Marriage itself doesn’t transform anyone. But being responsible does.
I see that the responsibility a same-sex couple feels can transform “whether hetero or homo sexual couples”. But I see marriage as more than loving who you wish, but encouraging that humility, responsibility, and growth to the effect of channeling my support to those that most deserve it. If I don’t, the marriage doesn’t last.
See, I am married. I’m in a marriage that has been tested by near bankruptcy, mental illness (hence the medical bills that nearly bankrupted us), etc… And the particular mental illness is more of an indication that a marriage will not last than alchoholism or even schizophrenic paranoia.
Or marriage has barely survived long periods of separation and near divorce.
The only thing as far as I can tell that saved the marriage is that we learned to take responsibility, we may not be able to change how we feel but we need to take responsibility for our feelings. We may not be able to change our spouse, but we need to take responsibility for them anyway — for the sake of their entitlement to my support and my efforts to help them.
And that responsibility means sticking out a situation that you might otherwise just cut losses and run because the person you devoted yourself to doesn’t have that choice.
Marriage transformed me. Because my devotion to my spouse and children left me no other option but to find a way to make it work, to find a way against a selfish nature to provide for others anyway.
Now my wife and I have a great marriage, because of the transformation we’ve made in that crucible of our mutual issues.
I appreciate that the same principles are at work in any devoted relationship. A also appreciate that marriage is not about loving whomever you wish, but respecting and loving and being held responsible to and by the person you created children with as well as the children themselves.
And while marriage means that, people entering into it can find that same transformation. When marriage means any two people can raise that child as well as you, when marriage means that you can’t love your spouse if you are not sexually attracted to them, then that same call for responsibility and subsequent transformation is lost.
And that is the problem with neutered marriage. Even though a same-sex relationship could have some transformation from the devotion that a married couple have, it encourages sexual freedom. It undermines the very thing it holds up as the social value one should place in it.
Because if any two people can raise a child as well as you, if it doesn’t matter if they have a father and a mother, if it doesn’t matter unless you are sexually attracted to your partner, then any call to responsibility is purely coincidental.
And how do I know this? How many advocates of neutering marriage have tried to tell me that I can still be married — even though the government no longer recognizes marriage as being about responsible procreation, and even can’t. They are telling me that any more adherence to the same devotion that transformed my life will be a purely coincidental and private matter.
People who get married may not be ready for all it entails, so we better teach them that their marriage must have the devotion and responsibility that it will take for the transformations that need to take place for them to be able to fulfill all it entails.
So even if same-sex forms of commitment are to adhere to the transforming principles I learned in marriage, it needs to practice it by recognizing the unique position of responsibility the two people who create a child have towards that child, which means recognizing marriage as being between those two people who potentially create a child together. But it would also lend to support for any adult mutual trust and domestic dependency through its own program.
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