From the April 2006 Edition of ERWA

ALL WORKED UP ABOUT REDEFINING MARRIAGE
By J.T. Benjamin
Copr. 2006

As has been well-documented by my own humble self, the
Holy Terrors are engaged in a War On Whoopie, an
all-out campaign to banish all things not related to
marital intercourse for the specific purpose of
procreation. That is, everything fun about sex.
These include pornography, sex education, sex toys,
birth control, obscenity, homosexuality in general,
and specifically gay marriage. To name a few.

However, in documenting the Holy Terrors’ war, I
realize I have not spent much time exploring their
motives. WHY do the Holy Terrors feel the need to
remove the “FUCKIN-AY! THAT WAS GREAT!” out of sex?

I could simply presume that the War on Whoopie is
being waged because the Holy Terrors are just a
collection of self-righteous homophobic bigoted
assholes who have nothing better to do than to stick
their holier-than-thou noses into other peoples’
business because God Forbid people should be out there
having more fun than they, that is, any fun at all.

But I won’t do that. I’ll instead take it for granted
that the Holy Terrors have only the most noble motives
in mind, and I’ll take them at their own words to
discern their motives. Why, for example, do they so
vehemently oppose gay marriage?

Taking the Holy Terrors at their word, they oppose gay
marriage because it threatens the very institution of
marriage itself.

Don’t believe me? Pay heed to the words of Fearless
Leader. “(S)ome activist judges and local officials
have made an aggressive attempt to redefine marriage
[by legalizing homosexual unions] ….If we are to
prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed
forever, our nation must enact a constitutional
amendment to protect marriage in America. …Today I
call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send
to the states for ratification, an amendment to our
Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a
union of man and woman as husband and wife.” (George
W. Bush, Feb. 14, 2004).

I’m sure it was an oversight, but Fearless Leader’s
call to arms was devoid of specifics. I still have a
few questions. How does legalizing gay unions
redefine marriage? What is the meaning of marriage
such that it’s at risk of change, and what is so
special about “man and woman as husband and wife” that
therefore needs the protection of a Constitutional
amendment?

In other words, why do people get married?

Because they love each other, of course. Why else?

Okay. But in all the media coverage of gay people
wanting to marry, they say they want to do so because
they love their partners and want to be with each
other until death do they part. So why not let them
marry? How does letting more people do it for love
redefine it? Are there other possible reasons for
people to marry?

As a matter of fact, over the course of history,
people have gotten married for an enormous diversity
of reasons: to seal political alliances, for business
and property ownership purposes, to produce children,
(heirs and laborers, mostly), and generally to
maintain an orderly society. And what about love and
sexual gratification? Well, that’s what mistresses,
concubines, prostitutes, and fuckbuddies were for.
According to Stephanie Coontz, author of “Marriage: A
History,” (The Penguin Group, 2005), “(f)or thousands
of years, marriage served so many economic, political,
and social functions that the individual needs and
wishes of its members (especially women and children)
took second place. Marriage was not about bringing
two individuals together for love and intimacy,
although that was sometimes a welcome side effect.
Rather, the aim of marriage was to acquire useful
in-laws and gain political or economic advantage.

“Only in the last two hundred years, as other economic
and political institutions began to take over many of
the roles once played by marriage, did Europeans and
Americans begin to see marriage as a personal and
private relationship that should fulfill their
emotional and sexual desires. Once that happened,
free choice became the societal norm for mate
selection, love became the main reason for marriage,
and a successful marriage came to be defined as one
that met the needs of its members.” (pp. 306-307,
Coontz).

With hindsight, the marriage of Prince Charles and
Princess Diana is a perfect example of Ms. Coontz’
theory. The pairing was a mis-match made someplace
other than heaven. Once the couple had produced
Princes William and Harry, (“an heir and a spare”)
ensuring the royal line would continue for another
generation, Charles and Diana each found someone more
well-suited to their wants and needs. The marriage
ended, like so many others, in divorce.

In fact, you might say that the true fairy-tale
wedding with the “happily-ever-after” ending is that
of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. Marry
for love? To hell with the political consequences?
Oh, you crazy kids!

Wait a minute, you might say. We’re living in the
twenty-first century. Don’t tell me the Holy Terrors
are still saying people should marry for reasons other
than for love!

Okay, I won’t tell you that. I’ll let them tell you
that.

Quoting the Catechism for the Catholic Church, Article
7, Section 1601: “The matrimonial covenant, by which
a man and a woman establish between themselves a
partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature
ordered toward the good of the spouses AND THE
PROCREATION AND EDUCATION OF OFFSPRING,” (emphasis
added).

Until 1965, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), states
could legally prohibit the sale of contraceptives to
married couples or to individuals. Why? Because
birth control was anti-family. In upholding a similar
law in 1917, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts held
the law’s purpose was to “protect purity, to preserve
chastity, to encourage continence and self-restraint,
to defend the sanctity of the home, and thus to
engender in the State and nation a virile and virtuous
race of men and women.”

The Family Research Council website
offers a lengthy article by Dr. Allan C. Carlson, PhD, entitled,
“Marriage And Procreation: On Children As The First
Purpose Of Marriage.” Dr. Carlson himself
acknowledges, “When Massachusetts officials facing the
court case Goodridge v. Department of Public Health
set out to defend that state's marriage law from a
challenge by seven homosexual couples, their major
line of defense was procreation. Making babies, the
state argued, was the first purpose of marriage.”
Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the third-ranking
Republican in the U.S. Senate, is a special piece of
work. He’s got his eye on the Presidency and in his
recent book, “It Takes A Family,” he complains among
other things that too many women are working outside
the home, (p. 94), public schools are weird, (p. 386),
and “The notion that college education is a
cost-effective way to help poor, low-skill, unmarried
mothers with high school diplomas or GEDs move up the
economic ladder is just wrong.” (Pg. 138)
However, the junior Senator from PA saved a special
message for the “Brian Lehrer” radio show on August 4,
2005. There, the Senator said, “(T)he point of
marriage from a societal point of view is not to
affirm the love of two people, and to make people feel
good about who they are in their relationship, but in
fact the point of marriage is for having children …If
we change that, we devalue the institution and we
change it, and re-orient it more toward parents, and
away from children.”

Being the father of four myself, I can get behind the
idea that we need to raise our children in the best
home environment possible. However, I’ve known of too
many negative “one man-one woman” family arrangements
and too many positive “single parent” or “one
parent-one significant other” or “two moms” or “two
dads” or “one or more of the above” arrangements to
trust the Catholic Church, a monolithic governmental
bureaucracy, or a crackpot Pennsylvania politician to
know what’s best for everyone.

So, I hate to admit it, but the President is right.
We liberals are out to re-define marriage. I say a
marriage ought to be about unconditional love and
affection between consenting adults. Call me nut,
call me crazy dreamer.

No, it’s okay. Go ahead. All together now. “J.T,
you nut! You crazy dreamer!”