DanielCC wrote:

A key issue here is that people do not want to see marriage primarily as an institution within a culture – they want to see it (ideally of course) as a kind of ontological bound between two persons based on romantic love. Of course one might answer ‘well, if that is the case then they shouldn’t care about civil recognition or the lack of’, a perfectly reasonable question to ask. In some cases the response would be because, if Christian, they demand a religious recognition of their marriage, though with the majority I fear it’s just a political drive.
 
(Sometimes in more cynical moods I think it might be good if marriage granted no additional civic rights – see divorce courts and the like fall apart)
 
Another thing that troubles me about Natural Law accounts is the extent to which they take an action’s relation to society as a whole, or, to put it in a more alarmist way, the ‘Common Good’, as determining the extent of its impermissibility.
 

Well, I can say this much, if and when I get married I will not be seeking a license from the State for it.

iwpoe wrote:

I tend to agree with you in your cynical mood. I think that the right has given up too much to the anti-essentialist argument: they think that marriage is a natural state with some sort of strong ontological status, but at the same time they act as though correct legal recognition by the state is absolutely crucial. Well that makes plenty of sense if you don't think that it's a strong ontological state, but if you think its a real part of human nature what can legislation against to do but slowly and continually fail? The law can say that men shouldn't be mortal but rather immortalmortal and make death a crime, and many people might support that law if they were fools, but what would such a silly law accomplish? Reality would smack those advocates in the face and teach them a valuable lesson about itself in short order after the passage of the law.

I'm sorry I don't believe you gentlemen are really thinking this through. If the law was changed to define the colour black as being both black and white or black or white, you had better bet your last nickel that is going to have extremely serious ramifications. Of course it doesn't actually change what the colour black is (or what white is, for that matter) but there is a reason why every philosopher worthy of the name has agreed that the law is a teacher and has a powerful influence on human society.

DanielCC wrote:

A key issue here is that people do not want to see marriage primarily as an institution within a culture – they want to see it (ideally of course) as a kind of ontological bound between two persons based on romantic love. Of course one might answer ‘well, if that is the case then they shouldn’t care about civil recognition or the lack of’, a perfectly reasonable question to ask. In some cases the response would be because, if Christian, they demand a religious recognition of their marriage, though with the majority I fear it’s just a political drive.
 
(Sometimes in more cynical moods I think it might be good if marriage granted no additional civic rights – see divorce courts and the like fall apart)
 
Another thing that troubles me about Natural Law accounts is the extent to which they take an action’s relation to society as a whole, or, to put it in a more alarmist way, the ‘Common Good’, as determining the extent of its impermissibility.
 

Well, my ethics are more Platonist than based in natural law, though I consider the two largely compatible and the later to offer important insights for the former (and vice verse, of course).

I don't see why we should view our ultimate moral duties as separate from our social ones. Indeed, as a Platonist I tend to think the former are reflected in the later, whilst the latter, conversely, are supports for the former. Yes, I agree that it is quite possible to go over board and inflate our civic and social duties and ignore the ultimate purposes. Aristotelianism has certainly been accused of this.

When it comes to the state recognition of marriage, I don't believe that it needs to be recognised in any statutory way. But I certainly think it important for society at large to recognise marriage and the family. And in our contemporary world, with the sheer power and influence of the state, the official view of the state is important (for example, if in some areas the state treated families more as corporate units, that would be a big boost for the strength of the family - the post 1789 state's relentless individualism has certainly harmed the family).


I am certainly sympathetic to those who think we as traditionalists and anti-secularists won't achieve much politically and culturally in the foreseeable future. But that is somewhat different from positively recognising homosexual relationships as largely equal to heterosexual marriages.

Timocrates wrote:

iwpoe wrote:

I'm extremely cynical about small resistance and small changes to how we go about things.

His name is Jesus Christ. I'm sure you've heard of this Palestinian peasant.

He didn't Institute a state ( or, at least, not one of the character in which we live), and there has been no adequately Christian regime in the history of mankind. That's something of Augustine s point when he speaks of the difference between the City of God and the City of Man. It's also something of the point when Paul separates the church from the world. I'm not saying that we can't live well somewhere- within our church community and within our private lives, for instance -but I am saying that it's strange to think that one or two bits of reform in a fundamentally evil institution can save it or save us.

Last edited by iwpoe (7/09/2015 9:54 pm)

Whilst I think it very important to remember our ultimate purposes go well beyond our cultural and social lives, and (in my opinion as Platonist at least) ultimately far beyond our corporeal existence, I think Augustine and even at times St. Paul offer a perspective that, whilst it may have spiritual efficacy at times, is more limited in its fundamental truth than a persepective that sees human society as a reflection of aspects of man's transcendent nature.

In many ways, the view of the state as a necessary evil seems mirrored in the neglect of positive aspects of nature, the natural and corporeal world, by Augustine and many later Christians, especially in the West. Although, again, there may sometimes be some spiritual efficacy in such a dismissal, I think it is certainly a more limited and unbalanced perspective than those, like Eriugena and Celtic Christianity amongst others, that did recognise the true spiritual depth and support of nature.

When it comes to our interactions with the state, I would agree that today, at least, we in the West can hardly expect the state to be suffused with a traditional Christian ethos, but I don't think this means we cannot hope the state limits its attacks on the permanent things, including not recognising homosexual relationships as interchangeable with heterosexual marriage, or remains as imbued as possible with some common sense and traditional feeling. This is far from a point based only in appeals to one religion's scriptures or traditions. After all, marriage is at the heart of the family and the family at the heart of society. Modern social trends seem designed to dissolve all social bonds, even none religious writers, such as Robert Nisbet, have said as much.

I see nothing in principle wrong with the suggestion the state should allow homosexuals some benefits of recognised monogamous relationships to help lower promiscuity, though I don't think it completely necessary either. But I see no reason why we Christians and traditional conservatives should accept that the state make homosexual relationships and heterosexual marriages interchangeable, either in practice (as civil unions) or in name too (as marriages). I don't think the one necessitates the other.