Anscombe, Equality Action Network debate marriage

A day after referendum results showed that Princeton students support gay marriage but do not want the University to take a public stance on the issue, two teams of students gave their views on marriage in a debate sponsored by the Anscombe Society and the Equality Action Network (EAN).

In their opening argument, members of the team representing the EAN, a student group founded about a month ago in response to the passage of Proposition 8 in California defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, explained that they believe marriage is a “spiritual, emotional and beautiful bond” between two people.

“To deny someone the right to be married is discrimination,” EAN member David Walters ’11 said. Walters also cited the Fourteenth Amendment as prohibiting banning same-sex marriage.

The Anscombe Society cited its support of a “traditional” view of marriage recognized by a “lineage of philosophers.”

“Marriage is a bodily, one-flesh union,” Anscombe Society publicity chair Brandon McGinley ’10 said in his opening statement. “[It] is a relationship worth recognizing and worth regulating.”

McGinley, who is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian, emphasized the importance of the physical act of marital consummation, saying that marital relationships must include the “bodily act.” He added that if the definition of marriage is changed to include homosexual couples, there can no longer be a moral distinction between monogamy and polygamy.

“It is not a slippery slope, it is a cliff,” he said.

In its rebuttal, the EAN team questioned whether allowing same-sex marriage is detrimental to heterosexual marriage.

“What’s the harm? At the individual level, no one would feel it,” EAN founder Jacob Candelaria ’09 said. “This debate is about real people, ordinary people, [people] wanting to love someone and be a little less alone.”

The Anscombe Society team responded by stressing that the bodily union of a man and woman is a key to separating marriage from familial or platonic relationships.

In his rebuttal, Anscombe administrative chair Joel Alicea ’10 took issue with Walters’ argument that banning same sex marriage is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

He said Walters’ argument exhibited “hypocrisy” and that the EAN’s definition of marriage discriminates against polygamists and incest.Alicea also explained that, unlike banning interracial marriage, defining marriage as a heterosexual union is not discrimination.

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“Discrimination is based on arbitrary distinction. Racism is arbitrary to marriage,” Alicea said.

Like McGinley, Alicea emphasized the role of sex and reproduction in a marriage and the responsibility of the state to regulate marriage. The “state needs children,” Alicea noted.

“It’s a bit of hooey,” Candelaria said in response to Alicea’s arguments. “We’re not going to have any under-population problems soon,” Candelaria added, citing the increasing population of unwed mothers in the United States.

Anscombe Society vice president Shivani Radhakrishnan ’11 closed by reiterating the importance of the traditional marital act.

“Allowing same-sex couple marriage dispels our notions of marriage,” she said.