The reproductive system of male and female can effect the relationship of a marriage in terms of fertility. Fertility can cause joy and pain, for example, joy with the birth or conception of a child and pain if a couple or one of the couple are found to be infertile.
Fertility is a non-issue for same-sex couples. Therefore is it 'equal marriage' if a couple of different genders can achieve something that same-sex couples cannot - reproduction? Surely it is not and therefore cannot be called marriage because we are dealing with a different category of human relationship. Indeed, the Catholic Church would say that we are dealing here with a disordered sexual relationship, but, for same-sex couples, the opposite situation arises. The reproductive system of the couple - be they male and male or female and female - are never involved in the sexual union.
So we see that 1 man + 1 woman = new life in most cases, since even if they contracept, the removal of the contraceptive option allows the possibility of new life that they had hitherto been wilfully impeding.
1 man + 1 man or 1 woman + 1 woman = no new life in every case without exception.
So how can we use the same word to describe these two unions. It makes no sense unless you want to dismantle the meaning of the original word.
A same-sex couple could indeed adopt a child, should the law allow it (which in this country, it does). A same-sex couple can also go through surrogacy, should the law allow it (which in this country, it does). Indeed, a same-sex couple could go through IVF or surrogacy, should the law allow it (which in this country, it does). However, this will always involve artificial means of obtaining a child and the child can never be the result of their sexual union. Therefore, can we call this 'marriage'?
One could object that infertile couples go down this path, so why not same-sex couples? Yet that misses the point. Unlike for same-sex couples, for infertile heterosexual couples, their infertility is not a result of their union being fruitless because they have the same reproductive organs. It is because there is, for one reason or another, an element of sterility present in one or both of the parties. Yet their union stands and can be called 'marriage' because of the fact that their unitive and reproductive organs are different - not the same. Their union is not less a union because of 'faulty mechanics'. This is what a union is - the union of two complementary but essentially different human beings - biologically, sexually and reproductively - different because and only because they are male and female.
Not only the purpose of human sexuality and of marriage is being destroyed in the 'same-sex marriage' legislation, but, too, the purpose and meaning of male and female. Because marriage is to be an institution into which men can enter with men and women with women, the implicit message of the legislation is not just that marriage has no inherent meaning and purpose, but that to be male and to be female is the same thing. This is incredibly dangerous. We are now saying that men and women are not just 'equal', but we are saying that men and women are 'the same' even though this is a categorical lie of immense proportions. Men cannot, for instance, give birth. A man has no womb. A woman does. Women can breastfeed, a man cannot.
Much rides emotionally and within a marriage for couples in terms of fertility in that from the loving union of a man and a woman, a child may or may not be the result. There are things a heterosexual couple can do that a same-sex couple cannot do. For example, as well as the obvious examples, a same-sex couple can go down different avenues in order to obtain a child, but they cannot, for example, pursue natural family planning as can a couple composed of two persons of the opposite gender.
How is it that we can be at this stage of the progress of the legislation and yet men and women in public office, in politics, in the media and in academia have failed, completely, to object to this legislation purely in intellectual terms because the legislation is riddled with glaring logical inconsistencies and indeed, logical black holes?
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