10 Best Arguments for “Same-Sex Marriage”…and Why They’re Flawed

Perhaps no issue is more nerve-wracking today than "same-sex marriage." It’s a magnet for controversy and evokes strong reactions from those on either side of the debate. But underneath the fiery passion and rhetoric, we must evaluate the real arguments.

Thus, Our Sunday Visitor invited me to write a special section for their newsweekly examining the ten most common arguments for "same-sex marriage." You've likely heard many of these from friends, family members, co-workers, and commenters around the Internet. The arguments I cover include:

Marriage has evolved throughout history, so it can change again.

"Same-sex marriage" is primarily about equality.

Everyone has the right to marry whomever he or she loves.

"Same-sex marriage" won’t affect you, so what’s the big deal?

"Same-sex marriage" will not lead to other redefinitions.

If same-sex couples can’t marry because they can’t reproduce, why can infertile couples marry?

Children will not be affected since there is no difference between same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents.

Opposition to same-sex marriage is based on bigotry, homophobia, and religious hatred.

The struggle for "same-sex marriage" is just like the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

"Same-sex marriage is inevitable," so we should "stand on the right side of history."

It's important to note that the article concerns civil marriage—marriage as defined and promoted by the state. It doesn’t deal with the Church’s sacramental understanding, although the two often overlap. Second, the responses to the arguments are emphatically nonreligious. They don’t depend on any sacred text or divine revelation. They’re based on reason, philosophy, biology and history. Third, the article only refutes arguments in favor of "same-sex marriage." It doesn’t touch upon the many positive arguments supporting traditional marriage.

Also, the article is not an attack on people with same-sex attractions. All people, regardless of sexual orientation, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Instead, the article is a rational look at whether we should redefine civil marriage, an institution that touches all people and cultures.

Read the full article.

In addition to the piece above, I also contributed an introductory article for the newsweekly and an interview with Princeton professor Robert George. Check them out below:

Finding good answers in the "same-sex marriage" debate

In this I explain how Chick-Fil-A and Facebook led me to write about such a volatile subject:

If you simply accept marriage today as between one man and one woman, or disagree with the idea of "same-sex marriage" even for legitimate reasons, you’re unequivocally branded a hateful bigot. This emotionally charged atmosphere makes rational discussion nearly impossible. Political slogans, sound-bites, tribal divisions, and name-calling drown out real arguments and leave little room for charity and clear-thinking....

More than ever Catholics need simple, rational, non-religious reasons to reinforce their arguments against "same-sex marriage."

My Interview with Professor Robert George

Robert George is one of my great intellectual heroes so I was excited to talk with him about marriage. George is a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University.

He's also an expert on marital law and a strong advocate of traditional marriage. Along with Sherif Girgis and Ryan T. Anderson, George co-authored a new book titled, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense (Encounter Books, paperback, ). It’s based on their renowned academic paper on the same topic that appeared in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

Professor George and I spoke about the book, his work, and the main arguments surrounding same-sex marriage.

In a sidebar for the main article I also recommend three helpful books on the topic of "same-sex marriage":

Getting the Marriage Conversation Right: A Guide for Effective Dialogue by William May (Emmaus Road, 2012)
One Man, One Woman: A Catholic’s Guide to Defending Marriage by Dale O’Leary (Sophia Institute Press, 2012)
What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense by Robert George, Ryan T. Anderson, Sherif Girgis (Encounter, 2007)

What are the most common arguments you've heard for "same-sex marriage"?

Posted on: January 3, 2013 in Apologetics, Blog, Catholicism, Culture, Homosexuality, Sacraments, Sexuality, Theology
Tagged:

http://www.facebook.com/eileen.callejas Eileen Callejas

How sad.
- http://www.brandonvogt.com/ Brandon Vogt
  
  Thanks for the comment, Eileen. Care to explain?
  - Soccerchaserky
    
    I can jump in for Eileen. Your arguments are just as flawed and completely ignorant of many aspects of human life and relationships. You basically spew the same rhetoric of those virulently anti-gay but try to wrap it in "logic" that only works in your head and can't stand reality, science or facts.
    - VisitorOnly
      
      Eileen can speak for herself.
      - Paul
        
        And I can speak too. Probably you dont like that at all, do you?
      - Ruby
        
        Yeah, she can speak for herslf. That is why she did. She wasn't saying "everyone thinks thisis so sad!" she was stating her opinion!
Dariosatex

And when will you be coming out of the closet?
- http://www.brandonvogt.com/ Brandon Vogt
  
  What gave away the secret? Was it my wife? My three kids?
  - Soccerchaserky
    
    Yeah, because no gay men in this world has ever been married to a woman and have children in their past.
    - http://www.brandonvogt.com/ Brandon Vogt
      
      You got me with the oldest trick in the book:
      
      "When unable to refute his arguments, engage in personal attacks."
      - Soccerchaserky
        
        Not a personal attack at all. You feel attacked cause you know your argument is yet once more flawed. Thats all. MANY gay men are married and have children. Your insinuation that you being married to a woman and having children makes you heterosexual is not rooted in facts or reality.
      - http://www.brandonvogt.com/ Brandon Vogt
        
        1. I didn't make an argument in this comment box, so it can't be flawed.
        
        2. Are you insinuating that my wife and children are in fact *evidence* for my supposed and closeted homosexuality? If so, do you believe that the ~50% of married men in the US are also secretly homosexual?
      - Soccerchaserky
        
        1. You implied you were "attacked" somehow. That was your argument, which is false.
        
        2. I'm not insinuating anything. I'm stating having a wife and kids is no proof of one's heterosexuality.
      - VisitorOnly
        
        No, you WERE insinuating that Brandon was in the closet, and that his reponse about his wife and three kids could not "refute" YOUR prior insinuation. No one has to "prove" their sexual orientation is "not gay" to you or anyone else. Using sarcasm does not give you a pass on snide comments.
      - Paul
        
        You read my comment completely wrong. If any I was insinuating that having a wife and kids isnt proof of one's sexual orientation.
      - Bob
        
        lol it doesnt matter who insinuated what. This guy is 'obviously' in the closet. It's just sad that he has to get married and get her prego to cover it up. I mean i'm sure he loves his kids like any parent, but it's pretty easy to see that he's hiding his sexuality. Very obvious.
      - Bob
        
        Likewise, that's likely why he even created this blog, to convince people that he himself wasn't in any way shape or form - gay.
  - wisdomy
    
    The fact that you clearly spend more time thinking about gay sex than most gay people do?
greysurfer

What a childish bunch we have here. Clearly the gays commenting are desperate to clutch at any straw to justify their demands for "marriage", including twisting other people's sentences to try and make them fit another agenda.
The very idea that every happily-married hetero male is a "closet gay" is so far down the road of mental instability that it's hardly worth the effort to challenge it. People who think such things are to be pitied more than anything else.
God, Man and Woman are the three parts of a holy matrimonial alliance. Not God, Man and Man, or God, Woman and Woman. Biology is the underlying foundation. Male and female, natural biological partners; most times children result from the union but sometimes they do not, for many legitimate reasons, including illnesses or infertility not known about before marriage.

Marriage traditionally provides the male-female natural elements in a family home, to raise children and provide the appropriate role models for male and female children. But as we know, Man is a wayward animal and wants to explore unnatural methods and structures; hence the unwholesome desire to experiment with social engineering, forcing children to be adopted by gay couples in an effort to "prove" that gays can be "equal" to heteros by "marrying" and "having children".

Many folk just don't realise that, for decades, powerful groups of people have been pushing gay agendas like these, to destroy Christianity and tradition. Modern people have become weak, morally; they have been conditioned by the mainstream media to accept pre-marital sex and co-habitation as "the norm", so getting them to accept gay marriage is a push-over. The propaganda is massive in volume, it's everywhere in people's faces. "If you don't accept gay marriage you're a bigot, you're hateful, you're cruel"....ah yes, did Jesus not say that all those who followed His Way would, in time, be persecuted?

All I can say is that anyone in favour of gay marriage is also in favour of having their children taught about anal sex in school biology lessons. Don't laugh. It's on the agenda.

That persecution time is now. The gays will have their little dances of celebration for a while, but it will be short-lived; since upon the horizon there are far greater storms brewing.
- Paul54325435
  
  You can have all the delusional ideas you want about a "matrimonial alliance" or anything you'd like. However the moment you justify denying other people's rights, the SAME rights you enjoy, based on those delusional ideas then thats the moment you are wrong and people need to speak up against it.
  
  None in the Gay Rights movement is asking to change church doctrine or forcing you to marry someone of the same gender. Furthermore, ALL your allegations of same sex marriage or gay people being this "evil" group are unfounded and not based on reality. But again, reality is a relative term to you and many like you whose fact-based reality aren't in their agenda.
  
  "The gays will have their little dances of celebration for a while, but it will be short-lived; since upon the horizon there are far greater storms brewing." --> Is this a threat? what is that "storm" you are talking about? Should women and african american be worried too since your fairy tale book was used to deny their rights using E-X-A-C-T-L-Y the same rhetoric as today? How lame of you.
  - Goodgriefcharliebrown
    
    Gay, straight or bi, Paul and Bob are extremely rude individuals. Bigots stand on both sides of the argument for/against same-sex marriage: if Paul and Bob took a look in the mirror, they would see what I mean.
    - ROJO CAPO
      
      Where is the rudeness in his comments? Bigots are everywhere, but overwhelmingly in the anti-gay side of the island. Where is the look in the mirror they need to do? I think you just dont agree with their arguments and you have nothing to say against them,
      - Goodgriefcharliebrown
        
        Uh, did you read any of the comments?
        In a serious discussion - whether they agreed with the author's point of view or not - comment from Paul: "Iran is a very welcoming place to people like
        you." comment from Bob: "This guy is 'obviously' in the closet. It's just sad that he has to get married and get her prego to cover it up. I mean
        i'm sure he loves his kids like any parent, but it's pretty easy to see that he's hiding his sexuality." Excuse me, but if that isn't rude (and just plain
        idiotic) then I don't know what is. And as for your comment asserting that bigots are "overwhelmingly in the anti-gay side of the island", you feel that way because the greater part of society (not just the bubble you live in) feel, for whatever reason - be it gut instinct, philosophical or religious - that marriage is something beyond redefining. The essential question that your ilk fail to acknowledge, let alone ever attempt to answer, is "what is marriage?" And Paul's last comment: "should women and african american[s] be worried too since your fairy tale book was used to deny their
        rights using E-X-A-C-T-L-Y the same rhetoric as today?" is a classic example of how the essential question of this debate is avoided and replaced
        with another one "who can marry?". Who can marry is irrelevant until you first establish what is marriage. Yes, the Bible (I'm not about to defend
        it, bear with me) says only man and woman can be married. But so does every other culture that has no link to Christianity at all. Our cultural heritage is
        christian - we can't escape that - so there will be lots of bible bashers saying "god says this and god says that". But if you step outside your own culture and look at the wider world, you will see that we share a great many things with other cultures despite our religious heritage. The current eligibility for marriage is perfectly equitable if marriage is
        something unique between a man and a woman, which is how it is understood the world over (by most). Prohibiting a black woman from marrying a white man has nothing - NOTHING - to do with prohibiting one man (regardless of colour) "marrying" another man. On the one hand, you have an issue of white supremacy - the will of one race trying to subdue another - and on the other an issue of common sense (literal). There is, on a global scale, only a small minority group, of which you find yourself a part, who disagree with the
        current definition of marriage and would like to see it changed. Marriage, despite the rhetoric to the contrary, is not something the christian bible made
        up. All over the world it is something that a man and woman do - not because god said so, or because they are too small minded to think of an alternative - but because it just is. To use an analogy: the concept of "courage" always
        has and always will be the same. It's one of those things that just is, regardless of where we were born or the environment we grew up in or the
        sexuality we find ourselves with. The concept of courage cannot be redefined (say, to include doing brave acts only when you stand to benefit from them) no matter how much we wish it could so that we could all sleep better at night after we've been behaved in a less than courageous way. Similarly, marriage is a concept that can't be redefined to keep a few people happy. Certainly, you can make a law to establish that, should two people of the same sex want to be "married" then they ought to be able to do so without fear of discrimination, but it is and will remain merely a law, rather than a concept common to humankind. Personally, I think same-sex couples should have all the same legal rights as hetero-couples. Why shouldn't they have the same legal rights as me living in a de facto relationship with my boyfriend? But if and when my boyfriend and I choose to get married, to compare our union with practices of white supremacy is bloody ridiculous. True, any man and any woman
        can be married - they can have a terrible marriage and be rubbish parents too. Or perhaps they can't have children. It doesn't matter. Those are secondary questions like "who can marry" (ie, "what makes a good marriage?") But the essential question of "What is marriage" has still been satisfied (man and a woman). If a man prefers to have sex with other men, he can do so as is his right to express himself sexually how he sees fit.
        If he wants to be married, he can still marry a woman. But he can't marry a man, because as a concept it's illogical. And I don't say that because I'm a religious nut; I say that because I'm trying to be rational. If I was being irrational, I'd say something unforgivable about same-sex unions and hell (which I would personally smack anyone for ever saying something so stupid!) Similarly, on the other side of the fence, if I was being irrational, I'd say something like Paul and Bob or Open to Opinions just not this. Which brings me back to my original point that you took umbrage with, which was that bigots are on both sides of this argument; however, that there seem (to you) to be more on one side than the other doesn't indicate what you think it does. Believe it or not, there are nice people out there who, while they don't agree with the idea of same-sex marriage, are not members of any "anti-gay" movement and who are most definitely not bigots.
      - ROJO CAPO
        
        I think you just dont agree with what they are saying. Now where is the bigotry there on what they said?
        
        " greater part of society" --> I think the one who lives in a bubble is you and not me. You may have not left your cave in the last 10 years but nowadays majority of americans support the right of gays and lesbians to marry.
        
        Regarding the rest of your comment, I dont even know where to start to point out all the wrongness in it . I'll mention just a few. Marriage was originally used to exchange property (women being the property and land/cattle). Is that marriage today? In some societies it still is. So, as you can see, marriage is not exempt from evolution.
        
        Furthermore, some primitive cultures around the world do support same sex marriage. Recently an american indian tribe and another from Papua New Guinea started blessing same sex unions. As you can see, your statements that "all over the world its something that a man and woman do" is completely false.
        
        Also, saying "If he wants to be married, he can still marry a woman" is incredibly bigoted. One day you will understand why, maybe no, but forcing someone to enter into a marriage he/she doesn't desire is absolutely diminishing the meaning of marriage, which you so valiantly try to define but fail miserably.
        
        Whatever the meaning of marriage, it is something personal to each individual. You live your marriage as you'd like, and others live theirs as they want. You try to be rational about this but it seems you are not.
        
        I've never disputed that there aren't nice people in the anti-marriage group. Not all of them are bigoted. Many of them, when presented with the facts and life stories see that their opinions were wrong and change their minds. Many don't because of internalized issues.
      - Goodgriefcharliebrown
        
        I think we will have to agree to disagree in general. When you say that my statement "all over the world [marriage is] something that a man and woman do" "is completely false", are you asserting that it's not in fact something all over the world that man and woman do? Because it is something they do. You're argument if I understand you correctly is that it's not exclusively something men and women do, which you back up with a "fact" (with no reference) about American-Indian/PNG same-sex unions being blessed. But the argument is not whether these unions should be blessed/acknowledged as true meaningful relationships or not (of course they are meaningful relationships); it's whether two men or two women can be married if the definition of "marriage" is between a man and a woman. Maybe in Hicksville, USA the issue is about whether same-sex unions are "evil" or "wrong", but the bubble I live in happens to be that big place outside of the US called the rest of the world and a good portion of us are looking at this dilemma from an a-religious point of view. Further it's not bigoted to say that "if he wants to be married, he can still marry a woman" - it's an actual fact which doesn't require production of any references. He can because it's law. That law might change one day in the US (as it has in New Zealand and as it soon may in France) and so that everyone can go back to being friends again, I hope it does. But I hope it does so based on well-thought out reasoning and not just on emotional rhetoric, and certainly not just as a way to get win more votes.
      - ROJO CAPO
        
        http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/15/17325923-american-indian-tribe-oks-same-sex-marriage-lets-gay-couple-wed?lite
        
        2 seconds googling. Anyway...
        
        " it's whether two men or two women can be married if the definition of "marriage" is between a man and a woman." --> The definition of marriage has changed since its conception. You just dont want to acknowledge that. For many nations and millions of people out there, marriage is NOT exclusive between one man and one woman any more. Not much else to argue about that.
        
        "a good portion of us are looking at this dilemma from an a-religious point of view." --> You find refuge in the irrational to try to defend your bigoted position. NONE is asking for ANY religion to recognize SSM. NONE. Yet you and "a good portion" of you take it to that territory.
        
        "Further it's not bigoted to say that "if he wants to be married, he can still marry a woman"" --> It is absolutely insulting and it shows how little you care about the TRUE definition of what marriage is. You just contradict yourself.
        
        "I hope it does so based on well-thought out reasoning" --> Thats EXACTLY why gay marriage is being adopted in many countries around the world. If you think clearly and with logic, there is not ONE rational argument to deny gay couples the right to marry.
- Open to opinions just not this
  
  Oh here we go with the Christian master race again. Jesus is going to get off his ass to smite some fashionable young men that are in love. Grow up. People are allowed to have their own opinions, love who they want, and have sex with who they want. Also stop putting fliers in my mailbox telling me to go to church or God wont love me anymore.
Paul54325435

Iran is a very welcoming place to people like you. If you have such "fears" I'd suggest you move somewhere else where theocracy is the rule of law.
nannasin smith

It doesn’t touch upon the many positive arguments supporting traditional marriage.MB6S
- Paul
  
  There are many for sure, all of which also apply to same sex marriages I'm sure.
wisdomy

Rage on, but you lose, and your betters laugh at you.