Have you ever felt like you were having one conversation while
the person you were talking to is having a different one? If you’re
married, the answer is probably yes. So it is with the debate in
America over the meaning and purpose of marriage. Conservatives
think they are in a boxing match; liberals understand that marriage
policy is a beauty pageant.
In their new book
What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, Sherif Girgis,
Ryan T. Anderson and Robert P. George expand on the argument that
first appeared in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public
Policy in 2011. The book is a smart move, signaling an
important recognition: most of us don’t read the Harvard
Journal of Law & Public Policy. The argument is
too important to merely pinball around the Ivy League, and the book
expands the argument while making it easier to understand and more
accessible to average readers. What is Marriage is
required reading for serious thinkers in public policy, philosophy,
ethics, ministry and the law.
What is Marriage is what’s called a “natural law”
argument. It makes no claim about the morality of homosexuality. It
doesn’t have to. The authors explain that marriage is
something and that something simply can’t be changed without
fundamentally altering the nature of things. It’s like this: We all
remember the atomic structure of water (H2O). If ones adds a third
hydrogen atom, it ceases to be water. That reality requires no
judgment about the morality of Hydronium (H3O). It’s the way things
are. Marriage too has an innate, natural essence; hence, the
relevance of “natural law.”
George is one of America’s most formidable conservative
thinkers. You may not know it, but if you’re a conservative in
America today you have been influenced by and benefitted from his
work, which ranges from legal theory to bioethics and foreign
policy. George holds a prestigious chair at Princeton University,
with academic posts at Stanford and Harvard along with innumerable
positions on boards and commissions, including the American
Enterprise Institute. Not convinced? How about this: Ted Cruz, the
newest senator from Texas, studied under Robby George.
His co-authors are two of his students, and they aren’t exactly
slouches either, unless you consider winning a Rhodes Scholarship
and then simultaneously pursuing a Ph.D from Princeton and J.D.
from Yale lazy. That’s Girgis. Ryan Anderson is the William E.
Simon Fellow in Religion and Free Society at the Heritage
Foundation, the editor of the online journal Public Discourse, and
a Ph.D candidate at Notre Dame. If his name sounds familiar, it’s
because he has written for everyone, including First Things,
National Review, the Weekly Standard and
Christianity Today.
It is difficult to estimate the importance of a book like
What is Marriage. It takes time for ideas to take root and
flower. Someday, it is my hope that we will look back at the
history of marriage in America and see that What is
Marriage provided the intellectual foundation for a generation
of policymakers, pastors and parents who kept America’s family
policy on course when it was in deep danger of running into the
ditch. Girgis, Anderson, and George filed an amicus brief
based on the book in the upcoming Supreme Court cases on Prop 8 and
the Defense of Marriage Act. If just five members of the Court are
persuaded, that’s a mighty contribution.
One thing does seem clear at this point: What
is Marriage has had little influence in the populist movement
for gay marriage. While their natural law argument has been taken
on by a handful of academic elites and been debated on the college
circuit, a survey of gay rights blogs shows little engagement with
the ideas. Girgis, Anderson, and George are ignored by the gay
rights movement – not because the arguments deserve to be ignored –
but because the gay marriage movement will brook no real discussion
of this issue. These authors challenge the narrative of traditional
marriage supporters as bigots and idiots. Why should the activists
enter a debate with three formidable intellectuals when they seem
to be winning by simply invoking words like “justice” and
“equality?”
Proponents of traditional marriage must realize that we are not
engaged in an honest intellectual debate aimed at the discovery of
truth. Politics has always been downstream from culture, but long
gone are the days of Lincoln v. Douglas, Keynes v. Hayek, and
Buckley v. Everybody. We are no longer a nation engaged in a
rigorous debate about ideas; we are a country of cast members whose
leaders vie for top billing. It’s not an intellectual boxing match,
it’s a beauty contest. What is Marriage is essential for
those engaged in the earnest pursuit of truth and the common good,
but much more is needed in a culture in which Lady Gaga is a
cultural icon.
Jesus was a smart man. He once commanded his followers to be
“innocent as doves, and shrewd as serpents.” In the marriage
debate, this means being more attractive than the other
contestant.
Recently, I heard a pastor say, “argumentation is not
persuasion.” Making your case does not mean you win over the
judges. Politicians, pastors, and other culture leaders who expect
to win solely on the basis of data, philosophy, and fidelity to
scripture are shadowboxing. We will defeat gay rights activists on
paper every time, but lose the issue. Philosophers need to do good
philosophy, and theologians good theology, but you and I need to
perform well at our tasks: as artists, and musicians, and public
speakers, and all the rest. The answer isn’t less academics, it’s
more of everything.
We must condescend to our place on stage in the national beauty
contest. The opinion of the majority is fickle, their understanding
no deeper than an average episode of Glee. Trying to
explain the intellectual architecture of the natural law case for
marriage doesn’t work in line at the grocery store or in a Facebook
comment. The few of us who read What is Marriage must take
on the task of translation and presentation in compelling,
accessible bits. Read the book to learn the arguments and then do
your part to pass them along to friends and neighbors. Why does
marriage matter? Because whatever your opinion of homosexuality,
kids deserve both a mom and a dad. That’s What is Marriage
distilled. It’s a point that resonates with human instinct. Heck,
even President Obama
acknowledges it.
Winning the pageant should involve many more such talking
points, with a renewed commitment to storytelling through web
films, infographics, and music. Scholars like Girgis, Anderson and
George have given us some terrific tools. Now we must contribute,
with a smile on our faces and love in our hearts, readily willing
to move on when the other person is unwilling to engage. There are
300 million judges in this beauty contest, and we each have a part
to play in reaching them.
