Same-Sex Marriage: Sexual Identity

Since a major component of marriage is the complementarity of the sexes, can a homosexual couple fulfill this requirement? Let's look at what the word "complementarity" implies before we answer the above question.

The term "complementarity of the sexes" refers to the ways in which a husband and wife compliment each other. That is, it signifies the way in which the female "makes up" where the male lacks, and visa versa. To say that the relationship between the heterosexual spouses is complimentary, however, is not the same as two male or female partners making up where the other is lacking -- as in two business partners whose unique gifts and skills "complete" each other in order to form a unified and whole team. Although that is certainly a part of what is going on in the complimentary nature of heterosexual spouses, it delves further into the sexuality of the couple. What I mean is this: males and females differ in many ways other than just physically -- they live differently, they think differently, they act differently, they deliberate differently, in fact these differences lay deep within the core of who they are as individual persons (the core of what makes a male a male, and a female a female). It is this complimentary difference in the nature of the sexes that makes the marital relationship so unique. It is also precisely this inherent difference that children need in order to become fashioned into active, positive, and full members of our society. Within a heterosexual marriage they not only view the ebb and flow dynamic of their parents' relationship, but they are forced to live in it and experience firsthand the parents' interaction and communication. It is precisely this interaction, the complementarity of the sexes, that same-sex couples can neither facilitate nor reproduce. This leads me to my next point: can surgery change a person's sexual identity. This is relevant to my argument since if a male were to become a female, then he (now a she, according to pop-culture) will become complimentary to a male partner.

Let me answer it with a question. Suppose a female lost her sexual organs in a tragic accident. Is she no longer a female? Since she doesn't have a penis, can she be considered to be a male? Is she, therefore, genderless, neutered by fate? How would she see herself? Would she relate to others as a female, would she still think, act, and feel as a female feels? I don't think that we really know what it means to have a sexual identity if we continue to relate it with our sexual organs --since the person who has lost her genitalia still thinks, receives, feels, and communicates as a female. There seems to be something inherent, then, about our sexual identity, something that subsists within our soul, the core of our being. Something that only finds completion in the opposite sex. So will a simple surgery, a lifetime of medication, and a change in attire make a male a female? To put it negatively, would the usurping of a female's sexual organs make a male a female? The answer is no; there is something inherent within our being that makes us male or female, our sexual organs are the physical manifestation of that inherent quality of the human person.

Since a gay male couple can never occupy the role of a female in a marriage, and visa versa, same-sex marriage is oxymoronic by definition, and a failure in logic -- since a same-sex union can never be the same as a heterosexual marriage due to the lack of the complimentary nature of the sexes.