So gay marriage may be legalized in michigan?

[Professor Freedom]

As many people understand it, marriage is an institution with a procreative and familial purpose: it serves both as a means to organize of familial life and to control birth. This is reminiscent of the familial ideal-type of the American family of the early 20th century. The man works, the woman cares for the household and both are, of course, married and either have or plan to have children. It is not to say that the argument rests on such a radically conservative ideal-type; it's rather a comment meant to contextualize the idea in the course of our history.

As you have put it -- and as many others have put it -- the legal concession of homosexual marriage condones a different view of marriage: homosexual marriage only makes sense once you detach it from the familial purpose and once you understand the couple as more of a form of companionship. The argument goes that taking that step legally threatens marriage because then marriage would become something entirely different. In at least its great lines, this argument is perfectly correct. Indeed, legalizing homosexual marriage constitutes a political and legal endorsement of a new ideal-type of couple.

However, you likely noted the surprise of a substantial number of people when you warned them that they are about to change the institution of marriage. If they talk strictly about the legal existence of heterosexual marriage as an institution, it is not out of ignorance. It reflects their genuine beliefs: in their view, there is no such thing a social institution of heterosexual marriage -- and, within some groups of people, they are perfectly right to say so. Furthermore, other people view your comment as grounded in religion when it is not a logical necessity. Furedi makes the same argument with even more subtlety without invoking religion and while being a self-proclaimed atheist. I'll go a step beyond Furedi, however, and I'll try to interpret this insistence on associating a religious doctrine -- or indeed sometimes a political doctrine -- with this position regarding gay marriage. I believe that this falls in line with the previous observation about their surprise: they insist on making this link because, in their view, marriage as become sufficiently malleable to be molded to fit personal, indeed individual, aspirations and preferences.

In your view, the solution is for companions to live as companions and for married couples to live as married couples -- they are both distinct as a matter of concept and not simply as a matter of law. However, that distinction is no longer held by a majority of people in North America -- or at least so do I think. This hypothesis puts us in a rather different position when we proceed with an argument such as yours. If indeed a substantially large proportion of the population views marriage as a form of companionship even before the government acts, the legal change is not genuinely a threat: it would be the consecration of something that became a fact of existence for most people.

This is one thing that we can reply to your argument. Another one involves the proper role of government: admit hypothetically that the government could do something about it and that the outcome of this intervention would be highly preferable. I must concede that, in many ways, going beyond the simple fulfillment of our short-lived desires might be something worthy of our consideration, especially in the light of our contemporary incompetence in defining a purpose for our lives. Is it the State's role to provide people with a purpose, or indeed with any of the means to ensure everyone a chance to succeed in such a quest?

Personally, I would grant this question a conditional yes. But most people who root for a traditional conception of marriage cannot say the same without contradicting everything they believe about politics. How can someone oppose taxation on the grounds of its coercive nature when they're about to prevent some people from being recognized as legally wed by the use of law? Of course, this is not necessarily your position, but regardless of your thoughts, you have to talk about the appropriate role of the State before you claim that it is your duty to legally prohibit certain forms of marriage.