Should marriage be abolished for the sake of equality?

At the New York Times there is a audio debate between Ann Althouse and Jack Balkin on “whether marriage should be replaced with civil unions for both gay and straight couples.” I haven’t listened to it yet, but the title tells us everything we need to know about the destructive logic of liberalism. It begins with a minority or outsider group saying to the majority group, “We are being unjustly excluded from your valued society/institution. We want to be equally included. We have the same ideals and desires as you, we are human the same as you. There is no good reason for you to exclude us from the great goods that you enjoy as full members of this society/institution.” In response to this reasonable- and humane-sounding plea, the majority begins to attempt to include the minority on an equal footing. But then it turns out that the minority group is NOT the same as the majority, and that the inclusion of them in the society/institution, or even the attempt to include them, produces insuperable problems for that society/institution, or is simply impossible to achieve in any case. At that point the minority says: “We still insist on equality. If equality between us and you is not possible within the existing institution/society, then the institution/society must be abolished.”

What began as the demand that an outsider group be given equal access to or equal possession of a good thing, ends as the demand for the destruction of that good thing. The end of liberalism is not the good, or even the equal distribution of the good, but the elimination of all goods in the name of equality, because the good, by its very nature, cannot be possessed equally.

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Ben W. writes:

“The end of liberalism is not the good, or even the equal distribution of the good, but the elimination of all goods in the name of equality, because the good, by its very nature, cannot be possessed equally.”

And that is precisely what is happening with Christmas. The attempt was made to make the holiday more inclusive by adding other celebrations and festivals. When that proved burdensome, little by little communities started doing away with public displays of Christmas altogether. So in many cities and towns, Christmas has now become joyless and empty if not missing.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 17, 2008 11:27 AM | Send