From Contraception to Gay Marriage

Last weekend at the Christian Legal Society's annual meeting, I presented a paper entitled Sex, Marriage, and Procreation, which is now linked on the right hand side of this blog. My thesis is that a direct link exists between our culture's general acceptance of contraception and the case now being made for gay marriage. Here is my logic: Sex is divorced from its procreative potential (revolutionary technology: the pill; judicial imprimatur: Griswold); sex is divorced from its marital norm (technology: again, birth control; judicial imprimatur: Eisenstadt); sex is divorced from its heterosexual forms and norms (reproductive technology: n/a; judicial imprimatur: Lawrence); and now procreative possibilities are now divorced from heterosexual sex (new reproductive technologies; judicial imprimatur: --US Supreme Court???, Goodridge (Mass)).

The Goodridge court in Mass. appears to make the same point. That court made the connection between Griswold and gay marriage: “It is hardly surprising that civil marriage developed historically as a means to regulate heterosexual conduct and to promote child rearing, because until very recently unassisted heterosexual relations were the only means short of adoption by which children could come into the world, and the absence of widely available and effective contraceptives made the link between heterosexual sex and procreation strong indeed. … But it is circular reasoning, not analysis, to maintain that marriage must remain a heterosexual institution because that is what it historically has been. As one dissent acknowledges, in ‘the modern age,’ ‘heterosexual intercourse, procreation, and child care are not necessarily conjoined.’” Id. at 961-962 n. 23 (citation omitted).

I would appreciate comments from my fellow blogistas as well as any readers.