Katherine Young and Paul Nathanson

Katherine K. Young is professor of the history of religions, and Paul Nathanson is a researcher, at McGill University. This paper was presented at Emory University, Atlanta, GA on May 14, 2003.

There's nothing wrong with homosexuality. One of us, in fact, is gay. We oppose gay marriage, not gay relationships (which are already supported by most of the economic and legal benefits given to common-law couples and should be supported by all).

Most people assume that heterosexuality is a given of nature and thus not vulnerable to cultural change, that nothing will ever discourage straight people from getting together and starting families. But we argue - and this is important - that heterosexual bonding must indeed be deliberately fostered by a distinctive and supportive culture.

Because heterosexual bonding is directly related to both reproduction and survival, and because it involves much more than copulation, all human societies have actively fostered it (although some have also allowed or even encouraged homosexuality in specific circumstances). This is done through culture: rules, customs, laws, symbols, rituals, incentives, rewards, and other public mechanisms. So deeply embedded are these, however, that few people are consciously aware of them.

Much of what is accomplished in animals by nature ("biology," "genetics," or "instinct" ) must be accomplished in humans by culture (all other aspects of human existence, including marriage). If culture were removed, the result wouldn't be a functioning organism whether human or non-human. Apart from any other handicap would be the inability to reproduce successfully. Why? Because mating (sexual intercourse), which really is largely governed by a biological drive, isn't synonymous with the complex behaviours required by family life within a larger human society.

So how could marriage be harmed by adding a few gay couples? A good question, especially when you consider the deplorable state of marriage right now, which has been caused by hedonistic and irresponsible straight people.

Marriage is a complex institution. It must do several things (and, from an anthropological and historical perspective, fostering the emotional gratification of two adults is the least important). It must foster the bonds between men and women for at least three reasons: to encourage the birth and rearing of children (at least to the extent necessary for preserving and fostering society); to provide an appropriate setting for children growing to maturity; and - something usually forgotten - to ensure the co-operation of men and women for the common good. Moreover, it must foster the bonds between men and children, otherwise men would have little incentive to become active participants in family life. Finally, it helps provide men with a healthy masculine identity based on a distinctive, necessary, and publicly valued contribution to society - fatherhood - especially when no other contribution is considered acceptable.

Without public cultural support for a durable relationship binding men, women, and children, marriage would initially be reduced to nothing more than one "lifestyle choice" among many - that is, it could no longer be encouraged in the public square (which is necessary in a secular society). In fact, doing so would be denounced and even challenged in court as discrimination - the undue "privilege" of a "dominant" class, which is a breach of equality as defined by Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But discrimination in this case should be allowed - and could be under the Charter - in view of the fact that marriage, as a universal institution and the essential cultural complement to biology, is prior to all concepts of law.

In short, redefining marriage would amount to a massive human experiment. Some experiments work, it's true, but others don't. Remember that an earlier experiment, changing the divorce laws, set in motion social forces that would not be evident for forty years. This new experiment would be unprecedented in human history, and yet we haven't taken the time to think carefully about possible consequences. Instead, we've allowed emotion to sweep aside all other considerations.

Marriage a-la-mode

Welcome to "Marriage a-la-mode." The title refers not to marriage with ice cream but to marriage according to whatever the current fashion happens to be and, more specifically, to a series of four satirical paintings produced in the eighteenth century by William Hogarth. Although there is some satire in what follows, our aim is not to lampoon gay people or gay relationships but merely to challenge the claims made by those who advocate gay marriage. And those claims have been very successful, so far, in Canada.

At the moment, three legal rulings are being examined in connection with the possibility of redefining marriage to include gay couples. In Egale v. Canada (3 October 2001), British Columbia's Supreme Court ruled that the current definition of marriage - a union between one man and one woman - should be retained. But in Halpern v. Canada (12 July 2002), Ontario's Superior Court of Justice ruled that this definition infringes on the right of gay people to equality under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And in Hendricks and Le Boeuf v. Canada (18 September 2002), Quebec's Superior Court agreed with Ontario - adding that it would permit gay couples to marry anyway if Parliament refuses to revise the definition within two years. All three provincial judgements have been appealed by the federal government. The appeal in British Columbia has been defeated; those of Quebec and Ontario are still pending. Meanwhile, Parliament has been conducting public hearings across the country.

What follows is based on (a) our research, commissioned by Canada's Department of Justice; (b) the affidavit based on this research produced for the federal government; and (c) our presentation to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Our approach has been both comparative (see below) and dialogical. One of us is a man, the other a woman; one is Jewish, the other Gentile; one is gay, the other straight; one specializes in Western civilization, the other in Eastern civilization; and so on. As a result of our collaboration, we have been able to gather a great deal of evidence, both historical and cross-cultural, to support our answers to the claims made by advocates of gay marriage.

The latter make no fewer than twenty of these. Our primary task here is to refute each of them. One reason for organizing the material in this way is that no one else, to our knowledge, has actually done so. Maybe too many people have assumed that there is no need to defend what they take for granted. In other words, they have been complacent. Another reason is to reinforce a claim of our own: that the burden of proof is always on those who want change. Their claims must be evaluated first, not ours. Without some compelling reason for change, after all, why bother? More to the point, in this case, why take the risk of a massive experiment?

Before discussing those arguments, though, we are going to discuss an underlying assumption about heterosexuality (and the underlying problem here is associated with heterosexuality, not homosexuality.) By definition, of course, this assumption is unstated. Even so, the arguments based on it are quickly becoming conventional wisdom in the most influential academic and political circles. Opposing it, therefore, always involves counter-intuitive and "politically incorrect" arguments.

Most people, both gay and straight, assume that heterosexual bonding is a given of nature for straight people. But we argue - and this is a matter of fundamental importance - that it must indeed be deliberately fostered and supported by a distinctive culture. We refer here and elsewhere to "heterosexual bonding," because the word "heterosexuality" could be understood as a reference to mere heterosexual copulation, which is not what concerns us in this essay.

Much of what is accomplished in animals by nature (often known as "biology," "genetics," or "instinct") must be accomplished in humans by culture (which includes not only elite culture and popular culture but all aspects of human existence aside from those that are determined by nature).

Although no particular culture is genetically encoded, the ability and need to create culture is genetically encoded. We are equipped and even driven by nature, paradoxically, to be cultural beings. This has made us more flexible than animals, which rely entirely (or almost entirely in the case of a few primate species) on nature. And this, in turn, has greatly facilitated our adaptation to new circumstances or environments and thus fostered human survival. Culture is not a superficial overlay on something more primitive and basic, in short, but a defining and fundamental feature of human existence; if it were somehow removed, the result would not be a functioning organism, whether human or non-human.

Apart from any other handicap would be its inability to reproduce successfully. Why? Because mating, or copulating, which really is governed by nature, is not synonymous with the complex behaviors required by family life within a larger human society. So the sexual behavior involved in marriage is governed not only by nature but also by culture. This explains why it includes both universal features and culturally variable ones. More about that in due course.

All societies have found it necessary to establish norms. We define the latter as cultural ideals - models, paradigms, collective preferences - which are supported by rules) That is because no society can have it all, just as no individual can; every society must make choices. And choosing one thing - one form of behavior, say - inevitably means not choosing others. Because nature itself does not enforce norms, moreover, culture must do so. Every society has found it necessary - whether formally or informally, directly or indirectly - to reward some forms of behavior and either not reward or punish others. These ways of doing so have varied a great deal from one society to another and from one period to another even within the same society. Small-scale societies often rely on group control: Act in this way, and you will be shamed by society; act that way, and you will be honored by society. Large-scale societies usually find it necessary to add individual control: Act this way, and you will be guilty even if not publicly condemned; act that way, and you will be justified even if not publicly acclaimed.

Because the most common sexual tendency for human beings, by far, is heterosexuality (our species reproduces sexually, after all, which has an evolutionary advantage over the asexual reproduction of some other species); because heterosexual bonding is directly related to both reproduction and survival; and because it involves much more than copulation, every human society has had to encourage heterosexual bonding actively (although some have also allowed homosexual bonding, too, in various circumstances). This has always required a massive cultural effort, usually religious, involving myths, rituals, symbols, theologies, rewards, privileges, and so on. Heterosexual bonding is always encouraged by a cultural norm, in other words, not merely allowed as one "lifestyle choice" among many. Some norms vary greatly from one society to another, to be sure, but others are universal. Marriage is one of these and thus prior to law, which is an important point for judges and legislators to consider.

This means that every society has always maintained the cultural mechanisms that provide public support for heterosexual bonding.

These have always been associated with public legitimacy (represented by ancestors, deities, scripture, law, and so forth), public recognition (rituals, witnesses, registrations) and thus public accountability (see below for our definition of universal features). It has always been fostered by inducements, whether social (prestige, say, or political alliances), economic (transfer of property), religious (divine rewards, and so on), or a combination of them. So deeply embedded in consciousness are these that few people are consciously aware of them. The result, in any case, is a "privileged" status for heterosexual bonding. Postmodernists are not wrong in identifying it as such, but they are wrong in assuming that any society can do without it.

To be more specific, the culture of marriage must encourage at least five things: (a) the bonding between men and women that ensures their cooperation for the common good, (b) the birth and rearing of children, at least to the extent necessary for preserving and fostering society, in culturally approved ways; (c) bonding between men and children so that men are likely to become active participants in family life; (d) some healthy form of masculine identity (which is based on the need for at least one distinctive, necessary, and publicly valued contribution to society and is especially important today, because the other two cross-cultural definitions of manhood, provider and protector, are no longer distinctive now that women have entered the public realm); and (e) the transformation of adolescents into sexually responsible adults - that is, young men and women who are ready for marriage and the beginning of a new cycle.

It should come as no surprise that comparative research on the worldviews of both small-scale societies and those of world religions, Western and Eastern, reveals a pattern: Marriage has universal, nearly universal, and variable features.

Its universal features include the fact that marriage is (a) supported by authority and incentives; (b) recognizes the interdependence of men and women; (c) has a public, or communal, dimension; (d) defines eligible partners; (e) encourages procreation under specific conditions; and (f) provides mutual support not only between men and women but also between them and children.

Its nearly universal features are: (a) an emphasis on durable relationships between parents; (b) mutual affection and companionship; (c) family (or political) alliances; and (d) reciprocity between young and old. Most large-scale societies have encouraged durable relationships between biological parents and children at least until the latter reach maturity. That is because of the long time it takes infants to mature; cooperation is necessary to ensure their survival. Most societies have recognized that mutual affection and companionship, moreover, facilitate bonding between men and women. Some have recognized that these are fragile bonds and have preferred arranged marriages (although they usually encourage affection and companionship as well).

These universal and nearly universal features assume the distinctive (but not necessarily innate) contributions of both sexes, transmit knowledge from one generation to another, and create not only "vertical" links between the generations but also "horizontal" ones between allied families or communities.

As for the many variable features of marriage, these include endogamy (marrying within a group) or exogamy (marrying outside it); marrying up in status or marrying down); arranged marriage or chosen; dowry (from the bride's family) or bride price (goods given or services performed by the groom); sexual equality or hierarchy; many children or few; extended family or nuclear; residence with the bride's family, with the groom's, or neither; divorce allowed or prohibited; and so on. Alternatives to marriage are celebrated in some societies (as in the case of celibate monks, for instance, or shamans) and tolerated in others (such as single people or gay couples) but only when the larger society is in no danger of failing to reproduce itself.

From one perspective, variables make any definition distinctive.

From another perspective, however, they create a problem. Focusing on the definition of marriage in any one society makes it hard to know which aspects are distinctive or local and which are universal or nearly universal. Patterns emerge only when many societies are compared. When only one society is considered, in other words, the variables can mask the universals. We can detect universals only by using cross-cultural and historical methods. From these perspectives, as we say, patterns do emerge. This makes it easier to see the universal and nearly universal features of marriage.

It could be argued that focusing on these features would lead to the methodological problem of "essentialism." But that is a false problem for three reasons. First, there really is an empirical basis for the existence of these features. Second, using inductive reason to discern patterns is a fundamental characteristic of scholarship. And third, any phenomenon so common as to be universal or nearly universal surely reveals something basic in the human condition.

This is not to say, however, that every society does so effectively. Our ideal is hardly the current status quo, in which marriage has been reduced by irresponsible straight people to the proverbial "piece of paper" at worst and pure sentimentality at best. For evidence of the latter, just take a cursory glance at such massively popular shows as The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and Joe Millionaire. Participants, who hope to marry as a result of appearing on the show, seldom talk about anything more serious than how they like to spend their free time, whether to reveal their feelings, or, occasionally, how many children they would like to have; they never ask prospective husbands or wives about political beliefs, say, or communal affiliations.

For them, courtship and marriage, like the show itself, are forms of entertainment. Careful attention to sets - lavish hotel suites, exotic locales, and dozens of candles everywhere - creates the "romantic" ambience of a soap opera. Although ritualistic aspects remain - the most obvious being when a young man kneels as he proposes marriage - many of these are anachronistic, to say the least. This nonsense is manufactured and sold primarily by and for straight people, not gay people.

Given the prevalent but misleading assumptions, ones that underlie all of the claims made by advocates of gay marriage, it is clear to us, we repeat, that this public debate is really about heterosexual bonding. There is nothing wrong with the homosexual bonding. There is something wrong, something perverse, with the idea that any society can endure without offering public support or even preferential treatment to heterosexual bonding.

We turn now to the twenty most common claims, most of them closely interrelated, that are made by advocates of gay marriage.

Answering Advocates of Gay Marriage

Claim 1: Marriage is an institution designed to foster the love between two people. Gay people can love each other just as straight people can. Ergo, marriage should be open to gay people.

The second statement is true, and the third follows logically from it. Because the first statement is false, however, this line of reasoning makes no sense. Marriage is a complex institution. Fostering the emotional gratification of two adults is only one of its functions - and not the most important one from a cross-cultural or historical perspective. (It might not be accidental that this exclusive focus on emotional gratification coincides with a high divorce rate.) The question is not whether gay people should have relationships. The only question is whether this should be done in the specific context of marriage.

Claim 2: Not all straight couples have children, but no one argues that their marriages are unacceptable.

Actually, that is an oversimplification. Some religious traditions, for instance, have given childless couples the possibility of divorce or annulment. Besides, marriage can function in additional ways (one of them being companionship) and can express additional ideals (the most obvious one being love). Consequently, these traditions do not insist that childless couples separate. Instead, they maintain what they consider the one distinctive ideal of marriage without punishing those who fail to attain it. The latter are exceptions. This institution has always been intended primarily, however, to serve the needs of children. It provides an ideal scenario for parents and children. Not every individual or individual couple lives up to the ideal, of course, but the ideal remains effective nonetheless - except, of course, in societies that are breaking up.

Claim 3: Some gay couples do have children and therefore need marriage to provide the appropriate context.

This claim reverses the other one by accepting the premise that marriage is indeed the ideal context for children. The problem is that gay marriage would provide that context in name only. Our point here is not that gay couples are less able to love their children than other couples; they are neither more nor less able to do that. Our point here is not, moreover, that gay couples would teach their children to be gay; the mere fact of being gay, from our point of view, is not problematic in any case. The point is that children require more than love from their parents, whether gay or straight. One thing that they surely require is at least one parent of each sex. (We say "at least" one, because an extended family - with aunts, uncles, and grandparents - is much closer to the ideal than the isolated nuclear family.) That is because the sexes are not interchangeable.

For the past few decades, it has been conventional wisdom either that masculinity and femininity are nothing but "social constructions," which can be "deconstructed" to suit changing times and individual tastes, or that everyone is innately "androgynous." Both theories ignore the obvious fact of male and female bodies, which are subject to different experiences (the most obvious being that only women can gestate and lactate). Though much more similar than dissimilar, each sex is distinctive. Boys cannot learn how to become healthy men from even the most loving mother (or pair of mothers) alone. And girls cannot learn how to become healthy women from even the most loving father (or pair of fathers) alone.

This learning takes place day by day and often by example in the larger context of intimate family life. The need for fathers is particularly acute for boys, moreover. Like girls, they must separate from their mothers. Unlike girls, however, they must also switch the focus of their identity from one sex to the other. There are psychological and sociological studies to support these claims.

The problems under discussion here apply not only to gay parents but also and even primarily to straight single parents. Yes, there have always been single parents due to death, divorce, or desertion. But these were the exceptions. Now that divorce has become so common, the phenomenon has changed. Single parenting - usually by mothers and often by choice - has become a "lifestyle." The message to fathers and their children is that men have no distinctive, necessary, and publicly valued function in family life. And the results of fatherless children on a massive scale, as described by psychologists and sociologists, are not exactly encouraging.

Some advocates of both gay and single parents argue that the problems just mentioned can be fixed by bringing home friends or relatives to serve as "role models." But can these transient visitors adequately replace the enduring presence within a family of adults of both the same sex and the opposite sex? Advocates of gay and single parents can hardly demonstrate that. Others argue that the men seen on television or in the movies, even pop stars, can function as "role models." Indeed, they can. But are these role models healthy ones? Very, very few men in popular culture would ever be as helpful in this respect as the late Mr. Rogers. Are we really prepared to settle for the likes of Homer Simpson, say, or Michael Jackson - or anyone else who happens to represent or parody macho cool at the moment? The welfare of children is an afterthought for advocates of gay marriage and single parenting, not something that takes priority over their own interests.

Some gay people become parents while still involved in straight relationships. Others do so in the context of gay relationships. Lesbian couples, for instance, often resort to sperm banks and artificial insemination. New reproductive technologies can look very attractive to gay people who want children but not even token relationships with the opposite sex. Legalizing gay marriage would certainly increase interest in newer technologies and probably lead to demands for access to them in order to equalize their ability to have children. But these technologies present a variety of moral problems, most of which have remained unresolved (see claim 20).

At the heart of this claim, however, is that the children of gay couples suffer from prejudice on that account. Aha! Finally, a reference to children! But wait. If these children suffer from prejudice, it is almost certainly because their parents are gay and not because they are unmarried. We should eliminate prejudice against gay people, by all means, but legalizing gay marriage would hardly do the trick. Not at a time when the stain of "illegitimacy" has all but disappeared.

This claim for gay marriage can no longer be sustained. Over the past forty years, single parents, especially single mothers, have been glorified on talk shows and in countless made-for-television movies as victims who, according to the lingua franca of identity politics, nonetheless become "survivors." There is no longer anything unusual, much less illicit, about children who have only one parent. And now, given the fact that many gay people have children from previous straight relationships, there is nothing all that unusual about children who have two mothers or two fathers. Whatever other problems the children of gay parents might have - and they do have some significant ones - this is surely not one of them. Changing the definition of marriage to ease the pain of having unmarried parents, in short, would be like using an atomic bomb to kill a fly.

Claim 4: Marriage and the family are always changing anyway, so why not allow this change?

Well, yes, of course, institutions change. Whether they always change in beneficial ways is another matter entirely. Unless we adopt the mentality promoted by countless ads and commercials - according to these, every product is "new and improved" - we must at least imagine the possibility that some changes might be for the worse. There is no logical connection, in short, between either "new" and "improved" or "changed" and "better." Marriage has changed for the worse in some (though not all) ways, we suggest, over the past forty years. Not by gay people, of course, but by straight people.

And whether institutions change in all ways is yet another matter. Some features of marriage have not changed; these are universal and therefore, presumably, both necessary and beneficial. Marriage has always been a matter of communal importance, for instance, one that serves more than individual needs. These things are so pervasive and so enduring that they might as well be due to nature itself. We play with them at our peril.

Claim 5: Marriage and the family have already changed, so why not acknowledge the reality?

This cynical variation of claim 4 is used by those who find it inexpedient to argue about whether these changes are beneficial or harmful. What matters, they believe, is merely that these changes have already occurred. In that case, it would surely make political sense to adjust accordingly. Maybe so, but would it make any moral sense?

Is this the appropriate time, moreover, to redefine marriage? When marriage is not merely changing but disintegrating under the weight of sentimentality and irresponsibility among straight people? And children are most at risk. Their needs are hardly ever taken seriously in the debate over gay marriage; they have become bystanders in a debate over the rights of adults.

Claim 6: Children would be no worse off with happily married gay parents than they are with unhappily married straight ones.

This comparison is false, because it involves the best of one scenario with the worst of another. A legitimate comparison would compare either the best of both or the worst of both. Once again, we suggest that the best of marriage (providing at least one parent or other adult of each sex) is better for children than the best of gay marriage (which provides two parents of the same sex and none of the other).

Claim 7: Given global overpopulation, why would anyone worry about some alleged need to have more children in any case?

Even though some countries are indeed overpopulated, others are not. Like most Western countries, for instance, Canada has a rapidly aging population. Both the birth rate and the death rate are declining. This will have serious demographic and economic consequences for future generations. To argue that immigration will solve the problem - immigrants, presumably, will continue to have many children and require no encouragement from our government - is to imply that they should be exploited as breeders. Besides, how many immigrants would tolerate or even immigrate to a society that fails to uphold their ideal of marriage, which is always based on the long-term bonding of men and women to provide the ideal setting in which to bring up children?

And even though many people in populous countries are unaware of demographic warning signs, most of those who belong to minority communities are very aware of being demographically threatened.

Claim 8: Marriage should change, whether it already has or not, because patriarchal institutions are evil.

This claim is both insidious and overtly ideological. That is because it uses the rhetoric of legal reform (allow gay people to enter mainstream institutions such as marriage) to mask the underlying goal of social revolution (create a radically new society by destroying institutions such as marriage). A good case can always be made for reforming any institution in this way or that. And our society has reformed marriage many times, most recently to improve the position of wives. But there is a big difference between reform and revolution. The claim under discussion here is that heterosexuality makes marriage patriarchal, which is an ideological code word for evil. (We are not being paranoid; that claim has been made by some very influential feminists.) To solve that problem, the heterosexual basis of marriage must be destroyed. Legalizing gay marriage could do the trick by changing the definition of marriage and its functions beyond recognition. The result would still be called marriage, but it would in fact be another institution.

Claim 9: Gay marriage has had historical and anthropological precedents.

Actually, it has had not even one precedent as the norm of any society. Some societies have allowed exceptions to the norm, yes. And some powerful chiefs or kings have defied all norms. But the marital norm for every society has always been heterosexual. It is worth noting at this point that any society could have used culture to mitigate the tendency toward heterosexuality. Any society could have encouraged gay marriage and still reproduced itself; women could always have found ways of procuring sperm, for instance, and men could always have abducted children. But this approach has never been adopted as a norm.

Research on the history and anthropology of gay marriage, so far, has been done mainly with advocacy in mind: supporting gay marriage by finding precedents for it. By academic standards, this material reveals several important substantive and methodological flaws. Some precedents are ambiguous, for instance, because they are merely analogies to marriage.

Gay love is said to be like marital love, an initiation ritual into same-sex warrior bonding is said to be like marriage, and so on. Other precedents are taken out of context. It is true, for instance, that some Amerindian societies allowed men to marry other men. But, judging from the information that has been recorded, these societies made sure that only a few men were allowed to do so or that their husbands had already married women and produced children so that demographic survival was not endangered. As for Nero, the Roman emperor, he married a man but in a moral context - a degenerate aristocracy in which murder was rampant and even a horse could be made a senator - that few today would find edifying. Do we really need to take moral instruction from him? Many precedents are irrelevant, moreover, because they refer only to gay relationships, not to gay marriage; the former are not the same as the latter and are not now, in any case, being challenged. Sometimes, moreover, evidence is indirect. Sometimes arguments are made from silence. Sometimes, important information is even ignored (such as subsequent banning of gay marriage).

Even if there were anthropological and historical precedents, however, these would be utterly irrelevant from a moral perspective. Just because something has been done in some other society at some other time, after all, doesn't mean that it should be done in our society at this time. One obvious example should make this clear. Slavery has been practiced in many societies. Should we therefore consider reinstituting that institution? Doing so would be a moral non sequitur, to say the least.

Claim 10: Banning gay marriage is like banning interracial marriage.

Actually, it is not. This argument is based on a reductive analogy between racism and heterosexism. Most people today would agree that the state should have no right to prevent interracial marriage, and some now argue for the same reason that it should have no right to prevent gay marriage. Both racism and heterosexism are forms of prejudice. Both are due to a combination of ignorance and malice. Both are evil. But the analogy is seriously flawed, because it assumes that all those who oppose gay marriage, like all those who oppose interracial marriage, are bigots. Some are, but others are not.

Marriage between people of different races was indeed banned because of racism. But that was only one example of a larger phenomenon. We refer to endogamy, marriage only with those from inside the community. And endogamy is not always caused by racism. Sometimes, for instance, it is caused by religion - that is, by the urge to perpetuate a religious culture. These societies ban interreligious marriage but usually accept marriage to converts, regardless of their racial or ethnic origins.

In any case, endogamy is a cultural variable. Many societies practice exogamy, after all, marriage only with those from outside the community. Endogamy cannot be considered a universal feature of marriage and should not, therefore, be required by law in a diverse society. Marriage between men and women really is a universal feature, on the other hand, both historically and anthropologically. And for a good reason: bringing men and women together for both practical and symbolic reasons. The prejudice of some people notwithstanding, in short, there can be a morally legitimate reason for maintaining the heterosexuality of marriage.

Besides, how many advocates of gay marriage would argue for polygamous marriage as well? Some would, no doubt, but not many. Although we do not advocate polygamy, we also do not see anything inherently wrong with it. Because a good case could be made for it, following precisely the same logic as that of the case made for gay marriage (see claim 17), it would be dishonest for advocates of the latter to trivialize it due to political expediency.

(Part 2 will appear in the November 2003 Journal.)