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The Argument Against Homosexual Marriage - Part
3
The Moral Argument
In the last couple of issues, we've been reviewing some
objections to the concept of homosexual marriage. We've reviewed how
marriage is the basis for cultural survival and that it is necessary
to be a union of male and female for that survival. This
understanding is universal across all cultures and across all times
in history. We also looked at how the term marriage cannot be
applied to homosexual unions. We then studied how many homosexuals
themselves really don't want marriage as it is currently understood
but would seek to change its concept and nature. Last, we looked at
the political argument against allowing homosexual marriages and how
that such unions are antithetical to the government's main role of
protecting and promoting the welfare of its citizenry. (To read
these articles or other past issues, log onto http://www.comereason.org/newsletters/)
In this issue, I want to highlight the most compelling reason
homosexual marriage cannot be allowed. Simply put, it would be
objectively wrong on moral grounds. No matter what laws are passed,
homosexual marriage cannot be considered morally good. The main
reason for this is because moral laws - what someone should do in
any given situation - can only be binding if they are prescribed by
an authority higher than the opinions of individual men. In other
words, morality can
Philosophers refer to the concept of man's purpose as his
teleology. What that concept entails is that human beings have a
nature and a purpose that is built into our very beings. The
founding fathers of the United States appealed to this idea when
they referred to concepts such as inalienable rights. The definition
of an immoral law is one that would take away or contradict the
natural purposes of man. (1)
However, man's biology can also demonstrate his purpose, his
teleology. Katherine Young and Paul Nathanson argue that marriage as
a union of male and female is built into our very biology - and
therefore cannot be legislated into something else. They write
"But discrimination to maintain marriage as it has long been
defined should be allowed in view of the fact that marriage, as a
universal institution and the essential cultural complement to
biology, is prior to all concepts of law." (2)
Basically, Young and Nathanson's logic says human beings have a
biological need to be coupled in heterosexual relationships. Our
culture meets that need through marriage. In a similar way, human
beings have a biological need to be communal, and we meet that need
culturally by forming communities, cities, states and nations.
Because heterosexual unions are built into nature, cultures have a
mandate to protect and strengthen the male-female concept of
marriage. To do otherwise would violate man's purpose and would be
wrong.
Francis Beckwith argues similarly when he writes, "the
argument against same-sex marriage is based on the nature of human
persons as gendered beings who have a purpose that is derived from
that nature. That is to say, male-gendered human persons are meant
for coupling with female-gendered human persons, even if their
coupling does not result in procreation. This argument is not based
on a human person's current function, ability, or desire, each of
which could be inconsistent with how human persons ought to be by
nature. For example, a person who is blind is lacking something
physically, though he or she is still a human person who by nature
ought to be seeing. In the same way, a sterile, aged, or willingly
childless person is still a gendered human person whose purpose for
marital union (if he or she does not have the gift of celibacy) can
be consummated only by one-flesh communion with someone of the
opposite gender. This remains true even if he or she has desires
that are contrary to what he or she ought to desire by nature."
(3)
We can infer from our physical makeup (the fact that we are male
and female) the need to reproduce which can only occur with a union
of a man and a woman, as well as our specific nature to be
heterosexual that humans were created to be heterosexual and not
homosexual. As Dr. Beckwith states, the fact that specific
individuals are not able or are unwilling to reproduce does not mean
that it is not the purpose of human beings to form heterosexual
partnerships and reproduce any more than the fact that although some
individuals are isolationists, human beings are communal beings by
nature.
Even though natural law can be persuasive, as a Christian I would
argue even further. As I stated, in order for morality to exist it
must stem from a higher authority than man. And since morality deals
with the purpose of man, we must examine why humanity was created to
begin with. That forces us to look to a Creator to gauge whether our
actions are moral. In other words, if morality exists at all, then
it stems from the Creator of man. It must come from God. If morality
has its basis in no one higher than humanity, it isn't true morality
at all. (4)
Many people will stop here and say they don't hold to a creator.
They say that morality evolved as a social construct. But this
cannot be so. If morality is just a arbitrary social convention with
no objective basis, then two people can hold diametrically opposed
viewpoints and claim they are both moral. It makes no sense to say
since some believe homosexual marriage is right and some believe it
is wrong that it is therefore both right and wrong at the same time.
That is logically contradictory.
So, if morality stems from God, whatever God says about
homosexual marriage defines its specific moral value. If God says
homosexual relationships are wrong, then they are objectively,
morally wrong. If you believe that homosexual marriage is not
morally wrong, you are only left with two options, neither of which
is tenable. You must either deny the existence of morality
altogether or deny that God did not purpose man to form heterosexual
partnerships. Since denying morality altogether strikes most people
as implausible intuitively (no one really believes that something
like killing babies for fun has no moral value), most proponents of
same-sex marriage have opted to argue the second premise. But to
argue this they have to say that humanity was not made for man-woman
relationships, which is again preposterous.
We have looked at the question of homosexual marriage from five
different aspects and in each case we have shown how promoting such
a state flies in the face of good reason. Understanding that since
many people involved in this debate would reject Biblical mandates,
I've tried to highlight each of these points without appealing to
any specific religious appeal, but to the more generally accepted
ideas of health, behavior and the welfare of our society. I hope
that you will not only find this information informative, but useful
in some capacity in your own discussions with family and peers.
What do you think? Can we show homosexual unions to be immoral on
any objective basis? Write us at newsletters@comereason.org.
Until next month, God bless.
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