David Blankenhorn’s important new book, The Future of Marriage makes clear that the social issue of our time is not whether marriage will be “expanded” to include same sex couples. The real issue is whether marriage as an institution will be so emptied of meaning that it becomes a gender neutral institution, rather than the premier gender-based institution of society. This isn’t fundamentally about gay people.  The issue is marriage: what marriage is, and what it does for society. Blankenhorn argues convincingly that marriage bereft of gender can not perform the social functions that marriage universally performs: marriage attaches children with their fathers and mothers and fathers and mothers to each other.

I came up with a definition of marriage.  Marriage is society’s preferred context for both sexual activity and child-rearing.  The point of this definition is that marriage is intrinsically about “privileging” some forms of sexual activity over others, and some arrangements for child-rearing over others.  The new modern idea of “de-institutionalizing” marriage is that society positively ought not express any legal, social or moral preference for any sexual or child-bearing arrangements over others.  The drive for legally describing the unions of same sex couples as marriage is part of this overall movement to de-institutionalize marriage.

But de-institutionalizing marriage means there is no such thing as marriage, by definition. “The institution formerly known as marriage,” will henceforth be a hollowed-out shell of its former self. Nothing but the name remains. Marriage gives social approval to my relationship with my super-dooper, extra-special best friend with benefits. Left unanswered is the question of why in the world society should care.

David Blankenhorn answers the question of why societies not only should care about marriage, but what they have universally cared about when they create the institution. Originally trained in history, Blankenhorn takes a masterful journey through the meaning of marriage across times and places. Here is Blankenhorn’s more detailed definition of marriage:

Marriage is socially approved sexual intercourse between a man and a woman conceived both as a personal relationship and as an institution, primarily such that any children resulting from the union are– and are understood by society to be– emotionally, morally, practically, and legally affiliated with both of the parents.

Even in societies that tolerate pre-marital sex, permit polygamy, or take a relaxed approach to divorce, the basic idea of marriage across time and cultures does not change: for every child, a mother and a father. In spite of all the variations around the world in kinship systems and marriage rules, age at first marriage and rules of consent, some constants recur. Human societies strive to have children affiliated with both their biological parents.  The mother and child unit has universally been considered incomplete, and the sociological position of the father considered indispensable. Universally, that is, up until the last generation in modern western societies.

Marriage is also about sex, not just about friendship. Sexual exclusivity within marriage is the near constant expectation. Adultery is the number one cause of divorce, world-wide. People the world over experience sexual infidelity as devastating. No amount of pro-promiscuity propaganda, or pro-adultery TV programs will change that basic tendency of the human condition. Our opinion-making elites who long for the withering away of monogamy are kidding themselves.

The public opinion-making elites of this country have pretty much decided that same sex marriage is a moral imperative. They believe there are no respectable arguments for preserving marriage as a gender-based social institution. The great American unwashed resist the innovation of same sex marriage only because of hate-filled ignorance or fundamentalist religion, which are interchangeable in the minds of the elite. 

That is why you have heard so little about David Blankenhorn’s new book, The Future of Marriage. Even the human interest story in USA Today was about David, and not his ideas.  Blankenhorn makes a reasoned case, independent of any religious belief,  for marriage as intrinsically a union between opposite sex couples. No one can read this book and believe that only the ignorant or spiteful oppose same sex marriage. An honest engagement with the arguments of this book reveals sophisticated and compelling arguments in favor of marriage. 

Whether you are convinced by Blankenhorn’s arguments or not, the arguments deserve to be considered. The elites hope to kill this book by ignoring it. Don’t let them. Buy the book. Read it. Share it with others.  We need to have an honest discussion about the meaning and The Future of Marriage.

Imus should be fired. And while we are cleaning up the public airways of indecent broadcasting, let's turn off the equally offensive sexist and racist hate-lyrics in much of popular music.

Rutgers Woman’s Basketball Coach C. Vivian Stringer and players shame Imus by appealing to human decency and basic civility.

"After all, the big idea is not to stop gay marriage. The big idea is to stop the erosion of society's most pro-child institution. Gay marriage is only one facet of the larger threat to the institution." David Blankenhorn

The Revolution in Parenthood: The Emerging Global Clash Between Adult Rights and Children’s Needs

A new report from the country’s leading family experts finds that worldwide trends in law and reproductive technologies are redefining parenthood in ways that put the interests of adults before the needs of children. “The two-person mother-father model of parenthood is being changed to meet adults’ rights to children rather than children’s needs to know and be raised, whenever possible, by their mother and father,” according to the report, "The Revolution in Parenthood: The Emerging Global Clash Between Adult Rights and Children’s Needs."

Trends driving the revolution in parenthood include high rates of divorce and single-parent childbearing, the growing use of egg and sperm donors, support for same-sex marriage, increasing interest in group marriage arrangements, and proposals to allow children conceived with the use of sperm and egg donors to have three legal parents.

Moreover, these trends are proceeding at breakneck speed as reproductive technologies advance and new groups demand the right to marry, according to the Commission on Parenthood’s Future, which is releasing the report. For instance, scientific research in Britain and elsewhere with the DNA in eggs and sperm is raising the possibility that children could be born using the genes from just one person, from two same-sex parents, or from three parents.

How Many Mommies Does Heather Have Anyway?

Implementing gay marriage requires a redefinition of parenthood, not just for same sex couples, but for everyone. Spain changed the birth certificates from “father” and “mother” to “Progenitor A” and “Progenitor B.” In Massachusetts, Governor Mitt Romney faced a firestorm of criticism for simply saying that children need a mother and a father. Canada substituted the term, “legal parent” for the term “natural parent.” David Blankenhorn believes this shift is more than a bureaucratic matter.

“Marriage boldly declares: The two of you whose physical union made the baby are simultaneously a social partnership responsible for raising the baby. In this bringing together of male and female, the great beneficiary is the human infant..... Accepting same sex marriage would require us, in our laws and public norms, to disavow the importance of that gift. Instead of seeking to unite the natural and social dimensions of being a parent, gay marriage explicitly requires us to break the two apart– an act of radical disconnection..... In Canada, ...there is no such thing as a natural or biological parent. There are only “legal” parents, which is another way of saying that a parent is whoever the state says is a parent.”

Recently, a Canadian court declared that a child has three legal parents, the biological mother and father, and the mother’s lesbian partner. In the event that this three-way relationship fractures, the state will decide how parental rights will be shared. In the US cases of Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins and In Re the Parentage of L.B., family courts have overridden the wishes of perfectly fit biological mothers and awarded visitation rights to former lesbian partners.

As Blankenhorn puts it, “the sound you hear is the earth shifting.”

Women lose embryo battle

Two women have lost their High Court battle to use their frozen embryos against the will of their former partners.
BBCNews

Send your letter to the editor to feedback@tothesource.org.