Well, I'm not even sure that's necessarily the case, but that's hardly a problem.
It quite clearly is the case. If marriage just is the metaphysically comprehensive union between a man and a woman that is ordered towards procreation, and that this union's public purpose is to attach children to their mothers and fathers, then the so-called "case" for ssm is rendered false, revealed to be based on a grave misunderstanding and nothing more. It would make no more sense, in this case, for supporters of ssm to declare that we're treating homosexuals and others "unjustly" by "denying them marriage" than it would make sense for men to declare that they are being treated "unjustly" by not being allowed to join a women's debate club, or enter women's restrooms.
Or when was it that the Supreme Council of Everything dictated that marriages must be "ordered towards procreation" and that any relationship that is not so ordered cannot/should not be considered marriage? Or was this something in the Bible that I missed?
What leads us to see that marriage is the comprehensive union between a man and a woman that is ordered towards procreation isn't some "Supreme Council of Everything" as you suggest but rather something much more mundane: namely, reason. The state regulates marriage because it has an interest in children. Marriage produces and cultivates the development of future citizens within a family unit held together by norms of fidelity, monogamy, exclusivity, and permanence. The flourishing of children is directly connected with the public good. The state incentivizes marriage both because it recognizes child-rearing to be a difficult task and because it wants to encourage men and women to form family units. Now, obviously, supporters of ssm disagree that this is what marriage is (for if they agreed, they wouldn't be supporters of ssm in the first place!). So what do supporters of ssm think that marriage is? Here is one popular answer:
Marriage is the lifelong union of two persons who love each other. Marriage functions as a way of publicly acknowledging ones love and commitment for their spouse. Because same-sex couples are capable of loving in the same way as everyone else, the law ought to make provisions for recognizing their unions as legal marriages.
Now, I dont have anything against love. Love is essential for a marriage to flourish in the way that it should, but love alone cannot be sufficient for legal recognition. For one, not every loving relationship is afforded legal recognition. There are many different kinds of valuable social relationships that are simply not relevant to the public good in the way that marriage is. Companionships, for example, involve love, but nobody is calling for the government to legally recognize friendships. Love certainly
motivates a couple to enter into marriage, but it is mistaken to think that marriage is
essentially about love.
Key to a particular type of relationship being subject to legal recognition is its serving a
public purpose. Social institutions are afforded legal recognition in virtue of their serving some good to society-at-large, not because those involved may happen to love each other. There must be something
intrinsic to a certain kind of relationship that bears on the common good for there to be a legitimate state interest in regulating it. Now what public purpose would legally recognizing a loving relationship serve? Love is an essentially private matter that involves only those people in a relationship. The state has no business poking around in this domain of life, since the state exists to regulate public goods and institutions. Some bring up the various benefits and incentives already associated with marriage as a reason to legalize same-sex relationships. According to this argument, same-sex unions should be afforded legal recognition in order to take advantage of the benefits that opposite-sex couples currently enjoy. But this is clearly question-begging. Why should
anyone deserve these benefits to begin with? It cannot be because they love each other, since thats the very issue at stake.
Some libertarians have used this rationale to argue that the state should not be involved in marriage at all. If the position described in the preceding paragraphs captures what marriage amounts to, they have a point. But in fact many of us have the intuition that marriage is something special, something that the state should involve itself in. The question then becomes:
Why? Whats so special about marriage that could justify this? And the only reasonable answer to that question is because marriage has to do with the union of man and a woman and their children.
That would work. I see no reason to prefer "attaching children to parents" and "procreation" as being priviledged functions of marriages. Marriages do alot of things, and serve alot of purposes- who is to say which one is right, or the most legitimate?
Do you see how you have conceded the point I made above (and, no doubt, before)? You realize that if marriage is the comprehensive union between . . . then ssm is just nothing more than a grave misunderstanding -- a sort of 2+2 = 5. But if marriage is just is "people in loving commitments," then one could say the very things I said above (namely, that this serves no public purpose whatsoever, etc.). You're right to see that marriage exists for various purposes and that individuals may choose to marry for a multitude of
private reasons, but what matters to the state is the
public purpose of marriage.
Yeah, nice try. I'm fairly familiar with Thomism in particular and Christian theology in general, as the philosophy of religion is my field of expertise. The Summa was one of my favorite works during college, despite the fact that virtually all of it is mistaken. I mean seriously, Thomism? Lol. A bunch of nonsensical epistemology and Christian orthodoxy tacked onto the illegitimate lovechild of Neo-Platonism and Aristotelian metaphysics- and you want to talk (elsewhere) about views have long been dead in philosophy? You, sir, are a master of irony.
Better than naturalism, I say.
If you've been paying attention you'd realize that I have presented arguments against ssm that anyone could defend, be he an atheist, or a homosexual, etc. After all, I'm not reasoning
P1. God exists.
P2. The Bible.
P3. Jesus.
C: Therefore, ssm shouldn't be accepted.
If I were to have a sort of anti-epiphany and become an atheist, my opposition to ssm wouldn't falter whatsoever. All one needs to oppose ssm is an understanding of public institutions and some common sense. Unfortunately, common sense ain't so common nowadays as can be attested to by the entire ssm moment.
True. One could simply be a homophobe. Appeals to religious ethics are the only way for opposition to homosexuality to even make a pretense of being rational. Homophobia is not rational.
Bare assertion. Never mind the fact that most people take "homophobia" to question-beggingly mean "opposition to ssm." Again, have you ever heard of virtue ethics? There's more out there than just ************** consequentialism, you know? And even then homosexual behavior and ssm fall on the very same consequential sword the seek to yield.
Just in another thread you hinted at embracing determinism.
Given that this whole bit about claiming that the primary/sole/most important function of marriage is to "attach mothers and fathers to their children" is an ad hoc stipulation to prop up your argument against SSM, its ironic that you should complain about anyone redefining marriage.
Be as careful with your words as I was with mine: I said that the
public purpose of marriage is to attach mothers and fathers to their children and to one another. Again, there are other subsidiary purposes marriage involves and even then
private purposes of individuals who seek to marry. But the reason it is regulated by the state is precisely because it serves a compelling public purpose whereas writing down that "Bob currently, like, really likes Fred" is of no interest to the state.
Ok, and the correlation with SSM?
Just as we shouldn't promote divorce (though, to be sure, the state
does vis-a-vis no-fault-divorce, the state shouldn't be in the business of promoting fatherless and motherless homes in which to place children.
I imagine children do best when raised by billionaire parents with private tutors and a dedicated medical staff to attend to their every need. In other words, this doesn't really tell us anything relevant.
This tells us a great deal.
Consider: you dont determine public policy based on the exception or extreme case. For example, there might be some instances when its justified to run a red light like rushing a dying person to the emergency room but that doesnt mean we should make running red lights legal. Thats bad public policy. Good public policy is one that promotes the ideal. Given mountains of empirical evidence to sustenance our already obvious common-sense intuitions on the matter, we know (indeed, again, it is quite obvious) that, all things being equal, children do best when when raised by their own mother and father. The law should enshrine that by seeking to
attach children to their mothers and fathers instead of
institutionally and
intentionally detaching them from their mothers and fathers vis-a-vis ssm. What type of public policy is one that promote the raising of children in fatherless and motherless households? A really dumb one, I say.