As in many countries before it, the
Finnish parliament recently passed a law making same-sex marriage possible,
based on a citizens’ initiative (this was the first time a citizens’ initiative
succeeded in becoming law). The margins were narrow, there was serious
opposition to the law in several parties, most of all among the Christian
Democrats. (The law may yet be overturned by the next parliament).
A
recurrent argument, or slogan, of the opponents of the reform, was “Marriage is
between a man and a woman”.
I
find this an interesting formulation. It is hard to pin down how it is to be understood.
Even so, I think it would be wrong to conclude that it is a meaningless claim,
or to argue that it shows that opponents of the reform are thoughtless. This is
so even though I do not agree with them (I was one of those who signed the
initiative). In political debates one should resist the temptation to think that
logic is on one’s side. Thinking that it is is (normally) an indication that one
has misconstrued one’s opponents’ position.
Clearly,
the intended force of “Marriage is between a man and a woman” can’t be that of
a definition. The fact that a linguistic convention exists does not preclude going
against it. (Legal terminology, in particular, is not necessarily bound by common
usage.) Furthermore, as a description of an existing linguistic convention the
claim would not even be true. The word “marriage” has traditionally been employed
in speaking about polygamous relations. In fact, one would be unable to explain
what “polygamy” means without allowing for the conceptual possibility of a marriage
involving something other than one man and one woman. And, of course, the word is
now being employed in speaking about same-sex marriages with regard to all
those countries in which the practice has been instituted.
(Neither,
of course, can the point simply be that of asserting a fact of history: “up
until now, marriage in our culture has always been between a man and a woman.”
Using that as an argument would entail that change in itself is a bad thing, which would of course be
nonsense.)
It
may seem more plausible to interpret the claim as saying “Marriage ought only to be between a man and a
woman”. But that reading would hardly satisfy those who advance the claim,
since it would then reduce it to an expression of opinion. It would be a way of
marking where the speaker stands, but that by itself entails acknowledging that
other stands are possible. In other words, it would push the position out into
the arena of argument and counter-argument, but I do not believe that is true
to the intention of those who voice the claim: they wish to claim a sort of necessity
for their position, they consider the supporters of same-sex marriage to be not
so much mistaken as confused.
It
should be pointed out that opinions among the opponents to the law are quite
varied. Some of them would grant the same legal rights to registered same-sex
couples as to married couples; in effect, they simply want to reserve the word “marriage”
for heterosexual couples. (This is not to say that the disagreement is simply
verbal for them.) This is the position, for instance, of the Finnish president,
Sauli Niinistö (who can voice his opinion but has no power over legislation).
(At
the same time Niinistö, like many others, does slip into argument, claiming
that the reform should have been resisted because the idea of same-sex marriage
offends people’s sensibilities. One should note, first of all, that this does
not explain what is meant by the slogan “Marriage is between a man and a woman”.
It is rather an argument for the position that marriage ought to be only for a man and a woman. One should also note that
this argument has a false ring of neutrality about it. To say that a practice
offends somebody’s sensibility is to bestow some degree of legitimacy on the
reaction – as distinct from saying that a way of behaving irritates or angers or
disgusts people – the latter would not be adduced as grounds for outlawing a
practice. Again, most of us would frown upon someone who said, for instance, that
interracial marriage might offend people’s sensibilities; we wouldn’t consider that
an acceptable way of describing people’s resentment. Clearly those who invoke people’s
sensibilities in connection with same-sex marriage consider the negative attitude
acceptable, whether or not they share it. --- In some countries appeals are
made to the Bible, but this would not carry much weight in most European
countries. Aside from parties like the Christian Democrats in Finland, there is
a large consensus that religion and public decision-making should be kept separate.)
What
makes the proposition “Marriage is between a man and a woman” philosophically
interesting is that it shows that people may say things that do not fit into
any of the standard categories philosophers commonly use in classifying
utterances. It is neither the expression of a linguistic convention, nor a statement
of empirical fact, nor a normative claim. One might say it is an attempt to express
the essence of marriage, to say what
a real marriage is. Some people will agree
and others won’t. There seems not to be any argumentative “solution” to the disagreement.
(In
this respect I see an analogy here with the disagreement about capital
punishment. Some people think, as I do, that it is a form of murder, others think
of it as a form of punishment that may occasionally be justified. But I do not think
there is anything that the latter have overlooked. They are not victims of
sloppy thinking. They are simply wrong – that is my conviction.)
