the other argument

Back on 2000, a fellow named Sam Schulman wrote an essay called "Gay marriage: fin de ligne", and sadly, that essay seems to have been lost in the bandwidth. The original host, Jewish World Review, still allegedly links to it, but if you click the link dated 04/11/2000, you don't get the original essay. [UPDATED: Alert readers "ross" and "tom" found the live link to the original JWR essay here. It's as good as I remember.]

And it's a shame because it was a brilliant essay on why there's nothing "Gay" about marriage. However, Mr. Schulman hasn't tossed it in because JWR doesn't have the stoney fortitude to stay linked to that great work. Orthodoxy Today has a great iteration of Mr. Schulman's work which you ought to read for two reasons.

The first reason is that you can't live in a cave, people. You can't just read Puritans and Reformers all the time (although I admit that if you did, you probably won't live long enough to read all that they wrote) because at some point you have to engage the society. And Schulman is interesting because his point of view is not necessarily Christian even if it is not actually secular.

The second reason you should read this is to see how someone who's not a Christian can take apart the best versions of common arguments in favor of gay marriage without even opening the Bible. See: I think that the Bible is our best bet for moral reasoning -- but what we can't get trapped into is the idea that God's purpose is not revealed in nature. Schulman makes a classic defense of what is obvious in human society for the reason that traditional marriage is what's best.

And if anyone has a copy of Schulman's "fin de ligne" laying around, I'm interested in a copy. I had a digital copy in an old e-mail account, and it's long gone.