Is Marriage Worth the Fight? by David Carlin

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By David Carlin, The Catholic Thing, March 3, 2023

David Carlin is a retired professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island, and the author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America and, most recently, Three Sexual Revolutions: Catholic, Protestant, Atheist.

In June of 2015, the Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, declared that the U.S. Constitution contains a right to same-sex marriage (SSM). Immediately, any and all laws to the contrary became unconstitutional.

Here is the question I wish to address today: From this day forward what should be the attitude of American Catholics toward SSM? Should we acknowledge that we have lost the fight, and move on to other things? Or should we keep up the fight, hoping that someday we can not only reverse Obergefell, but re-enact laws in at least some states restricting marriage to one man and one woman?

I say we should do the latter, and this for two reasons. First, SSM tends to delegitimize the traditional institution of marriage; and since the primary social utility of that institution is to provide for the well-being of growing children, such delegitimization puts children at grave and multiple risks. …

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