The purpose of the piece was to identify the ways in which the conversation about preserving traditional marriage has become so difficult. For those of us who love civilization, the truth has to be spoken nevertheless.
Defining Marriage and Making Cream Sauce
By Richard G. Wilkins and Linda Nuttall
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We have both written recently on the need to preserve marriage as a sexual union of a man and a woman. One young reader commented that our points were "interesting." She asserted, however, that we would be “creamed” in a debate.
We have engaged in many debates on marriage. We also admit that it is hard to determine who gets “creamed.” But, if we have been “creamed,” it is because the legal constructs surrounding marriage have been rendered unintelligible. Numerous fundamental (and still compelling) arguments in favor of "tradition," "old rules" or "conventional morality" have been reworked, deconstructed and ridiculed to the point that many Americans – and particularly our young people – are embarrassed by the simple suggestion that a case for the classical definition of marriage even exists.
Contempt for marriage abounds. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
No wonder many Americans are fearful to acknowledge that they believe in marriage.
We will try to explain what has been happening by using the image invoked by our young critic – the culinary uses of "cream.” In particular, we will ask whether one must use cream to make a cream sauce. It was once simply accepted that, in order to make a cream sauce, one had to include some cream. Traditional folk, like us, continue to believe that a cream sauce requires the use of cream. But, if homosexual advocates (including an alarming number of judges) were creating the recipe, they would insist that the very notion of equating cream with cream sauce is absurd. In their recipe milk, water or virtually anything else, even tomato paste, will do.
We believe that, once Americans understand the new and unusual recipe now being promoted as the guide for public policy, they will resoundingly support maintaining an institution that reflects the collective wisdom of the ages – an institution that provides the best known environment for the physical, mental, emotional, economic and social development of women, men and children. We believe that it is those who would abandon and drain marriage of all normative force and social meaning, not those who defend it, who now display a “loss of usual or normal mental clarity.”
I. The Post-Modern Cookbook
As with other cooking philosophies, the anti-marriage post-modern recipe requires certain practices or rules. To make post-modern cream sauce, you’re required to follow these three:
First, all ingredients are relative and “everything is equal.” This first rule teaches cooks to value tolerance above all else. In evaluating the utility of possible ingredients in making a cream sauce, no one can properly require cream, because any such insistence impermissibly taints the sauce with intolerance. Any liquid will do.
Second, cooks must accept “what happens.” After all, not all sauces are made with cream. And, since the first rule decrees that ingredients are relative and equal, the second rule renders sauces made with milk or water (or virtually anything) equivalent to cream sauce. Sauces are interchangeable, whatever their intended purpose. Any sauce can be cream sauce.
Finally, ignore differences. It is impolite to notice (and perhaps criminal to discuss) distinctions between sauces made with cream and those made with milk or water or whatever. Yes, even if the sauce is watery or bluish. Such differences must no longer be noticed (at least by civilized society). Reality is reconstructed. A sauce is a cream sauce when (and if) the cookbook’s editorial staff says it is.
This recipe, of course, would hardly impress the vast majority of cooks, or indeed anyone who has tasted real cream sauce. However, post-modern taste is gaining ground with judges and commentators (perhaps because they are principal staff writers for the new cookbook). But this exotic cuisine is also gaining favor with otherwise common-sense Americans who now, oddly enough, wonder whether there is any need for cream in cream sauce.
We believe that cream sauce requires the use of cream. We also believe that marriage requires a man and a woman. Why? Consider how the post-modern cooking rules apply to the traditional recipe for marriage.
Rule 1: Everything is Equal and Distinctions are Hateful
Again, the first rule of all post-modern cooking is simple: ingredients are relative. Cooks must acknowledge, along with cream, the culinary utility of water, milk and vinegar. Insistence upon cream in cream sauce violates the prime directive: tolerance. All liquids are equal.
The same approach is now applied to marriage.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Thus, the first post-modern rule –“equality and tolerance above all” – is exceptionally powerful. Whether or not it turns water into cream, equality and tolerance have transformed the biological facts of reproduction into a modern taboo. Advocating mass murder is less acceptable in civilized circles than arguing in favor of a “destructive stereotype,” but not by much.
No wonder the new cookbook makes defense of marriage difficult and embarrassing. Only the most benighted do it.
Rule 2: Accept and Celebrate Whatever Happens
The second post-modern rule provides that – in light of the wide variety of sauces, ingredients and ways to combine them – neither cooks nor consumers may insist upon particular ingredients (or a combination of ingredients) in any given sauce. Cream sauce may be nice, but it is not the only sauce. Ragout happens.
It certainly does. And so does homosexuality. So what? Are we to believe that simply because it happens, homosexuality is no different from heterosexuality?
Monkeys in zoos and overpopulated rats exhibit homosexual behavior (more likely an act of aggression than sexual orientation, but we’ll grant that the behavior exists in the animal world). Does this really support the argument that homosexuality must be encouraged and celebrated? Other animals eat their young and kill their mates. We still have laws against homicide.
The second rule – accept and celebrate whatever sauce happens – ignores a vitally important question: is there a reason (or reasons) for using cream in cream sauce? In the context of marriage, are there reasons that a marital union requires (and throughout history has been defined as) the union of a man and a woman? Homosexual advocates strenuously wish to avoid this question. Rule two of the new cookbook, combined with rule one, makes avoidance possible.
Rather than focusing on the pragmatic social interests that justify an ancient institution designed (among other things) to restrain sexual impulses within a stable and reproductive sexual union, rule two (accept and celebrate reality) turns everyone’s attention to the unquestionable existence of alternative sexual appetites. At this point, rule one (equality and tolerance) demands that these appetites be accorded full social recognition, acceptance and encouragement.
Thus, under rules one and two, any talk of norms, ideals, social expectations or “what is best” for the rising generation is irrelevant or naïve. Whatever the role of marriage throughout history, and however convincingly modern sociologists demonstrate that the welfare of children is linked to the presence (or absence) of a stable biological relationship with a father and a mother, rules one and two demand recognition of all sexual relationships as marriage. Those who persist in the parochial belief that cream sauce differs from ketchup are either hopelessly intolerant or unconscionably ignorant of reality —they can simply be shouted down.
Or, better yet, they can be referred to rule three.
Rule 3: Disregard any Differences or Reconstruct Reality
In the event that not all are persuaded that “advanced palates” either can’t or shouldn’t distinguish between cream sauce and ketchup, rule three settles the matter. Any possible distinctions must be ignored – even if this requires reconstructing reality.
In Lawrence v. Texas[4] (the recent sodomy case which provided the basis for the Massachusetts Sodom Gomorrah
But more than the Old Testament must be reconstructed in the quest to disregard all traditional rules. Every contrary recipe book has to be thrown out. Taken out back and burned, if necessary.
These traditional recipe books are discarded with cunning subtlety. Modern cooks are reminded again and again that culinary artists throughout history have substituted milk for cream in an occasional sauce. True enough. But no generation of cooks or consumers in history has ever been asked to ignore the differences between sauces made with milk and cream, nor to disregard the consequences of using alternative ingredients in exceptionally important recipes.
We are reminded again and again that Rome Greece Rome Greece
Furthermore, decadence—emphasis on self-indulgence and sensual experience over and above duty—did not enrich the Under rule three, none of the above is relevant to the modern discussion of marriage. All disturbing facts related to homosexuality (e.g., the incredibly high numbers of sexual partners among homosexual males,[8] their shockingly high incidence of physical and mental health problems,[9] and the undeniable linkage between male homosexuality and pedophilia[10]) are dismissed as hateful. History is rewritten, and every other relevant fact is simply ignored.
II. The Taste Test
This is the recipe now being used by courts to make a product infinitely more important than cream sauce. The question is whether this recipe will produce palatable results.
Is marriage a unique and important institution? Or is it nothing more than a consensual relationship between two adults; a name and social status properly applied to all kinds of sexual and emotional associations? The answer, viewed from any historical, anthropological or sociological perspective, is quite clear:
Marriage is more than an emotional and sexual attachment. Much more.
Giambattista Vico, after completing an exhaustive study of ancient history, concluded in 1725 that marriage between a man and a woman is an essential characteristic of civilization. Without strong social norms that encourage a man to direct his sexual attentions to a single woman and thereafter care for their mutual offspring, Vico concluded that chaos ensued. Marriage, he wrote, was the “seed-plot” of society.[11]
British anthropologist J. D. Unwin reached the same conclusion some 200 years later. In his 1934 book, Sex and Culture, Unwin chronicled the historical decline of 86 different cultures. His exhaustive survey revealed that “strict marital monogamy” was central to social energy and growth. Indeed, no society flourished for more than three generations without it. Unwin stated it this way: "In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on prenuptial and postnuptial continence."[12]
In the 21st century, the findings of Vico and Unwin are confirmed by hundreds of sociological studies which document the impact of marital forms and marital dissolution on men, women and children. Those studies speak with a surprisingly uniform voice: enduring marriage between a man and a woman is the best environment for the social, physical, mental, emotional and economic development of men, women and children. Without stable marriage, women suffer, men suffer – and children suffer the most. Every deviation from the ideal model of enduring monogamous marriage between a man and a woman increases the suffering of men, women and children.[13]
Marriage, therefore, is more than an intimate association between two people. It civilizes men. It protects children. It generates social energy. It fosters individual and collective growth. It teaches norms. It creates culture.
Marriage, in short, is not just another sauce.
One wonders how digestible the sauce we’re cooking up will prove in three generations from now. No one should wonder, however, whether the marriage recipe we ultimately follow will affect them.
It will.
Profoundly.
[1] Goodridge v. Department of Health, SJC -08860 (Mass. Supreme Judicial Court November 18, 2003) (legislative “refusal to recognize same-sex marriages ‘works a deep and scarring hardship’ on same-sex families ‘for no rational reason’”) (Reporter’s Synopsis at page one).
[2] http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=irrational
[3] Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, note 1, above, slip opinion at page 15.
[4] No. 02-102 (United States Supreme Court, June 26, 2003 ).
[5] Id.
[6] Dupont, Florence Rome
[7] Gibbon, Edward, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , Vol. 1-6, published in sections in 1776, 1781 and 1788. For Juvenal, see Peter Green, trans., Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires, Penguin Books, 1967, particularly the second satire. For a discussion of Juvenal, see Leland D. Peterson, “Homosexuality & Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ (Ancient Roman Satirist Slams Gays),” New Oxford Review, January 2004. See also Joseph Daniel Unwin, Ph.D., “Sexual Regulations and Cultural Behavior," an address given to the Medical Section of the British Psychological Society, p. 35: “In some cases the modification of absolute monogamy was accompanied by an outburst of homosexuality.... The conclusion suggested by the historical evidence is that homosexuality is a habit that appears in a society, or in a group within the society, that has been absolutely monogamous, and is relaxing. This is how I understand the Roman and Athenian data; and this view of the matter is supported by what has lately been happening among our middle-classes.”
[8]Meyer-Balburg, et. al., “Sexual Risk Behavior, Sexual Functioning and HIV-Disease Progression in Gay Men,” 28 Journal of Sex Research, 1, 3-27 (1991). See also Xiridou, Maria, et al, “The Contribution of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV infection among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam May 2, 2003 . “Those with a steady partner and those without reported having an average of 8 and 22 casual partners per year, respectively.”
[9]Concerning physical health, see, e.g., Hogg, R. S., S. A. Strathdee, K. J. Craib, M. V. O’Shaughnessy, J. S. Montaner, and M. T. Schechter, “Modeling the Impact of HIV Disease on Mortality in Gay and Bisexual Men,” International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 26, 657-662, 1997. “In a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years will not reach their 65th birthday.” Concerning mental health, see, e.g., Theo B. M. Sandfort, De Graaqf, Bilj, and Schable, “Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders: Findings from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study,” 85 (Archives of General Psychiatry 85 (January 2001) (“The findings support the assumption that people with same-sex behavior are at greater risk for psychiatric disorders”); Richard Herrell, et al., “Sexual Orientation and Suicidality,” Archives of General Psychiatry 867 (October 1999) (“Same-gender sexual orientation is significantly associated with each of the suicidality measures” and “is unlikely to be due solely to substance abuse or other psychiatric co-morbidity”); David M. Fergusson, et al., “Is Sexual Orientation Related to Mental Health Problems and Suicidality in Young People?” Archives of General Psychiatry 876 (October 1999) (“Findings support recent evidence suggesting that gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people are at increased risk of mental health problems, with these associates being particularly evident for measures of suicidal behavior and multiple disorder.”) While some may argue that these findings are “caused by society oppression” (J. Michael Bailey, “Homosexuality and Mental Illness,” Archives of General Psychiatry 883 and 884 October 1999), this is not the only possible explanation. The survey of findings from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study found a significant greater risk for psychiatric disorders among homosexuals, even though “the Dutch social climate toward homosexuality has long been and remains considerably more tolerant” than most of the world. Sandfort, et al, above, at 89. Other possible explanations include hypotheses that “homosexuality represents a deviation from normal development and is associated with other such deviations that may lead to mental illness,” and that “increased psychopathology among homosexual people is a consequence of lifestyle differences associated with sexual orientation.” J. Michael Bailey, above, at 884. Also, Sandfort et al., above, at 85-91. (Youth are four times more likely to suffer major depression, also three times as likely to suffer generalized anxiety disorder, nearly four times as likely to experience conduct disorder, four times as likely to commit suicide, five times as likely to have nicotine dependence, six times as likely to suffer multiple disorders, and over six times as likely to have attempted suicide. Additionally, this research originates in the Netherlands
[10]See Baldwin, Steve, “Child Molestation and the Homosexual Movement” and associated notes, 14 Regent University Law Review 267-282 (2001-2002). Baldwin summarizes the research as follows (at 281, footnotes omitted):
Family Research Institute founder and psychologist Paul Cameron, reviewing more than nineteen different academic reports and peer reviewed studies in a 1985 Psychological Reports article, found that homosexuals account for between 25% and 40% of all child molestation. Sex researchers Freund, Heasman, Racansky, and Glancy, for example, in an 1984 Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy article, put the number at 36%. Erickson, Walbek, Sely, in a 1988 Archives of Sexual Behavior article, places it at 86% when the children being molested are male.
However, it should be noted that homosexuals account for only 2% of the population which statistically means that a child molester is ten to twenty times more likely to be homosexual than heterosexual. In other words, heterosexual molestations proportionally are a fraction compared to homosexual molestations. More recent studies confirm this statistic. In 2000, the Archives of Sexual Behavior published an article by seven sex researchers concluding that ‘‘around 25-40% of men attracted to children prefer boys. Thus the rate of homosexual attraction is 6-20 times higher among pedophiles."
See also K. Jay et al, The Gay Report: Lesbians and Gays Speak Out About Sexual Experiences and Lifestyles 275 (1979) (This study by homosexual activists and researchers revealed that 73% of homosexuals surveyed had sex with boys sixteen to nineteen years of age or younger); Eugene Abel et al., “Self-Reported Sex Crimes of Nonincarcerated Pedophiliacs, 2 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 3, 5 (1987) (“Child molestation, by comparison, was a relatively infrequent crime occurring from an average of 23.2 times by a pedophile (nonincest) with female targets to an average of 281.7 times by a pedophile (nonincest) whose targets were males”); R. Blanchard et al, “Fraternal Order and Sexual Orientation in Pedophiles,” 29 Archives Sexual Behav. 464 (2000); K. Freund & R I.
[11] Vico, Giambattista, The New Science, 3rd Edition, trans. by Max Harold Fisch and Thomas Goddard Bergin, paragraphs 10-11: “The first of these [human institutions] was marriage…For marriage, as all statesmen agree, is the seed-plot of the family, as the family is the seed-plot of the commonwealth…”
[12] Unwin, as cited above. In 1935, renowned anthropologist Joseph Daniel Unwin tried to prove that marriage was an irrelevant and even harmful cultural institution. He was forced by the evidence to conclude that only marriage with fidelity, what he called absolute monogamy, would lead to the cultural prosperity of a society. Anything else, such as “domestic partnerships,” would degrade society. The quote in larger context says this:
“The evidence was such as to demand a complete revision of my personal philosophy; for the relationship between the factors seemed to be so close, that, if we know what sexual regulations a society has adopted, we can prophesy accurately the pattern of its cultural behavior... (p.5).
“Now it is an extraordinary fact that in the past sexual opportunity has only been reduced to a minimum by the fortuitous adoption of an institution I call absolute monogamy. This type of marriage has been adopted by different societies, in different places, and at different times. Thousands of years and thousands of miles separate the events; and there is no apparent connection between them. In human records, there is no case of an absolutely monogamous society failing to display great [cultural] energy. I do not know of a case on which great energy has been displayed by a society that has not been absolutely monogamous…(pp.31-32).
“If, during or just after a period of [cultural] expansion, a society modifies its sexual regulations, and a new generation is born into a less rigorous [monogamous] tradition, its energy decreases... If it comes into contact with a more vigorous society, it is deprived of its sovereignty, and possibly conquered in its turn (p.21).
“It seems to follow that we can make a society behave in any manner we like if we are permitted to give it such sexual regulations as will produce the behavior we desire. The results should begin to emerge in the third generation ( p.45).
“Now it is an extraordinary fact that in the past sexual opportunity has only been reduced to a minimum by the fortuitous adoption of an institution I call absolute monogamy. This type of marriage has been adopted by different societies, in different places, and at different times. Thousands of years and thousands of miles separate the events; and there is no apparent connection between them. In human records, there is no case of an absolutely monogamous society failing to display great [cultural] energy. I do not know of a case on which great energy has been displayed by a society that has not been absolutely monogamous…(pp.31-32).
“If, during or just after a period of [cultural] expansion, a society modifies its sexual regulations, and a new generation is born into a less rigorous [monogamous] tradition, its energy decreases... If it comes into contact with a more vigorous society, it is deprived of its sovereignty, and possibly conquered in its turn (p.21).
“It seems to follow that we can make a society behave in any manner we like if we are permitted to give it such sexual regulations as will produce the behavior we desire. The results should begin to emerge in the third generation ( p.45).
[13] The assertions in this paragraph concerning the benefits of marriage can be found, along with additional details and references to specific studies, in “Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-One Conclusions from the Social Sciences,” 2002, Institute for American Values, available at www.americanvalues.org .
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