Scripps Howard News Service
WASHINGTON BUREAU
Terry Mattingly's religion column for 10/10/07

The slogan on the white t-shirts for kids is short and bittersweet.

The simple blue letters declare, "My daddy's name is Donor." You can
buy a baby bib with the same proclamation.

For a self-proclaimed "marriage nut" like David Blankenhorn, it's hard
to see this consumer product as a positive statement about modern
family life. Of course, America has been evolving for several decades
after the cultural revolutions that changed how millions of people
live together, break up, get married, get divorced, have children or
some combination of all the above.

Thus, the president of the Institute for American Values keeps hearing
this big question: "What is the future of marriage?" It's a logical
question, since his most recent book is called "The Future of Marriage."
There is no easy answer, however, other than stating the fact that
elite opinion makers and academics are convinced that old-fashioned,
especially religious, traditions about marriage are fading.

"The smart money says, 'Down the tubes,' " said Blankenhorn, speaking
recently at Gordon College, an evangelical Protestant campus near Boston.
"The big word is 'deinstitutionalization.' ... It's this notion of
redefining marriage into just being a kind of Hallmark greeting card
that says, 'We're in love, we have a commitment, oh special us.'
That's what marriage is."

This trend can be seen in current definitions of "marriage" -- legal
and otherwise. During his two years of research on the question, he
ran into several breezy answers to the question, "What is marriage?"

For some people, it is a "unique expression of a private bond and
profound love," while others prefer a ''private arrangement between
parties committed to love.'' If that doesn't work, try a ''specific
relationship of love and dedication to another person" or even
''committed, interdependent partnerships between consenting adults.''

The highest court in Massachusetts, in its majority opinion in 2003
backing gay marriage, strategically called marriage the "exclusive
commitment of two individuals to each other" offering "love and mutual
support."

This last variation on the theme is crucial, because debates about the
future of marriage are now -- like it or not -- part of our culture's
bitter conflicts about the legal rights of gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
Meanwhile, divorce rates remain high and millions of children are
being raised in single-parent homes.

Blankenhorn consistently identifies himself as a Christian and as a
political liberal who supports what he calls the "equal dignity of
homosexual love" and of gay relationships. In an interview with the
conservative magazine World, he bluntly said: "I know that many
Christians believe that any sex other than sex between married spouses
is wrong. I respect that view, but I do not share it."

However, Blankenhorn also argues that all attempts to define marriage
as a vague, private, self-defined relationship will inevitably weaken
an institution that -- across a wide range of cultures and faiths --
has emphasized the importance of children being raised by their
natural fathers and mothers. Thus, he stressed, marriage has always
had a civic and even legal dimension.

Contemporary definitions of "marriage" also strive to avoid two
crucial words.

The first, Blankenhorn noted, is "S-E-X. Heat. Lust. Passion. Bodies
entangled. Sex, behind closed doors in the bedroom. You know, because
in the whole history of the world everybody -- up until about three
minutes ago -- has always acknowledged that marriage is the social
recognition of a sexual relationship that involves sex."

The second missing word is "children." Anyone who studies history and
anthropology, he said, would quickly conclude that discussing marriage
without mentioning children would be like having a "long discussion
about General Motors and nobody mentioning cars."

But today, individual adults are convinced that marriage is all about
them and that this means that they should be able to make their own rules.
Thus, the key question is whether Americans believe that the
individual couple is bigger than the institution of marriage or that
"the marriage is bigger than the couple," said Blankenhorn.

"We have completely forgotten this idea that maybe there is something
transcendent, maybe there is something bigger than us that shapes us,"
he said. "Maybe the vow shapes us. Maybe we don't simply come up with
the vow ourselves and say, 'Here's our marriage -- wonderful sexy us.'
No, there is something bigger than us that tells us what to be and
that big something else is marriage."

Terry Mattingly (www.tmatt.net) directs the Washington Journalism
Center at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities.