In a rare moment of imbalance, there was a bit of three-against-one on today’s Editors episode. The topic? The Respect for Marriage Act. Rich, Maddy, and Michael are completely against it, but Charlie has a different perspective.
As he puts it: “I would not have voted for this bill because it lacked the conscience and religious-liberty protections that I think are imperative and that I would like to see attached not only to every bill that pertains to same-sex marriage but attached to every bill.” According to him, “The question of marriage and its definition — within the realm of government — is open to legislatures.” “My objection — my strong objection — to the decisions in Windsor and then Obergefell was that the Court took this issue away from the federal legislature and the 50 state legislatures. The 14th Amendment does not preempt this question. It is ridiculous to suggest otherwise. But as somebody who has for a long time, and I wrote my book including this argument I think eight years ago now, been fine with governments recognizing gay marriage providing that the dissenters are in no way affected, I would have had no objections to the federal legislature including within its legal definition gay couples as happened here. . . .”
Rich pitches it to Michael, pressing him on why he believes Charlie’s point is wrong. “Because same-sex marriages aren’t marriages, right?” he said. “We discussed this on his podcast, but I believe it’s a category error that marriage exists not just to license the desires and sexual partnerships of two individuals. It exists because all children have a mother and a father, not because all straight couples are necessarily fertile or will produce children in marriage but because it’s an institution that helps join children to their natural mother and father and to the dense network of family and obligations around them.”
He adds, “With same-sex marriage entered into the institution now, you actually see the kind of reverse process where same-sex marriage legitimates itself also with children, but it has to be children that are separated necessarily from at least one biological parent. So in a sense, it reverses what marriage existed to do. Marriage used to exist to provide for children and to prevent the creation of orphans and bastards. Now, you have a marriage that in a sense hastens the expansion of a market.”
Charlie doesn’t completely disagree with Michael, but he wants the question to be broken down more and reminds listeners that the issue is legally complex: “I just think that the question can be separated out into what churches are required to do, what dissenters are required to do, and what the government does within a web of big government that is highly complex.” He doesn’t believe we can get the government out of marriage completely, saying that, “Unfortunately, when I started thinking about that when I was writing my book, it’s pretty much impossible without getting rid of most of the functions of the modern government which, at least for now, we’re not going to do.”
Maddy has some pushback of her own to Charlie’s points, and the discussion is deep and multifaceted. Listen below for the full conversation.