The Other Issue This Week

Earlier this week, the Spanish parliament recognizing homosexual marriage, and the Canadian parliament appears ready to follow suit, all in the name of "equal rights". What's more, all of the equal rights rhetoric has drowned out any serious conversation/debate over the effects such a policy will have on the institution of marriage and on society as a whole. More importantly, it has overshadowed any discussion of what exactly makes a right a right.

What is often overlooked in the discussion of rights is their inherent connection with morality. Man is a moral creature, and as such, his purpose is to live a moral life, that is to fulfill his moral obligations. The rights of man are rights because without them, he would be unable to fulfill his moral obligations. This is why the breach of the rights of man, even by a legitimately constituted authority, is wrong. Furthermore, this is true whether you are Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, secularist, atheist, Scientologist, or whatever. Therefore, any discussion of the rights of man must be preceded by a common understanding of man's moral obligations and his moral goal. Needless to say, variations in belief provide for variations in the understanding of man's moral purpose, even within individual credos, never mind between them. For this reason, the Founding Fathers declined to establish a national church, settling for a lowest common denominator approach that enabled individuals and groups to seek freely how to fulfill their moral obligations. Furthermore, the Founders recognized the inherent link between religion and the fulfillment of moral purpose, which is why religion is the first issue addressed in the first article of the Bill of Rights (i.e. the First Amendment).

So, is there a right to homosexual marriage? As an orthodox Catholic who holds orthodox Catholic views on morality, I can see no plausible moral case for it. Others disagree, and they are free to do so. However, to justify the notion of a right to homosexual marriage, they must explain how homosexual marriage advances the moral end of thise who choose to enter into it. Furthermore, they either must show how the moral end of homosexual marriage is consistent with the moral end of marriage as it is now defined throughout most of the world or show how the moral end sought in homosexual marriage is superior to the moral end of marriage as it largely now is.

This doesn't even begin to take into consideration the potential effects of homosexual marriage on the institution itself, which Stanley Kurtz has done yeoman's work documenting here and here.