Proponents of same sex marriage have argued that since non-fertile heterosexual couples are allowed to marry, so should same sex couples.
My reply is that non-fertile heterosexual couples not only may marry but they are expected to avoid sex if they do not marry. That is because abstinence outside of marriage and marriage itself are to be understood not in utilitarian terms, as valuable simply because of their procreative ability, but rather as having a meaning, as communicative. And what is communicated has everything to do with fertility EVEN in the case of those who are not fertile.
(complete this argument with discussion of how a ruler/teacher would want sex to be revered in such a certain way by fertile couples, in a way that would place sex within the context of commitment, etc. and how, in order for such couples to regard it in that way, sex, as having a word-like quality, would have to have that meaning even when the same couples are not fertile. And how it would have to have that meaning in the community at large. So that non-fertile couples, out of their respect for fertility as a good of the community would respect the word-like nature of sex by practicing chastity)
(a more complete version of this argument would discuss how this argument is more obviously cogent in a society in which contraceptive technology is not available. Then discuss whether contraception can change the meaning of sexual acts. When discussing the latter, explore non-fallacious slippery slope / reductiones ad absurd am).
The fact that a SSM proponents thinks that the case of infertile couples is an effective argument shows that they don't grasp how the moral judgments regarding sex between heterosexuals is founded upon the meaningfulness of this activity. They instead look at traditional sexual mores as being mandated by utilitarian concerns.
On the other extreme are those, like the Dali Lama (and maybe St. Augustine), who think sex apart from actual fertility is inappropriate. They and modern social liberals (who think, for example, that infertile couples have the right to sleep around) both look at sex in utilitarian perspective. That is, not as having an inherent meaning that must be respected both in and out of fertility, but as being valuable in terms of what it produces--be that babies or feelings.
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