TY - CHAP
T1 - Transformational Marriage
T2 - The Religious Case For Supporting Same-Sex Marriage
AU - Kar, Robin Bradley
PY - 2018/5
Y1 - 2018/5
N2 - This chapter questions the view that recent legalizations of same-sex marriage in the West reflect a simple triumph of secular over Judeo-Christian values. On this view, cases like Obergefell v. Hodges sit at the center of a culture war between religious and secular values. Obergefell is, however, equally the result of an understudied expansion in the religious and spiritual functions of marriage. “Transformational marriage”—a concept distilled from Pope Francis’s writings—is a recently emergent social institution, which aims to transform early romantic desire into the more mature capacities for love needed to attain greater personal communion with God or the divine, however conceived. Its value is non-parochial but depends on a cultural link between romantic love, personal choice, intimate satisfaction and marriage. Given this link’s recent historical emergence, there are now religious and spiritual costs to opposing same-sex marriage of a transformational variety. Scriptural grounds for opposing same-sex marriage do not apply to this new institution. Hence, debates over same-sex marriage need not remain a permanent fixture in the culture wars between religious and secular values.
AB - This chapter questions the view that recent legalizations of same-sex marriage in the West reflect a simple triumph of secular over Judeo-Christian values. On this view, cases like Obergefell v. Hodges sit at the center of a culture war between religious and secular values. Obergefell is, however, equally the result of an understudied expansion in the religious and spiritual functions of marriage. “Transformational marriage”—a concept distilled from Pope Francis’s writings—is a recently emergent social institution, which aims to transform early romantic desire into the more mature capacities for love needed to attain greater personal communion with God or the divine, however conceived. Its value is non-parochial but depends on a cultural link between romantic love, personal choice, intimate satisfaction and marriage. Given this link’s recent historical emergence, there are now religious and spiritual costs to opposing same-sex marriage of a transformational variety. Scriptural grounds for opposing same-sex marriage do not apply to this new institution. Hence, debates over same-sex marriage need not remain a permanent fixture in the culture wars between religious and secular values.
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85138902491&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/9781108277976.017
DO - 10.1017/9781108277976.017
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9781108417600
SN - 9781108405508
SP - 375
EP - 412
BT - The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law
A2 - Wilson, Robin Fretwell
PB - Cambridge University Press
ER -