Uh-oh. I see where Newsweek is oppressing poor conservative Christians by running a big piece on “The religious case for gay marriage”:

Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. “It is better to marry than to burn with passion,” says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.

And hell, that’s just the opening two grafs.

Religious right types, as you might imagine, are all bent out of shape. But I’m struck by the assertion that cultural conservatives are not relying solely or largely on the Bible for their main justifications:

“The arguments that are used are often not biblical arguments. They are secular arguments, arguing about marriage as being a civic and a social institution, and that societies have a right to define marriage,” Land said. Broadening the definition of marriage could “shatter” the social role married couples have traditionally played, he said.

Well, it’s correct to say that the religious right deploys these arguments.

The problem is that these arguments are extraordinarily weak and unconvincing.

We’ve gotten into this before (and that’s an understatement); but: How does two gay people getting married in any way undermine your heterosexual marriage?

Does it devalue it? But in whose eyes? And in whose world does permitting gays to get married somehow make your own union so worthless as to not be worth preserving?

How does it “shatter the role married couples have traditionally played?” If we’re talking about societal roles - parents at PTO, neighborhood groups that clean up the local park - couldn’t permitting gays to marry, in fact, enhance that?

I agree wholeheartedly with those who say marriage has been a building block of civilization, our own civilization. That’s because marriage involves a commitment to another person - and often, a community. People marry, buy homes, have kids and take an interest in those kids lives. They become involved in community organizations; they take care of their homes; they make the schools, the neighborhoods, a better place to be.

But why is it we think this is only valid where we’re talking a union of one man and one woman?

Conservatives want to talk about the “purpose” of marriage, but that’s purely a theological argument. From a societal standpoint, we need no “purpose”; but we might be cognizant of the benefit - greater social stability. And to expand access to the institution may well produce greater social stability. Do we want more people to make a commitment to one another and their communities, or not?

The religious right’s secular case against gay marriage is a cul-de-sac. Actually, they’re better off with the religious arguments; and Larison makes one of the most interesting:

Procreation is an important part of that purpose, and joining two people from different sexes in complementary relationship is another, but beyond that it is a vocation to unite oneself to a person radically different from oneself. The uniting of complementary opposites as a type of the unity between Christ and His Church is one of the mystical meanings of marriage. The Christian conception of marriage is of two people joined into one flesh, the full expression of which is a child.

Sure, I’ll buy that argument - but not that a pluralistic society should be crafting law on the basis of conservative Christian “mysticism.”

And doesn’t this devalue this devalue the marriages of those who either don’t have - or can’t have - kids?