Fairness and the core meaning of marriage

Recommended reading: Check out the comments of fellow Opiners, RK and Fitz, in the discussion beneath the blogpost by an SSMer who guest blogs at Family Scholars Blog.

See:
http://familyscholars.org/2012/02/02/on-the-core-of-marriage/#comments

RK's comment [02.08.2012 at 10:20] thoroughly answered the pro SSM notion that there can be no core meaning of marriage (or even that a core would be undesirable anyway). The analogy regarding boundaries works well.

Fannie's comment section closed without her addressing RK's comment.

Fitz's comment [02.05.202 at 7:48] was short and sweet and highly effective.

RK and Fitz were joined by Daughter of Eve (familiar to Opine readers). In addition to her two very reasonable comments [02.05.2012 at 7:48 and 02.08.2012 at 10:20], take note of the pro SSM commenter Tristian's accurate representation of the pro marriage notion of dealing with different types of relationships [02.02.2012 at 4:25]. Unlike Fannie, Tristian at least acknowledged this legitimate point of our argumentation.

Each of these comments hits on the principle of fairness which calls on us to not treat people differently arbitrarily AND to not treat people the same arbitrarily.

SSMers generally rely on turning the first part of that principle against the second part or just neglecting the whole of the principle. But this principle of fairness does not contradict itself the way that SSMers routinely claim when they call for fairness.

They invoke fairness to draw upon the moral feeling that defends against unjust treatment. But the defense of marriage invokes the two-part principle which draws upon this moral feeling too.

The latter is a coherent appeal to both reason and feeling.

The former ends up depending on the feeling invoked by a half-truth  and thus contradicts the application of fairness and misleads the moral feeling closely aligned with fairness. That arbitrary call on feelings would openly set moral feeling against the full principle of fairness. Indeed SSM rhetoric leads SSM argumentation by the nose such that we are urged to follow our feelings rather than reason. That is not the basis for legitimate lawmaking.

I think each of the comments that I have recommended here applies that principle in a coherent and reasonably stated account that is morally and intellectually serious. And understandable. I think, it is at once convincing (a right appeal to reason) and persuasive (a right appeal to feeling). But for SSMers it ought to be understandable at the very least.

There is no excuse for Fannie to continue to claim she cannot understand that much. She cannot reasonably revert to the comfort of ignorance-is-bliss. She cannot deny there is a conflict between the SSM idea and the marriage idea. She all but acknowledged it when she responded to comments by David Blankenhorn.

She may be inching toward the actual disagreement.