Sanity & Matrimony
Ten Arguments in Defense of Marriage (Part 1 of 2)
by Anthony Esolen
Most people believe that the principal objections, or even the only objections, to the drive to legalize homosexual “marriage” spring from religious faith. But that is not true. I can offer ten objections that have nothing to do with any religion at all, except insofar as the great religions of the world reflect the nature of mankind. In this essay, I present the first six of these objections; in a follow-up, I will present the remaining four.
These objections spring from three sources. The first is a commonsense observation of man—his needs, his shortcomings, and his aspirations. The second is history: our own recent history, and the history of those who once committed the mistakes we are committing now. The last is logic.
The objections should make everyone uncomfortable, both those who call themselves conservative and are busy destroying the heritage of Western civilization, and those who call themselves liberal and are busy curtailing and denying every freedom but that of the zipper.
Chaos Unleashed
1. The legalization of homosexual pseudogamy would enshrine the sexual revolution in law. Forty years ago, popular singers urged us to open our hearts to love, meaning a free and easy practice of sexual intercourse, without what were called “hang-ups.” Modesty was decried as prudishness, and chastity ridiculed as impossible or hypocritical. Experimentation abounded: so-called open marriages, public intercourse, intercourse under the influence of drugs.
A few of the experiments fizzled out, though they are now resurging, as witness the sewer of websites devoted to “swingers.” The pornography explosion, given new life by the Internet, shows no sign of abating. In what they discuss and in the salaciousness of their photos, the magazines women buy at the grocery store are as salacious as anything put out by Hugh Hefner in the 1950s.
What honest observer of our situation dares to argue that the results have not been disastrous? We were told that the legalization of abortion would lead, paradoxically, to fewer abortions and fewer instances of child abuse. Instead, it led to far more abortions than even the opponents ever imagined, and it so cheapened infant life that child abuse spiked sharply upward. No one any longer is surprised to hear, on local television, of a child chained to his bed and allowed to starve in his own filth, or a baby bludgeoned to death by a boyfriend, with the mother as accomplice.
We were told that the legalization of contraceptive drugs would lead to fewer unwanted children, and fewer children born out of wedlock. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the human race should have known otherwise. By reducing the perceived risk of pregnancy, contraception removed from the young woman the most powerful natural weapon in her arsenal against male sexual aggression. She no longer had any pressing reason not to accede to the boyfriend’s wishes. So she agreed; and we now have two of five children born out of wedlock.
The sexual chaos has touched every family in the nation. Who does not know at least one family whose children require an essay merely to describe who under their roof is related to whom, and how?
Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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more on marriage from the online archives
28.1—January/February 2015
on State Impositions & Church Acquiescence by Stephen Baskerville
32.1—January/February 2019
Divine Love & the Love of Man & Woman Surpass Mere Consent by Anthony Esolen
21.1—January/February 2008
John Chrysostom’s Discovery of the Blessings & Mysteries of Marriage by Mike Aquilina
more from the online archives
24.1—January/February 2011
Marriage Thrives in Reality, Not in Our Dreams by Nathan Schlueter
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