There is no national interest worth preserving, when the life of the nation increasingly is at odds with the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God. In preserving the sanctity of marriage in America, and even more so in preserving our sense of what makes marriage really sacred in every society, we are pursuing our national interest at home.
In thinking about the various marriage amendments that are circulating now in a number of States, including SB 1250 in the Pennsylvania State Senate, I am reminded of the insight of the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain on love: “We do not love qualities; we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as their qualities.” Since we understand marriage in our modern society as primarily an expression of lifelong love between two people, we really cannot consider this political debate without thinking on love itself. Otherwise, the posturing and sloganeering on both sides are eerily removed from the real experience of people and just another bombast in an ongoing culture war.
Indeed, when marriage is just another frontline in the culture war, played out as debates between “talking heads” on cable news shows, or as noisy demonstrations in front of the State courthouses that are reinventing the law on marriage, it loses its intrinsic sanctity, its resonance with what transcends the normal affairs of men. In a word, marriage itself becomes mundane; and that is exactly what the leftist revisionists want.
We traditionalists can and must remain loud and defiant in defense of marriage, but we must not lose sight of its sanctity in how we articulate our political defense of this most sacred institution. Certainly, we must not follow the lead of the revisionists and degrade marriage into a this-worldly relationship emerging only out of a shared sentiment. When Maritain talks about loving someone by reason of ones defects, he is not talking about sentimental love, since there are few good or romantic feelings in thinking of the defects of another. Really, he is addressing that deeper love, born out of remaining committed, even when the sentiments have subsided altogether.
Why love someone, when you no longer even like her? Because the commitment speaks to a reality much larger than what may be known here and now. It is a sign of the love of God for His people, the enduring commitment, even when one has fallen from the vows. It is a sign of the real uniqueness of that relationship, as a man and a woman know one another exclusively. It is a sign of how God in love is sharing Himself with what is other than Himself, as the man differs from the woman, and the woman from the man.
If marriage is not such a sign, then there is no good reason for denying the license to any number or assortment of persons who may want to obtain one. It is then just a contract, or a series of tax breaks offered by the State, rather than a reminder that God expresses His enduring commitment to His people in love.
The real aim of the revisionists in degrading marriage into nothing more than a contract among sentimentalists is to remove God from the scene. First, remove the sign; and then the memory of how God loves His people will fade in time.
Soon, voters in Pennsylvania will be choosing among two, leftist Democrats over who should hold the mantle of Democrat, anti-marriage secularism in the November election. The campaign is just noise, a forgettable tryst of accusations and defenses. In the end, it is all much ado about nothing, since both Clinton and Obama are committed to the anti-marriage agenda of the radical left. Both will appoint justices of the legal mindset of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and in so doing both will work to undo the sacredness of marriage itself.
The real battle will be waged in how we rear and educate our children, in how we sustain our traditions in our churches and synagogues, and in how we defeat the anti-marriage cabal in one State after another. The Clinton and Obama spectacle makes for good radio and television, but really it is a sideshow in the culture war. It is my hope that, as millions of good people go to the polls in Pennsylvania and elsewhere over the next few months, they keep in mind that the real decision is in what they are electing to do in their own homes every day. It is in that arena that marriage will be saved or fall by the wayside.
