The Science of Marriage

Posted on February 18, 2004 by Gene

A comment was posted on an entry from last August that — once you get around the bizarre grammar — seems to want to find a scientific basis for marriage, because same-sex couples can’t bear children together.

I would like people to stop balming the bibile and church making decisions about gay marriages wake up. The facts is that we have male and female and the female is the ones who bares children with a male to populate the world. If it was meant for same sex marriages then anyone could concieve a child but this is not the way the body is made. Science can explain why it takes a man and a women to make a marriage. The same way it takes a man and a women to make a child. I am tired of people stating the bible is only for certain people and that marriages should only be dicussed in church. Take a big look at our population and think how and where all the people came from. It can only happen with the opposite sex. Our bodies were made for these reason I will always say marriage is between a man and a woman. I believe in Jesus Christ,the church and the bible which do state that a marriage is between a man and a women but take a look deeper and the answer is right there. We grow to too concieve children when eggs are fertilized by a man. the same sex can not do this so it is not right.

I kind of stared googly eyed at this one, trying to figure out just how to carefully word my response to this illogical comment, a comment that defies understanding, a comment that wants to meld biology with artificial man-made contracts. This is the best that I could come up on short notice, and there’s still a lot more pouring out of my brain. The problem is that I sometimes can’t edit myself or boil everything I feel into a coherent argument.

Hmm. I wish people would stop balming the bibile, too. It’s getting slippery.
Your argument, aside from being difficult to figure out grammatically, doesn’t take fact into account. It’s true that two different sexes are required to procreate. But this is a biological fact that has absolutely nothing to do with marriage. Marriage is a contract between two people that was created by man and society as a whole. It’s not something that is a biological imperative, and there’s nothing scientific about marriage. The human race is completely capable of reproducing without marriage.
The idea that marriage is required to have a child is ridiculous. That’s a moral judgement, not a scientific one. If you can somehow get the weak minded to realize that “marriage” is a concept created by man and not a natural imperative, the entire argument falls apart.
It’s sad that every argument advanced by the religious right against same sex marriage and for traditional marriage, from procreation to government benefits, seems to omit the one most important ingredient in marriage: two people in love.