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I ................................................................................. 248
A. Equality, Justice, and the Heart of the Debate .................................................. 248
B. Real Marriage Is - And Is Only - The Union of Husband and Wife ....................... 252
1. Comprehensive Union ........................... 253
2. Special Link to Children ........................ 255
3. Marital Norms ......................................... 259
C. How Would Gay Civil Marriage Affect You or Your Marriage? .................... 260
1. Weakening Marriage .............................. 260
2. Obscuring the Value of Opposite-Sex Parenting As an Ideal ............................. 262
3. Threatening Moral and Religious Freedom ................................................... 263
D. If Not Same-Sex Couples, Why Infertile Ones? ...................................... 265
1. Still Real Marriages ................................. 266
2. Still in the Public Interest ....................... 268
E. Challenges for Revisionists .......................... 269
1. The State Has an Interest in Regulating Some Relationships? .......... 269
2. Only if They Are Romantic? .................. 271
3. Only if They Are Monogamou s? .......... 272
F. Isn't Marriage Just Whatever We Say It Is? ................................................... 274
II ................................................................................ 275
A. Why Not Spread Traditional Norms to the Gay Community? ............................... 275
B. What About Partners' Concrete Needs? ............................................ 280
C. Doesn't the Conjugal Conception of Marriage Sacrifice Some People's Fulfillment for Others'? ................ 281
D. Isn't It Only Natural? .................................... 284
E. Doesn't Traditional Marriage Law Impose Controversial Moral and Religious Views on Everyone? .................................................. 285
CONCLUSION ................................................................ 286
What is marriage?
Consider two competing views:
Conjugal View: Marriage is the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally (inherently) fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together. The spouses seal (consummate) and renew their union by conjugal acts- acts that constitute the behavioral part of the process of reproduction, thus uniting them as a reproductive unit. Marriage is valuable in itself, but its inherent orientation to the bearing and rearing of children contributes to its distinctive structure, including norms of monogamy and fidelity. This link to the welfare of children also helps explain why marriage is important to the common good and why the state should recognize and regulate it.1
Revisionist View: Marriage is the union of two people (whether of the same sex or of opposite sexes) who commit to romantically loving and caring for each other and to...