The Worst Secular Argument Against Marriage Equality

There are a number of bad religious arguments against legal marriage equality founded in unprovable metaphysical speculations (mostly on proposals of divine authorship of holy books), but perhaps the worst secular argument is the suggestion that marriage should be reserved for couples capable of breeding. The Prime Minister of Australia in 2003, John Howard, expressed this attitude when he stated:

Well, this is not in any way an attack on gay people, quite the reverse, but it's just a strong statement in support of the central role of traditional marriage in our society.

Traditional marriage is one of the bedrock institutions of our society, and I don't want anything to occur that further weakens it. Marriage as we understand it in our society is about children, having children, raising them, providing for the survival of the species.

Howard's idea of "survival of the species" was obviously quite selective. Several years prior he said that a global temperature change of six degrees Celsius would be "less comfortable for some", when in reality such a change would be quite deadly for the species. It would have been quite interesting to hear the view elaborated on how preventing marriage equality was not an attack on gay people and indeed "quite the reverse". Indeed, how a social institution such as marriage, was a guarantor of a natural activity such as procreation.

But too the topic at hand, advocates of the principle should really take a moment to consider what the principle of restricting marriage to breeding couples would entail.

Firstly, it would mean that infertile heterosexual couples could not marry, and nor could post-menopausal women. These are people who "by their nature" cannot engage in "life-giving sexual intercourse", as one religious proponent has euphemistically described it. Interestingly, the proponent also suggests that only such people could reach the "mutual perfection of the spouses".

Suppose however that the proponent sticks to their guns, and they agree to forbid marriage to the infertile. Who is allowed to marry then? Well, disturbingly, they are making an argument for marriage with children and animals. Why is this so? Because precocious puberty, whilst rare, does exist and can exist before the start of equivalent cognitive development. The earliest confirmed motherhood is at five years old.

As for animals, cross-species fertilsation is very much a reality. The existence of mules and hinnies are well-enough known, and whilst they are usually infertile, there are a number of known fertile crossbreeds. There are ligers and tigons as well, tiger-lion species crossbreeds whose existence in captivity is because the two species do not overlap in the wild.

Attempts were made in the former Soviet Union to cross-breed humans with chimpanzees; they didn't succeed but the possibility of "life-giving sexual intercourse" occurring between homo sapiens and another species not only cannot be discounted, but even more so has occurred in the past with Neanderthals. So maybe if they just try harder.

Hypothetically, for the purpose of the thought experiment, nature has prevented dead men from ejaculating (despite some Gothic humour to the contrary), so the natural "life giving sexual intercourse" does not mean a woman can marry a recently deceased corpse, even if artificial posthumous sperm retrieval is viable. Just as well; marrying children and chimpanzees, sure. But corpses? Now that's just crazy talk.

But seriously, in the past an article on the Isocracy Network has argued that perhaps it would be best if government got out of the marriage business altogether; that everyone should be entitled to 'civil unions' and word 'marriage' reserved to religious organisations of any variety (the former Liberal minister Phillip Ruddock apparently saw that as a possibility). The point being was that it was an argument for marriage equality.

Either all adults should be legally entitled or none; the measure that were some entitled but not others, was clearly discriminatory. As it has turned out, the tide of history has turned, and the world is moving inexorably towards marriage equality, and the absurd arguments against it - such as "life giving sexual intercourse" as a secular principle - lose the convincing power. Marriage equality is for all adults of adult reasoning.