MARRIAGE AND PARENTING: Mark Miller replies to Michael Brazier

[Brazier is in bold, Miller is in plain text.]

Brazier: How is it possible for institutionalized criminals to have a "relationship"--of, that is, the kind you would maintain legal marriage exists to acknowledge? The point of prison is to cut off the prisoners from social relations, except as permitted by the authorities. Surely, under these conditions, prisoners cannot form intimate bonds, nor make or accept promises of fidelity and mutual support. How then would you justify the right of prisoners to marry?

Miller: This IS my point. It is unlikely for institutionalized criminals to have a "relationship" that you would maintain legal marriage exists to acknowledge--yet they do indeed have the right to marry. Unlike same-sex couples.

Brazier: Adoption is a backup. It's meant for children who for some reason cannot be raised by their true parents. The idea that, because the adoption bureau treats homosexuals just like heterosexuals, therefore the marriage bureau should too, is spurious; the adoption bureau is not dealing with normal situations, while the marriage bureau is.

Miller: Adoptive parents have the exact same legal rights and responsibilities as biological parents. This is regardless of the differences between a biological relationship and an adoptive relationship between parent and child. As far as the government is concerned, an adopted child is no different from a biological child. The point is not whether the situation is "normal." The question is whether there should be legal differences between them.

Brazier: Then what is the institution that exists to serve that purpose? If there is none, what should exist to serve that purpose, if anything? That marriage does so in fact, nobody would deny; that it does so by accident, many would find hard to believe.

Miller: I'll concede that ONE of the purposes of marriage is to link the biological parents to their offspring. Yet if that was the only purpose, marriage could be based solely on having children. But that is not the case (and I've heard no one suggest that). There are numerous characteristics/purposes of marriage. Same-sex relationships cannot support all of them, but they can support some of them.
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