Procreation, Yet Again

Rob Tisinai has a post at BTB on this post by Robert John Araujo, SJ, attacking Lawrence Tribe on the Constitutional inevitability of same-sex marriage in the U.S. Aside from the somewhat bizarre assertion that "natural law" is the basis of America's founding documents, which, frankly, I find more than a little suspect,* the core of Araujo's argument turns out to be nothing more than "procreation," advanced in this "scientific argument":

Let us assume that two planets which have not yet been inhabited by humans are to be colonized by them; on Planet Alpha, heterosexual couples only are assigned; on Planet Beta, only homosexual couples. In one hundred years, will both islands be populated assuming that reproductive technologies are not available to either group? I suggest that Planet Alpha will be; but Planet Beta will not. Why? The basic answer is to be found in the biological complementarity of the heterosexual couple necessary for procreation that is absent in same-sex couple. This is a scientific argument, but perhaps it is, in Tribe’s estimation, counterfeit.

Araujo's argument doesn't even make it to "counterfeit," and it's certainly not scientific -- it's a fantasy that has no bearing on the question of the validity of same-sex marriage. First, let's get one thing clear: gays are not sterile, and there are plenty of them who have fathered or borne children. (And yes, I am including lesbians in this mix, although I'm not convinced that Araujo has considered that.) There are even cases of lesbian couples who have asked gay male friends to be sperm donors. (And lest there be objections on the "reproductive technologies" front, I'm including the original, hot-and-sweaty form of donating sperm.)

Second, Araujo's discussion is, I think, very revealing of the kind of sleight of hand so often used in the procreation argument: what is the key role of parents in regard to children -- creating them or rearing them? You'll note that the two are always conflated in the anti-SSM arguments, but they're not the same thing at all. After all, you don't need a license to make babies -- just ask anyone in Texas who has been through the "abstinence only" sex education course. I suggest that the essential component of marriage in regard to children is to provide a stable, safe home environment where they can be nurtured and brought up as secure, self-confident and self-reliant adults, and that, based on actual scientific evidence, gay couples are just as capable of doing that as are straight couples.

And let me point out that Araujo's "scientific" argument betrays a depressingly condescending attitude toward love, sex, marriage, and people in general, implicit in the dictum that marriage is for procreation. I read that as an assertion that people are breeding stock, sex is a mechanical act directed toward reproduction, and marriage is the means of identifying whose children are whose. (Meaning, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, who their father is; mothers don't count for much in that world view.)

There's a lot more to sex than making babies, but I'll grant that most of it may elude those who, at least in theory, are celibate. Sex is also about bonding, reinforcing those emotional connections that underlie what we call "love," a way of sharing yourself with that one person who means the world to you, a way of building trust and empathy. And it feels good, which, after all, is why people do it. (And that is not a selfish thing at all -- one of the joys of sex is giving your partner the same pleasure that you are feeling.)

All in all, this is a good example of the "angels on the head of a pin" school of theology. I'm pretty sure that anyone who thinks about it for a couple of minutes will see through it.

Tisinai's post is titled "The Stoner Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage," and it's a hoot. Read it. And note: Prof. Robert George has advanced essentially the same argument, just as badly reasoned, but dressed up in flowery speculations about "mystical unions" and the like, which Tisinai has also disassembled. I noted his series here.

* The United States of America is a child of the Enlightenment, and its founding documents -- the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution -- were written by a group of men most of whom regarded organized religion with deep distrust. I suspect we're seeing something of a bait-and-switch here -- the Catholic doctrine of "natural law," which is entirely a human construct that has no basis in nature whatsoever, is not something that they would have based anything on. But it sounds good, doesn't it?