The argument over marriage and the poisoning of public discourse

There has been some discussion lately on this blog about the nature of marriage and who—the State? the Church? voters? Donald Trump?—decides what marriage is and who can be married. The most recent issue of First Things has a really excellent essay on the topic, "Religion, Reason, and Same-Sex Marriage" (May, 2011), by Matthew J. Franck, director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton. Here is the intro and another short except:

In the contemporary debate on the future of marriage, there appears to be, amid many uncertainties, one sure thing. Those who publicly defend traditional marriage can count on being denounced as haters, bigots, or irrational theocrats—and perhaps all of these at once. So I learned after publishing an article in the Washington Post last December titled "On Gay Marriage, Stop Playing the Hate Card." I was not making a full-fledged argument against same-sex marriage—only urging Post readers to reject the use of reckless charges of "hate" to shut down debate, and asking them to respect the defenders of marriage as people in possession of an argument. Sadly, many readers leapt to the challenge of confirming my thesis, writing e-mails or commenting online that I must indeed be a hating, bigoted, irrational theocrat.

Lying behind this poisoning of our public discourse is some notably flawed reasoning that it is worth our while to consider in some detail.

In briefly rehearsing well-known defenses of conjugal marriage that others have elaborated elsewhere, I noted in the Post that marriage "has always existed in order to bring men and women together so that children will have mothers and fathers" and that same-sex unions are "not an expansion but a dismantling of the institution." The response of some readers was not merely that I had not fully fleshed out this argument (which I could readily admit) but that such statements did not even bear the marks of rationality—that they were so obviously wrong that only those in the grip of unreasoning hatred or bigotry could put them forward.

Some of our high public officials, unfortunately, have encouraged this kind of flattening and coarsening of our public discussion. ...

And, further down:

It is of course the case that when religious people bring their beliefs about morality into the public square and attempt to enact them as law, it is fair to expect them to argue in terms that do not require others to share their faith commitment in order to grasp the reasons for their view. (Note that I say "to grasp the reasons," not "to accept the reasons." Nobody is going to concede the veto of obstinate opponents over their right even to make their argument.)

So while it is not surprising to hear religious people begin by saying, "The Bible tells us X"—and it is not illegitimate for them to speak in this way—they should be prepared to give reasons that others can grasp who do not share their view that the Bible is the authoritative source of morality or who read the Bible differently. This is a Christian-majority society, but, as Denver's Archbishop Charles Chaput said in March at Georgetown University, "We never have been and never will be a Christian confessional state." Indeed, there are so many varieties of Christianity in the United States that any effort to behave as though we were a confessional state would only incite intersectarian conflict.

But Christians have a common language for moral argument across their sectarian differences, a language distinct from Scripture though not wholly apart from its purposes, that is also a common language of all mankind, supplying points of reference accessible in principle to anyone. This is the language of natural law, which Thomas Aquinas said is that part of God's law for us that we can know on our own, by the use of our own reason (which He of course gave us), without any special aid of revelation, prophecy, or Scripture.

Even those who resist any notion that God gave us our reason, or that He is the source of law for us, will nonetheless admit (most of them, anyway) that we are rational creatures and that by using our reason we can distinguish justice from injustice. On that shared ground, all citizens can meet who have not made a prior commitment to the self-contradiction of relativism. But—and this is important—the religious participants in this shared deliberation on the just and the unjust are not required to stop talking about their faith or about how important it is to them. Many believers, after all, believe that their religious faith makes them better, more moral persons and better able to make useful contributions to the debates we inevitably have over public morality. Therefore our constitutional obligation to respect their freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of conscience means it would be an imposition of a secular orthodoxy on them to require that they "privatize" their faith commitments and keep them out of the public square.

Definitely worth reading and mentioning to others.

Related Ignatius Insight Articles and Book Excerpts:

• The Mystery of Marriage | Jorge Cardinal Medina Estévez | From Chapter One of "Male and Female He Created Them": On Marriage and the Family
• Marital and Family Commitment: A Personalist View | Monsignor Cormac Burke
• The Challenge of Marriage Preparation | Dr. Janet E. Smith
• Focus Groups and Marriage: A Match Made for Heartache | Mary Beth Bonacci
• Entering Marriage with Eyes Wide Open | Edward Peters
• Human Sexuality and the Catholic Church | Donald P. Asci | Introduction to The Conjugal Act as a Personal Act
• Who Is Married? | Edward Peters
• Marriage and the Family in Casti Connubii and Humanae Vitae | Reverend Michael Hull, S.T.D.
• Male and Female He Created Them | Cardinal Estevez
• The Meaning and Necessity of Spiritual Fatherhood | Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, MTS
• Practicing Chastity in an Unchaste Age | Bishop Joseph F. Martino
• The Truth About Conscience | John F. Kippley | An excerpt from Sex and the Marriage Covenant