Marriage:
Where Do We Go From Here?
By Ryan T. Anderson
The pro-marriage case can win — if we don’t give up on it.
In the media’s portrayal, people defending marriage as the union of a man and woman have been getting routed ever since the Supreme Court decision last June — if not before. They point to a string of lower-court rulings striking down state marriage amendments and to public-opinion polling, especially of my peers in the Millennial generation. Many also point to the forced resignation of Brendan Eich and the defeat of Arizona’s religious-liberty bill.
Some people would like me and the millions of Americans who continue to believe that marriage is what societies have believed it to be throughout human history — a male-female union — to get with the program and accept the inevitable. We’re clearly, they tell us, on the Wrong Side of History.
But we should avoid the temptation to prognosticate about the future in lieu of working to shape that future. We are citizens in a self-governing society, not pundits watching a spectator sport, not subjects of rulers. We are participants in one of the most significant debates our society — any society — has ever faced.
So, the question is, where do we go from here? How do we best advance the cause of marriage as the union of a man and woman, husband and wife, father and mother?
Some say we should abandon the defense of marriage and retreat to only protecting religious-liberty exemptions. They argue that this is the best course of action in light of what they take to be an inevitable defeat. Others go further and suggest that we should simply disengage with politics entirely, retreat to our own communities, and rebuild a marriage subculture there.
As tempting as these plans may be, they aren’t the right answer.
We must continue to witness to the truth about marriage, find new ways to make the reasoned case about what marriage is, and work to protect our freedoms to do so for the next generation. All of this must be done in service of the long-term goal of restoring a culture of marriage.
This requires both political and cultural efforts. Those who emphasize religious-liberty protections are somewhat right, for to even have the freedom to build countercultural institutions that preserve the truth about marriage we will at the very least need to protect the liberty — including religious liberty — to do so. But they are wrong in thinking we can protect religious liberty without defending the substantive view we seek the liberty to hold and act on. In order to protect our liberty with respect to marriage, we must persuade our neighbors that our views about marriage are reasonable, and thus that our rights to govern our lives in accord with those views should be respected.
In doing this, we must understand that, for many of our neighbors, the argument for marriage hasn’t been heard and rejected; it simply hasn’t been heard. We must make that argument in new and creative ways.
In the short run, the legal battle over the definition of marriage may be an uphill struggle. But in the long run, those who defend marriage as the union of a man and woman will prove to be prophetic. First, because when people do hear a compelling case for marriage, they respond accordingly. And second, because the logic of marriage redefinition ultimately leads to the dissolution of marriage into nothing more than a social mess of consenting adult love of manifold sizes and shapes.
Those who defend — and live out — the truth about marriage should redouble their efforts to witness to the truth about marriage while there is still time to steer clear of that chaos.
Here are six ways to do that.
- ONE. STAND UP FOR OUR AUTHORITY AS CITIZENS TO PASS LAWS REFLECTING THE TRUTH ABOUT MARRIAGE ......
- TWO. DEFEND OUR FORM OF GOVERNMENT AND OUR LIBERTIES ...
- THREE. MAKE THE CASE FOR MARRIAGE ...
- FOUR. WE MUST DIVERSIFY AND STRENGTHEN OUR EFFORTS ...
- FIVE. THE CHURCH HAS A CENTRAL ROLE TO PLAY ...
- SIX. WE MUST ALL TAKE THE LONG VIEW ...
...................
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario