Is Marriage a Form of Discrimination?

Commentary by R.M.T. Schmid of Oxford

ROME, JULY 12, 2004 (Zenit.org).- This commentary on same-sex unions appeared in the weekly edition of the English-language L'Osservatore Romano, by R.M.T. Schmid, of St. Hugh's College at the University of Oxford.
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Justice requires that equals be treated equally and unequals unequally. Discrimination is a distinction or the differential treatment based on such a distinction. Whether discrimination is justified depends on the answer to what Aristotle calls "the difficult question": equals and unequals in what? Unjust discrimination either fails to ask the right question or fails to act on the right answer.

In contemporary political discourse the term discrimination itself has come to signify injustice. While this reflects the truth that all human beings have equal dignity simply in virtue of belonging to the human species, it can obscure the fact that human dignity also requires recognition of the truth that, though equal, not everyone is the same.

To deny driving licenses to the blind does not assume that they do not deserve equal respect and consideration as persons, but that they are different from other persons in respects relevant to driving.

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