More Intuition than Argument | Koppelman - Commonweal magazine

In ` What is marriage?'  two conservative Catholic thinkers, Robert George and his Yale law student co-author Sherif Gergis  argue  - as they do in an amicus brief in Hollingsworth v. Perry - the `gay marriage case ' - that marriage is a "conjugal relationship", not simply an "emotional bond".  The "marriage-based family", they assert, is the "free community on which all others depend".   Andrew Koppelman practices a virtue that does not come easily: to take opponents arguments' seriously, to present them fairly, and patiently explain why he is not persuaded. - GWC
More Intuition than Argument | Commonweal magazine:

What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense

Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson, and Robert P. George

Encounter Books, $15.99, 133 pp.
reviewed by Andrew Koppelman

The union of the married heterosexual couple is uniquely good because...well, because the union of the married heterosexual couple is uniquely good. This raw intuition comes decorated with a complex theoretical apparatus, but that apparatus does no work. It’s like one of those old trick math problems, which at first glance seems to require complex computations:

7 + 8,398.14 × B ÷ √55 - 8,398.14 × √55 ÷ B = ?
Look again, and it’s clear that all the complexity cancels itself out, and that you end up right back where you began.
The publication of What Is Marriage? is a public service. It advances understanding of a perspective that many (though fewer and fewer) Americans share, but it is unlikely to persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree with its claims. It is a lucid window into a disappearing worldview.

'via Blog this'