It is upon this point that the comparison between interracial and same-sex marriage also falls apart. Unlike Maryland's current marriage statute, anti-miscegenation laws were purposefully discriminatory. They explicitly prohibited marriage between the races for one ugly reason: the desire to prevent the "mixing" of the races manifestly evidenced in the offspring of interracial marriages. Those laws violated the common humanity shared by blacks and whites and were overturned in recognition of the right of a man and woman of different races to bring children into the world. Loving v. Virginia declared that a black man is not different from a white man, but no court or legislature can declare that a man is not different from a woman.
Other parts of the law are likewise concerned with procreation. The prohibition on marriage between blood relatives is directly tied to concerns about the genetic background of a couple's children. Indeed, the Maryland court wrote that a "right to marry" exists only because of marriage's "inextricable link to procreation, which necessarily and biologically involves participation ... by a man and a woman."
The claim that the state should redefine marriage because same-sex couples are denied rights and benefits is unwarranted. Advance directives and power of attorney are already available to secure medical decision-making rights. Gay couples are permitted by regulation to adopt children in Maryland. Last year, the General Assembly mandated the extension of health and life insurance benefits to domestic partners at the request of an employer.
If there are other situations that merit extending certain rights and benefits heretofore limited to married couples, the legislature should consider doing so in ways that do not alter the definition of marriage or grant marriage equivalency to unmarried couples.
The purpose of civil marriage is not to grant legal status to a couple's emotional commitment but to foster an institution that in turn fosters new life. To erase from law the uniqueness of the relationship between men and women and the distinction of that relationship from any other - whether that union assumes the legal title of marriage, civil union or domestic partnership - would be to deny to future generations a recognition of the natural origin that lies at the core of our nature as human beings.
Whether or not we agree about the creator, we can agree that each of us was created through the union of one man and one woman.
Richard J. Dowling is executive director of the Maryland Catholic Conference. His e-mail is rjd@mdcathcon.org.
