In many ways this is one of those truisms that we know through experience: mothers and fathers matter. It is common sense, and it is part of all of our pasts; whether our mother or father were present or absent defines, in many ways, our childhoods. But there are some today who claim that it really doesn’t matter if you have a father or a mother as long as you have people who love you. The redefinition of civil marriage to include persons of the same sex essentially redefines parenthood as well.[i]
Marriage is a pro-child institution. It is not just about the satisfaction of adult desires. Marriage is not something private—it’s a public institution with public roles and responsibilities. The love between husband and wife naturally opens up to include the child, the family, and the greater society. This openness is simply not possible for persons of the same sex, who cannot form a spousal union that is open to the gift of life. They cannot “have a child” together; it’s simply and objectively impossible. Society has, therefore, a legitimate interest in and a just obligation toward protecting and promoting the natural family based on marriage between a man and a woman.
The family is the place where the youngest and most vulnerable members of our society are born and raised. As the “sanctuary of life,”[ii] the family deserves to be valued and aided by society. This is why the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges is unjust. In addition to telling a lie about what marriage is, it undermines the social good of natural marriage and the rights of children. Society’s well-being and very existence are bound up with marriage and the family; we must work to overturn this decision, just as we hope one day to overturn the unjust decision in Roe v. Wade.
Discussion Questions
- Does our society treat the family founded on marriage as fundamental?
- What are the reasons that society has, for centuries, privileged the natural family based on marriage between a man and a woman?
[i] This was mentioned in the MUR video Made for Freedom (around 3:44 in the video), with Alana Newman who is a child and advocate for children of third-party reproduction. Alana points out that the redefinition of marriage opens the door for a major increase in third-party reproduction, since two men or two women who “marry” will necessarily need to utilize the reproductive capacities of another person to “have a child.”
[ii] Pope John Paul II, On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum (Centesimus Annus) (Washington, DC: USCCB, 1991), no. 39.
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