Related articles and links |  1 of 5

Both cathedrals and social institutions take a long time to build and are not easily brought down. Like a building damaged from all sides, marriage has weakened dramatically from cultural blows in ways that few anticipated.

A vague memory of how to "do marriage" still survives. Couples speak wistfully of the enduring marriages of their grandparents, even if they do not know how to replicate them. Marriage has reached a stunning state of fragility.

A look at the significant factors that have contributed to the virtual collapse of marriage over the last 40 years gives perspective on how gay activists have maneuvered into position to launch a frontal assault on the very definition of marriage.

The Sexual Revolution. In the 1960s, two new sexual standards emerged. A moderately liberal approach urged that sexual intercourse should be confined to "loving relationships." A still more radical stance claimed that sex should be enjoyed whenever desired, as long as there was "mutual consent."

These two approaches still jostle for mainstream dominance today, with the sex-only-within-marriage crowd still present but quite marginal. The biblical view of sex is often considered an archaic medieval leftover.

The sexual revolution began to separate sex from marriage, so the movement's cutting edge now lies elsewhere. Advocates for full acceptance of homosexuality, whose voices began to sound in the 1970s, now occupy a place near the cultural mainstream. On the fringes, we find advocates for adult-child sex. And in the intervening years, pornography has grown into a $40 billion industry whose tentacles reach into most American homes via the Internet. Child pornography is its most appalling manifestation.

The Contraception and Abortion Revolutions. Birth control, of course, helped jump-start the sexual revolution. Opposition to the easy availability of birth control for the unmarried was intense but ultimately proved futile. A 1972 Supreme Court decision required states to extend access to contraceptives to the unmarried.

It is no coincidence that the sexual and birth control revolutions were accompanied by the acceptance of abortion with the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. The ensuing revolution, in which for a time one out of every three U.S. pregnancies ended in elective abortion (before "settling down" to one out of four or five today), carries profound social consequences that extend well beyond the killing of more than 1 million developing children per year.

First, relocating full authority for the abortion decision into the hands of pregnant women helped marginalize both men and marriage. Abortion within marriage—without a husband's consent or even over his objections—not only drove a wedge between marriage and childbearing, but also displaced the husband from the oneness of matrimony. Ironically, it also encouraged unmarried men who would otherwise pressure their partners to get abortions to walk away, saying "It's your problem—you take care of it."

Second, the abortion license constitutes a fateful diminution of the rights and interests of children over against those of adults. Roe v. Wade communicated in the most fundamental way that the interests of children must give way to the interests of adults. This has resulted in a more egocentric way in which parents view marriage and family. Among other things, it is a major factor in people's unwillingness to see marriage as essentially about children, rather than essentially about companionship or intimacy.

next page... |  1 of 5

September 2004, Vol. 48, No. 9