like the Bible and the Koran. Sexuality is what we make it. Families are what we make them. We choose to be male or female. And thus sexuality is wholly egalitarian, and assigned by the choices of parents and children as children grow up. There is no such thing as objective "maleness" and objective "femaleness." But people who advocate this are not often aware of the necessary logical reduction of such an idea. It is known as nominalism. Essentially, nominalism would require that we esteem ourselves as nothing more than a collection of properties, or abilities, or attributes. If maleness is only a certain set of attributes, then we can manipulate women and make them into men. But of course this is a quagmire, for obvious reasons. What if there comes a day when we believe that there is no such thing as sexual designation at all, because, after all, that was an outdated idea of the past, when distinctions of sexuality were needed and therefore "named?" What if there comes a day when Huxley's vision comes true, and we can merely create babies to be what we need them to be, and everyone belongs to everyone else, a truly inclusive egalitarian vision? The next simple step is that if maleness and femaleness are merely defined realities, then surely so is the notion of "humanity." If humanity is merely a collection of agreed upon "properties" or "abilities," then perhaps we can define certain people as less than human. Why is it that people cannot see that all of this is logically related?

I would also note that many gay couples curiously want to expose their kids to role models of the opposite sex, presumably because of the deficiency in that respect in their home. Often gay couples sound quite inclusive, suggesting that they don't want to pre-program their kids into being either straight or gay, and they also don't want to deprive their kids of an understanding of the gender that is not represented in the home. But of course, in a nominalistic program, why pre-program them into being either male or female, intelligent or passionate, religious or irreligious, patriotic or unpatriotic? One would need to raise a child in a state of pristine neutrality in order to allow him true nominalistic freedom to name his own identity (sexual, religious, national, intellectual). But does this not sound merely ridiculous, or at least impossible? Perhaps it is just the case that people have to make judgments about things and then pass those judgments down to their kids. Even the belief that children should be given nominalistic freedom is itself a judgment call, preferring one ethical ideal to another.

Response to common nonsense:

1. "Gay marriage doesn't hurt anyone." The implication here of course is that the unworthiness of an act can be determined by the level of hurt it inflicts. Perhaps this has become the only universal moral axiom of our day.

But it seems to me curious that we don't think about this argument. Essentially it runs like this:

Premise 1 - If homosexuality is wrong, then it must hurt someone.
Premise 2 - It doesn't hurt someone.
Conclusion: It's not wrong.

This is clearly a clean modus tollens argument, so that means if there is a problem, it exists in one of the premises.

To illustrate the problem with premise 1, let me try this premise. If polygamy is wrong, then it must hurt someone. It doesn't hurt someone. Therefore, it is not wrong. Perhaps there are many other examples we could provide of behavior that doesn't "hurt" someone, subjectively, but is nevertheless wrong, and thus such actions would have to be wrong on other grounds. And the inverse of this is true as well. Sometimes it is quite necessary to hurt someone in order to do them some good. I think of disciplining my children. It hurts them and it is still good. Surgery causes great hurt but is still a necessary act at times. Confining moral rightness or wrongness to the amount of "hurt" inflicted seems an odd modern development in ethical sentimentality.

And surely the person who is telling us not to hurt anyone is conflating "hurt" and "harm," a fallacy of equivocation. Not all hurt does harm to someone. So two conclusions can be drawn. One, homosexuality can be wrong even if it causes no hurt. And two, denying homosexuals the privilege of marriage may hurt them, but also may not harm them.

2. "Don't be homophobic and judgmental."

I have to say that the term "homophobic" needs to be clearly defined. It must make purist psychologists upset that we have so cheapened the notion of "irrational fears," which is what a phobia is. Perhaps we should be able to suggest that anyone who disagrees with us is phobic concerning us. Perhaps gays are just "Christophobic" (fearful of Christ and/or Christians). All of this name calling hides the simple fact that perhaps this is not a question of phobia in the slightest. Perhaps I just disagree with these people, and I have good reasons to disagree.

And as for the matter of judgmentalism, why not retort simply that it is not very open minded to judge those that judge. The fact is that the gay community makes judgments about the Christian community and vice versa. So let's all be grown ups and figure out whose judgments make the most sense rather than pretending that we aren't supposed to make judgments, which is itself a judgment.

3. "Christians are trying to control everything and are overly political."

Apparently everyone else can respond to the call of a democracy to vote their consciences except Christians, because there is supposed to be a "separation of Church and state." Okay, then why invite the votes of religious people? I've never understood this. The gay community can lobby, campaign, promote its agenda in school, pulpit, sitcom, etc, but Christians aren't supposed to vote their consciences.

Be assured that as long as this democracy invites the votes of Christians, they will, assuming they know the axioms of their faith, vote against gay marriage. They are not going to allow the prevailing cultural consensus to determine their ethical norms. This should not be shocking to anyone!

4. "If you don't like gay marriage, then don't marry a gay person."

How does this rhetoric at all bring any sense of rationality to this needed dialogue? Bumper sticker nonsense will not appeal to reasonable people. Why not say this, "If you don't like polygamy, necrophilia, incest or beastiality, then don't marry a bunch of women, a dead body, your sibling or an animal?"

Let's stop using oversimple slogans and admit that we are trying to advance a public truth, and we believe that the state should agree. And of course this will have implications for those that don't agree.