The IR Student Voices deliver a fresh take on Ryan T. Anderson’s “The Social Costs of Abandoning the Meaning of Marriage” as part of the symposium, “Sex and the Polis: Perspectives on Marriage, Family, and Sexual Ethics.” Here are some key arguments:

“According to JPII’s Theology of the Body, monogamous, heterosexual marriage is not only good because of its social consequences, but because those effects derive from a deeper, theological reality.  Not merely a social construct, marriage is the means through which man and woman strive to reflect the image and likeness of God.” Read the full response here.

“Desire does not legitimize, and it does not bring value. Reducing marriage to desire both trivializes marriage and endangers children. Children become objects of desire too, discarded in the womb if inconvenient. Chesterton once said, “’The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage.'” Read the full response here.

“It is purely spiritual. Marriage revisionism, which leads to the creation of terms like “throuple” and “wedlease,” is the natural consequence of seeing marriage as a contract rather than a sacrifice.” Read the full response here.

“Our generation, the Millennials, is basically the first in the Western world to grow up with no-fault divorce completely normalized. The heartache of broken marriages is everywhere around us, but we no longer assume that marriage between a man and woman is remotely permanent. For decades, we have already implicitly seen marriage as “primarily about adult desire, with marriage understood primarily as an intense emotional relationship between (or among) consenting adults.” I don’t think I would have strong convictions about marriage if I had not seen the loving union of husband and wife lived out by my parents.” Read the full response here.