ON TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE

Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George, What is Marriage? (New York: Encounter Books; 2012) p. 7.

ʻIf the law defines marriage to include same-sex partners, many will come to misunderstand marriage.

They will not see it as essentially comprehensive, or thus (among other things) as ordered to procreation and family life but as essentially an emotional union. . . .

[T]hey will therefore tend not to understand or respect the objective norms of permanence or sexual exclusivity that shape it.

Nor, in the end, will they see why the terms of marriage should not depend altogether on the will of the parties, be they two or ten in number, as the terms of friendships and contracts do.

That is, to the extent that marriage is misunderstood, it will be harder to see the point of its norms, to live by them, and to urge them on others.

And this, besides making any remaining restrictions on marriage arbitrary, will damage the many cultural and political goods that get the state involved in marriage in the first place.ʼ

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