Marriage is a union of difference not same sex
Image via WikipediaMarriage is a union of difference
The traditional concept of marriage is consistently found across cultures throughout history. This is not to say
matters such as customs and rituals have not changed over time.
It is simply to say that marriage has always been understood in every society throughout recorded human history as being between a man and a woman.
As a comprehensive union of spouses, marriage means a sharing of lives and resources, a union of minds and wills,
and hence the requirement of consent for forming marriage.
It also means something more as well: the bodily union of a man and a woman, whereby the two become ‘one flesh’. If two people want to unite in the
comprehensive way proper to marriage, they must, among other things, unite organically – that is, in the bodily dimension of their being through sexual
intercourse.
With one exception a person is complete within themselves as to bodily organs and their functions: heart, lungs, stomach and so on. In other words for any of these functions a person does not require a contribution from anyone else. The one biological function for which individual adults are naturally incomplete is sexual reproduction.
In sexual intercourse, but not in any other form of sexual contact, a man and a woman’s bodies coordinate by way of their sexual organs for the common biological purpose of reproduction.
In this way they perform the first step of the complex reproductive process. Their bodies become one by coordinating for the biological good of the whole,
thereby securing future generations at the same time as they give unique expression to their love one for the other.
This way of viewing marriage has become less persuasive only because widespread contraception has masked the connection between marital sexual activity, and the rearing of children.
That in turn conveys the impression that all modes of sexual expression seem equivalent. But marriage remains deeply and uniquely orientated to bearing and rearing children. By contrast, two men or two women cannot achieve the
same kind of union, since there is no child-oriented outcome or function toward which their bodies can coordinate. Same‐sex partnerships lack any essential and natural orientation to children: they cannot be sealed by the generative act.
A child’s relationship to both mother and father is inherent to marriage. Children conceived by other means may find themselves with people in parental roles who are in a same sex relationship, but such relationships are not the origin of the child.
It is possible for children to be nurtured in such a household, but however good that nurturing, it will not provide the biological link and security of identity and
relationship that marriage naturally demands and confirms.
Marriage also provides children a role model of the human love of their parents relating as man and woman. Its complementarity ensures the unilateral love of each parent to the child and the necessary differences between motherly and fatherly love. In contrast, the revisionist case asserts that there is no necessity for a child to experience both fathering and mothering within the
family.
These arguments are not negated by marriage breakdown, the early death of a parent, the adoption of children, de facto relationships, or the practice of step-parenting. The complications and tragedies of an imperfect world do not justify the redefinition of marriage
