On Friday, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery filed the state's arguments with the U.S. Supreme Court. The entire 49-page brief can be found here (PDF).
In the filing, Slatery parrots the arguments made by the 6th Circuit Appellate court, which ruled for the state of Tennessee (and other states) and brought us to the high court. Essentially, a marriage between a man and a woman is a necessarily protected institution because of their ability to propagate the species.
The fundamental importance of marriage is necessarily linked to the procreative capacity of that man-woman union, and this Court has said that the right to marry is fundamental precisely because marriage and procreation are fundamental to the existence of society.
Slatery mentions procreation 17 times within the brief, making the function of reproduction seemingly so integral to the idea of marriage that it requires state sanction.
Let me share this dilemma, then. My wife and I cannot have children. It is a biological fact that cannot be undone by whatever miracles modern medicine may invent. Is my marriage, sanctioned by the state of Tennessee nearly two decades ago, therefore less important in the eyes of Herbert Slatery, Bill Haslam and those who will now grasp at almost any straw to prevent same-sex marriages in Tennessee? Are they so hellbent on stopping the loving union between two men or two women that they are willing to devalue my marriage?
Slatery argues, "Marriage cannot be separated from its procreative purpose, and the inherently procreative capacity of opposite-sex couples cannot be denied." But for those of us without that capacity, should Jen and I not have been allowed to marry? In searching for a rationale to deny same-sex marriage, they have gone looking for contrasts between the two types of unions and undermined heterosexual marriage that doesn't lead to children.
That's where the sheer stupidity of this argument begins to show. Wingnuts like the Family Action Council of Tennessee's David Fowler are out there arguing that the heavens will fall if the state chooses to sanction same-sex marriage. They're willing to argue anything in order to keep that from happening.
And if marriages like mine are collateral damage along the way, so be it.
