Married Rugby Buddies and the Point of Marriage

Did you hear about the two young guys in New Zealand who got married to
enter a contest to win rugby tickets? I wrote about them the other day. The contest was open to married couples. The two guys are not gay, but have been buddies since they were 6 years old.  They got married to be
eligible to enter the contest. Now some gay activists were indignant about this marriage. They claimed that it trivialized marriage itself and made
a mockery of the efforts of gay activists to win marriage equality.  I agree with them, except for this point: removing the gender requirement
already trivialized marriage. But I will not press that point here. I want to ask a different question. Q: Do you or I care whether these two rugby
buddies stay married for a lifetime or divorce next year?  Does the public have any interest whatsoever in the success or failure of this particular
friendship? A: The public has no conceivable interest in what two men do together. Whether they are rugby buddies or golfing buddies or sodomy partners,
the public couldn’t care less. (As a matter of fact, I don’t really want to know!) Why then, does the public have any interest at all in the relationship
called marriage?
The only reason we care about marriage is that children might result from a marriage: vulnerable helpless children, who have rights and entitlements
of their own. The essential public purpose of marriage is to attach mothers and fathers to their children and to one another. Removing the gender requirement
from marriage removes the public purpose from marriage, and replaces it with private purposes, rugby, golf or whatever. There is nothing left of marriage
but a government registry of friendships, as these two nice kids in New Zealand clearly show. Next question: why do we need a government registry of
friendships?  Answer: we don’t.  So, why not abolish marriage?  There are some in the gay activist community who want exactly that outcome. You may say, “but I don’t want that. Marriage equality doesn’t have to mean the abolition of marriage.” But it doesn’t
matter whether you want it or how many other people want it.  What matters is that the abolition of marriage is the next logical step on the Sexual
Revolutionary Road. Removing the gender requirement from marriage creates the cultural momentum that makes this next step pretty much inevitable. But
what about the essential public purpose of marriage?  How will we attach mothers and fathers to their children and to one another?  This
essential purpose will still need to be dealt with somehow. Genderless marriage will mean genderless parenthood.  Redefining marriage will redefine
parenthood. Based on steps that have already been taken, I believe we can safely predict that children will be attached to adults through some combination
of contracts among the adult “intended parents” and judicial discretion to adjudicate those contracts and make assignments of parents. All in the best
interest of the child, no doubt. This is way too much power for the family courts, and way too little protection for the rights and interest of children.