Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T02:02:24.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

15 - Transformational Marriage

The Religious Case for Supporting Same-Sex Marriage

from Part IV - Rethinking Marriage After Obergefell

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2018

Robin Fretwell Wilson
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Get access

Summary

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.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×