One of the most apparently compelling arguments in favour of introducing same-sex union or ‘marriage’ is that it is presented by its proponents, including governments, as a simple matter of ‘equality’ or `human rights’. At first it seems hard to resist the claim that to deny marriage to homosexual people, a right enjoyed by heterosexual people, is to discriminate against them.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, in its ‘Briefing to Members of Parliament on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill’, clearly state that they disagree “that the signal that is sent currently, by restricting marriage to opposite sex couples, is one of disparagement of same sex relationships”.
The principal argument underlying the truth that the question regarding same sex unions or ‘marriage’ is not a question of discrimination or human rights is that it is not unequal or unfair to treat those in different circumstances differently.
Indeed, to treat them the same would itself be unjust.
Governments themselves recognise that it is not necessarily unfair discrimination or a breach of the principle of equality to treat different people differently, if they are different in a relevant way. So too, retaining different institutions in order to serve differing functions is not unfair, but a recognition of relevant differences in the functions served by those institutions.
Catholic MPs should not favour this type of legislation
So the opposition to same sex marriage is not based on discrimination or prejudice; it is based in a positive effort to ensure that the unique social values currently served by marriage carry on being served by that institution in the future.
As Neil Foster of the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, observes “discrimination relies on two features of behaviour: first, that someone is treated differently to someone else; but secondly, that this different treatment is provided for an irrelevant reason. Hence is not enough to claim that there is discrimination, simply to point to differential treatment. One must also be able to argue that the reason for this treatment is not a good reason that it is irrelevant” (Neil J. Foster, ‘Opposing same-sex marriage is not discrimination’, February 2011).
Western society, for many centuries, has defined the institution of marriage as a legally recognised relationship between one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.
By such definition,enshrined in various state laws, there are many people who are excluded from such a status.
Thus those who chose not to enter into a lifelong fidelity are not regarded as ‘married’ because they do not meet the requirements to enter the status of marriage.
There are others who are not able to enter the status of marriage because they are under age, or because they are already married or because of other impediments underlined by the same laws.
Thus the law is not discriminatory when it does not allow persons of the same sex to marry because homosexuals are proposing to do something that does not meet the description of the relationship that currently exists. To allow someone to ‘marry’ someone of the same sex is to create a relationship that is not marriage. So in recognising and accepting same-sex unions or ‘marriage’ our society is asking whether we should redefine marriage to allow same-sex marriage.
The Declaration of the Pontifical Council for the Family regarding the Resolution of the European Parliament dated March 16, 2000, making de facto unions, including same sex unions, equal to the family, observes:
“Resolution represents a grave and repeated attack on the family based on marriage, a union of love and life between a man and a woman from which life naturally springs. Every society is solidly based on this marital union because it is a necessary value.
“To deny this fundamental and elementary anthropological truth would lead to the destruction of the fabric of society. Doesn’t making ‘de facto’ unions, and all the more homosexual unions, equivalent to marriage, and inviting parliaments to adjust their laws in this sense, represent a refusal to recognise the deep aspirations of peoples in their innermost identity?”
In the light of this the conclusion that follows is that lawmakers and in particular Catholic MPs, should not favour this type of legislation with their vote because it is contrary to the common good and the about man and is thus truly unjust.