Gay marriage - it’s all about the child

Homosexual relations do not give rise to children, so such relations are of no institutional importance to society. The institution of marriage exists only to buttress the biological pair-bonding of man and woman, binding them to each other and to the long task of nurturing the human child. Certainly, some married couples will not have children, just as some trees in an orchard will not bear fruit - but the cultural purpose of the institution, as with the orchard, is clear.

How anthropologically ignorant and inadequate, then, are today’s assertions that marriage is about any two adults with an “emotional commitment”, unrelated to mammalian biology and raising young. So the eloquent homosexual advocate, Andrew Sullivan, writes that the essence of marriage “is not breeding” but instead “a unique and profound friendship”. The Economist editorialises that “the real nature of marriage” is a commitment “between two people to take on special obligations to one another.” A Washington superior court judge in 2004, ruling on same-sex marriage, could only offer this limp definition: “To ‘marry’ means to join together in a close and permanent way”; that marriage is “a close personal commitment” which is “intended to be permanent” and which is “spiritually significant”.

This Oprah-esque waffle might apply to many adult relationships, but it says nothing distinctive about nature’s vocation of marriage-and-children. As Blankenhorn comments:

I have a number of profound friendships and some intense personal commitments, all of which seem to me to be emotional enterprises. I am involved in a number of mutually supportive relationships, many of which, I am sure, enhance social stability. But none of this information tells you to whom I am married or why.

Marriage is not a sentimental social construct, some sort of right to a romantic ceremony, but a social reinforcement of a timeless biological reality. The biological triple-bond of man and woman and child is nature’s foundation for human life - as with other mammals - not a social fad to be cut to shape according to political whim. It is beyond the power of any parliament to repeal nature and equate same-sex relationships with the inherently male-female project of family formation.

Yet inner-city Greens are so out of touch with nature that they think abolishing a mother will be of no consequence to the emotional development of the human cub. They are wrong, and any such legislation - including laws permitting gay adoption and surrogacy - is moral vandalism. Such laws deny a child his most elemental right and deepest need: to know the love of both a mother and a father.

Opposition to gay marriage is all about the child, and no parliament has the right to impose a motherless life on a little child.