Abstract
In “What is Marriage?” (2010), Girgis et al. explain how the legal redefinition of the traditional meaning of marriage would erode not only the institution, but also the common good. More importantly, they argue that there are principled reasons why the law should distinguish conjugal and revisionist conceptions of unions and retain the conjugal meaning of “marriage.” However their arguments I argue are problematic. Retrieving their insights, I develop a different argument on behalf of their case. By examining phenomenologically the dynamism of the life-world of relationships under the “conjugal” and the “revisionist” conceptions of marriage, rather than the physics of coitus and same sex activity, I argue that there is a distinct difference between the two types of unions. Also, conjugal unions matures us so that we can become other-caring persons, with civilizing effects that trickle outwards into the community from the core of a conjugal family unit. I conclude that the law should retain the traditional meaning of “marriage” to include only conjugal unions, in order to point to these instead of others, with the social and civilizing benefits these unions entail when young men and women aspire to and attain these.
Acknowledgements
Aspects of this paper were revised while I was a Visiting Research Scholar at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, and a Visiting Academic at the Institute of Education (IOE), London in June 2013 and June 2014. I am grateful to Blackfriars and the IOE for hosting me. I am also thankful to Susan Petrilli’s invitation to write for this volume, and for the opportunity to work out some of my thoughts on legal discourse, natural law theory, and signs in the context of the same-sex marriage debate.
References
Anderson, Leon. 2006. Analytic autobiography. Journal of contemporary ethnography 35(4). 373–395.10.1177/0891241605280449Search in Google Scholar
Bamforth, Nicholas & David A. Richards. 2008. Patriarchal religion, sexuality, and gender: A critique of new natural law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511550942Search in Google Scholar
Chua, Soo Meng Jude. 2009. Regulating “marriage”: Public education and the design of terms in social policies. Angelicum 86. 951–966.Search in Google Scholar
Chua, Soo Meng Jude. 2011. A thomistic defense of conservative sexual education. Angelicum 88. 979–996.Search in Google Scholar
Chua, Soo Meng Jude. 2013a. Reorganising schools as social enterprises: Play schools and gifted education. In T. B. Mooney & M. Nowacki (eds.), Aquinas, education, and the east, 163–177. Netherlands: Springer.10.1007/978-94-007-5261-0_10Search in Google Scholar
Chua, Soo Meng Jude. 2013b. Significal design: Translating for meanings that truly matter. Semiotica 196(1/4). 353–364.10.1515/sem-2013-0064Search in Google Scholar
Finnis, John. 1993. Personal integrity, sexual morality and responsible parenthood. In Janet Smith (ed.), Why humane vitae is right: A reader, 173–191. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press.Search in Google Scholar
Finnis, John. 1998. Aquinas. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Finnis, John. 2008. Marriage: A basic and exigent good. The Monist 91. 388–406.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199580071.003.0021Search in Google Scholar
Freeman, Mark. 2006. Autobiographical understanding and narrative inquiry. In J. Clandinin (ed.), Handbook of narrative inquiry: Mapping a methodology, 120–145. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.10.4135/9781452226552.n5Search in Google Scholar
Girgis, Sherif, Robert P. George & Ryan Anderson. 2010. What is marriage? Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 34(1). 245–287.Search in Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. 1997. Phenomenological interpretation of Kant’s Critique of pure reason, P. Emad & K. Maly (trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.10.2307/j.ctvt1sh04Search in Google Scholar
Koppelman, Andrew. 2014. Judging the case against same sex marriage. University of Illinois law review 431(2). 432–464. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2257557 (accessed 2 December 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Koppelman, Andrew. 2010. What marriage isn’t. http://balkin.blogspot.sg/2010/12/what-marriage-isnt.html (accessed 2 December 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther. 2000. Design and transformation: New theories of meaning. In Bill Cope & Mary Kalantzis (eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures, 153–161. New York: RoutledgeSearch in Google Scholar
Lee, Patrick & Robert P. George. 2007. Body-self dualism in contemporary ethics and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511509643Search in Google Scholar
Lee, Patrick, Robert P. George & Gerard V. Bradley. 2011a. Marriage and procreation: The intrinsic connection. Public Discourse. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/03/2638/ (accessed 2 December 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Lee, Patrick, Robert P. George & Gerard V. Bradley. 2011b. Marriage and procreation: Avoiding bad arguments. Public Discourse. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/03/2637/ (accessed 2 December 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Marion, Jean Luc. 1991. God without being, Thomas A. Carlson (trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar
Mitcham, Carl. 2002. Do artifacts have dual natures? Two points of commentary on the Delft Project. Techné 6(2). 93–95.10.5840/techne2002623Search in Google Scholar
Petrilli, Susan. 2009. Signifying and understanding: Reading the works of Victoria Welby and the signific movement. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyer.10.1515/9783110218510Search in Google Scholar
Petrilli, Susan. 2010. Sign crossroads in global perspective: Semioethics and responsibility. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.Search in Google Scholar
Petrilli, Susan & Augusto Ponzio. 2001. Thomas Sebeok and the signs of life. Cambridge, UK: Icon.10.5840/ajs200117484Search in Google Scholar
Sheehan, Thomas. 1985. Metaphysics and bivalence: On Karl Rahner’s Geist in Welt. Modern Schoolman 58. 21–43.10.5840/schoolman19856312Search in Google Scholar
Wolter, Allan B. 1990. The philosophical theology of John Duns Scotus. New York: Cornell University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Yoshino, Kenji. 2010. The best argument against gay marriage. And why it fails. Slate. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2010/12/the_best_argument_against_gay_marriage.html (accessed 2 December 2015).Search in Google Scholar
©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
