A bit on marriage basics

What is essential to marriage? It is essential to marriage that the couple, by being the kind of couple it is, is ordered towards having children. That is the basic essence of marriage.

A couple that consists of a man and a woman, by being the kind of couple that it is, is ordered towards having children. This is true even is this particular couple, consisting of this man and this woman, is not capable of having children due to age or infertility. It is even true if this man and this woman use contraception to prevent themselves from having children. The universal, i.e. being this type of couple, is essential. The particular, i.e. being this particular couple, is accidental.

A couple that consists of two men or two women is not ordered towards having children. This is true by virtue of being the kind of couples they are. Neither two men nor two women are capable of making a baby. This is not due to being this particular couple, but to being this type of couple. It is not accidental, it is essential. As such, neither two men nor two women are capable of marriage.

I hope that clears it up for everyone who tries to argue for same sex "marriage" by arguing that we do not make heterosexual couples prove they will not use contraception before the government considers them married. Such arguments are fallacious. They are examples of the fallacy of the accident.

Contra a poor argument

This is essentially a comment I posted in response to a comment on this post over at the Touchstone Magazine blog, Mere Comments.

I was responding to an argument which stated that any kind of natural law argument against homosexual "marriage" is bound to fail, since people who make such arguments do not refuse to acknowledge marriages between couples who are infertile due to certain medical conditions or to age.

I responded as such:

[This argument is] False.

The definition of marriage does not include the essence of each particular conjugal act, but rather the essence of the conjugal act in view of the marital union as a whole. The union between a man and a woman is essentially fertile. That some particular privation may render some particular conjugal acts infertile does not change this any more than the roof of my house changes the essence of the helium in a balloon simply because it gets in the way of the helium finding its natural level.

Homosexual acts are essentially infertile rather than being rendered infertile by some privation. It is impossible for two men or two women to produce children. Homosexual acts are different in kind from the conjugal act, and thus homosexual unions are different in kind from the marital union. That the law should recognize this is a matter of justice, since justice involves treating similar things similarly and different things differently.

And now they call it "marriage"

California's top court overturns gay marriage ban, Lisa Leff, Associated Press Writer.

A quote from the majority decision written by Chief Justice Ron George:

Our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation...

What this means, in effect, is that the state of California now recognizes error as truth and the law of the land.

To begin with, one's ability "to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person" is indeed dependent upon "sexual orientation," if by "a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person" one means a relationship with a sexual aspect. This is because to love someone is to will their good for their own sake. If you are willing to enter into some type of sexual congress with a member of the same sex, then you also will that they enter into sexual congress with you. But such an act is contrary to the nature of the sexual act, since the sexual act is by nature ordered towards procreation and sexual acts between two persons of the same sex are, in their essence, not ordered towards procreation. Thus these sexual acts are evil. And following from that, if you will another to enter into such an act with you, then you are willing them evil. Thus, insofar as you are willing to enter into some warped form of sexual congress with another member of the same sex, you are not loving them. This is necessarily true.

Second, one's ability "to care for and raise children" is also dependent on "sexual orientation," at least insofar as we are talking about the people caring for and raising children being in a sexual relationship with one another. This is because the caring for and raising of children includes not only their material needs, but also their moral and spiritual needs. The very existence of a same-sex sexual relationship between those in charge of the caring for and raising of children presents a moral and spiritual danger to said children. This is because such a relationship teaches children that acts and inclinations that are objectively disordered are instead rightly ordered. The very existence of a same-sex sexual relationship between those charged with the raising of children is a moral and spiritual poison that will lead the children to believe that a lie is the truth and that an evil is a good. Which, I suppose, is par for the course in the modern world.