Old Words from Frank Sheed about the New Ideas on Marriage

I heard a priest reference this in a homily last night, applying them to the recent SCOTUS decision to impose same-sex "marriage" on all fifty states.

Man is taken simply as a word, the label for a particular kind of being (the kind to which we belong ourselves), and nobody stops for any serious consideration of what the word means. We proceed immediately to consider how to make the creature happier without ever asking what the creature is. It should be just the other way round. When some new proposal is made which affects the way men live, our immediate reaction is always to ask, Will it make men happier? But this should be the second question, not the first. The first question should be, Does it fit the nature of man?

The total ignoring of this question runs all through modern life. Education provides an illustration perfect enough to be almost farcical. Throughout most of the Western world, the State is regarded as the normal educator. Schools not conducted by it are regarded as eccentric, and in most countries they exist only precariously. This situation, I say, is taken as normal, whereas in fact it is grotesque. There are hundreds of definitions of education. But one may take as a minimum definition, one which would be accepted by practically everybody, that education is to fit men for living. Supposing you were to write to the Education Department of your State something to this effect: “I note that you are in the business of fitting men for living.  Would you mind telling me what a man is?” The only possible answer would be that we live in a liberal democracy: every man is entitled to accept any religion or philosophy he pleases, and according to its teaching hold his own view—that man is matter, or spirit, or both, or neither: the State does not decide among them, it is wholly neutral, it does not know what a man is.  If you were then to write further and say: “I note that as the State you do not know what a man is. Do you know what living is for?” the answer could only be the same—that it is a matter for each citizen to decide for himself, the State is neutral, the State does not know. I have called this grotesque, and that is to flatter it. To be fitting men for living, not only without knowing what man is or what life is for, but without even thinking the questions relevant, indeed without ever having asked them—it is odd beyond all words.
...
At every turn, not only in education, but in the whole life of Society, the treatment of human beings by one another and of the citizens by the State needs testing by the question, What is man? And it is never asked. The State does not know what man is, and is taking more and more control of man’s life.
Excerpt From: Sheed, Frank. “Society and Sanity.” iBooks. 

It's hard to argue with that.  It's clear that there's no consensus on "What man is." Perhaps there never was, but for the purposes of politeness, the Judeo-Christian image was accepted in the West.  But today with the secular redefinition of everything, including the nature of man, the role of religion, the idea of gender and the concept of procreation, the redefinition of marriage is not surprising.