In the article, we argue that as a moral reality, marriage is the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together, and renewed by acts that constitute the behavioral part of the process of reproduction. We further argue that there are decisive principled as well as prudential reasons for the state to enshrine this understanding of marriage in its positive law, and to resist the call to recognize as marriages the sexual unions of same-sex partners.
Besides making this positive argument for our position and raising several objections to the view that same-sex unions should be recognized, we address what we consider the strongest philosophical objections to our view of the nature of marriage, as well as more pragmatic concerns about the point or consequences of implementing it as a policy.
*UPDATE:
We have revamped and expanded our argument for a new book, “What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense,” available now for preorder (see below) and released in December 2012. The book revamps the article’s argument, bolstering and elaborating its positive points for a general audience, answering the most common and serious objections, and sharpening objections for opposing views.
We will be posting reviews, and replies to new critiques as they arise, at whatismarriagebook.com
Sherif Girgis (Contact Author)
Princeton University Department of Philosophy ( email )
United States
3024651671 (Phone)
Robert George
Princeton University – Department of Politics ( email )
Corwin Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544-1012
United States
Ryan T. Anderson
University of Notre Dame Department of Political Science ( email )
Notre Dame, IN 46556
United States
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is the author of Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (1993) and In Defense of Natural Law (1999), and editor of Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays (1992), The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism (1996), and Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality (1996), all published by Oxford University Press. He is also editor of Great Cases in Constitutional Law (2000) and co-editor of Constitutional Politics: Essays on Constitution Making, Maintenance, and Change (2001), from Princeton University Press. His most recent book is The Clash of Orthodoxies (2002), published by ISI Books. In 2005, Professor George won a Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement and the Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Liberal Arts of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, Professor George earned a doctorate in philosophy of law from Oxford University. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Swarthmore, and received a Knox Fellowship from Harvard for graduate study in law and philosophy at Oxford. From 1993-98, Professor George served as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He is also a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the 1990 Justice Tom C. Clark Award. He is the recipient of a Silver Gavel Award of the American Bar Association, the Paul Bator Award of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, and several honorary doctorates. Professor George is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves as Of Counsel to the law firm of Robinson & McElwee.