Same Sex Marriage Considerations

This article is thoughtful and not hateful while considering the volatile subject of SSM.Thought it was worth posting.

Marriage is of such importance that it is uniquely protected in the law and culture. It predates the law and the Constitution, and is an anthropological and sociological reality, not primarily a legal one. No civilization can survive without it, and those societies that allowed it to become irrelevant have faded into history.


The Meaning of Marriage


Marriage is the union of the two sexes, not just the union of two people. It is the union of two families, and the foundation for establishing kinship patterns and family names, passing on property and providing the optimal environment for raising children.


The term "marriage" refers specifically to the joining of two people of the opposite sex. When that is lost, "marriage" becomes meaningless. You can no more leave an entire sex out of marriage and call it "marriage" than you can leave chocolate out of a "chocolate brownie" recipe. It becomes something else.


Giving non-marital relationships the same status as marriage does not expand the definition of marriage; it destroys it. For example, if you declare that, because it has similar properties, wine should be labeled identically to grape juice, you have destroyed the definitions of both "wine" and "grape juice." The consumer would not know what he is getting.


Marriage, the Natural Family, and the Best Interests of Children


Marriage is the union of the only type of couple capable of natural reproduction of the human race-a man and a woman. Children need both mothers and fathers, and marriage is society's way of obtaining them.


But even childless marriages are a social anchor for children, who observe adults as role models. Besides, childless couples can be "surprised" by an unexpected pregnancy, and they can adopt, giving a child a mother-and-father-based family. Single parents can eventually marry. And marriage is a stabilizing force for all. Even when a couple is past the age of reproduction, the marital commitment usually keeps an older man from fathering a child with a younger woman outside wedlock.


Children learn crucial things about family life by observing our crucial relationships up close: interactions between men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, and parents to children of the same and opposite sexes. Human experience and a vast body of social science research show that children do best in married, mother-father households. It is wrong to create fatherless or motherless families by design. The effort is being driven by the desires of adults, not the needs of children.


The drive for homosexual "marriage" leads to destruction of the gold standard for custody and adoption. The question should be: "What is in the best interests of the child?" The answer is: "Place children, whenever possible, in a married, mom-and-dad household." As homosexual relationships gain status, marriage loses its place as the preferential adoption-family option.


Defining Marriage Is Not "Discrimination"


Marriage laws are not discriminatory. Marriage is open to all adults, subject to age and blood relation limitations. As with any acquired status, the applicant must meet minimal requirements, which in terms of marriage, means finding an opposite-sex spouse. Same-sex partners do not qualify. To put it another way, clerks will not issue dog licenses to cats, and it is not out of "bigotry" toward cats.


Comparing current laws limiting marriage to a man and a woman with the laws in some states that once limited inter-racial marriage is irrelevant and misleading. The very soul of marriage-the joining of the two sexes-was never at issue when the Supreme Court struck down laws against inter-racial marriage.


Requiring citizens to sanction or subsidize homosexual relationships violates the freedom of conscience of millions of Christians, Jews, Muslims and other people who believe marriage is the union of the two sexes. Civil marriage is a public act. Homosexuals are free to have a "union" ceremony with each other privately, but they are not free to demand that such a relationship be solemnized and subsidized under the law.


Homosexual activists say they need legal status so they can visit their partners in hospitals, etc. But hospitals leave visitation up to the patient except in very rare instances. This "issue" is a smokescreen to cover the fact that, using legal instruments such as power of attorney, drafting a will, etc., homosexuals can share property, designate heirs, dictate hospital visitors and give authority for medical decisions. What they should not obtain is identical recognition and support for a relationship that is not equally essential to society's survival.


The Legal and Social Fallout

If same-sex relationships acquire marital-type status in the law, several things will occur:




Businesses that decline to recognize non-marital relationships will increasingly be punished through loss of contracts and even legal action. This is already occurring in San Francisco and in Canada.

Other groups, such as bisexuals and polygamists, will demand the right to redefine marriage to suit their own proclivities. Once the standard of one-man, one-woman marriage is broken, there is no logical stopping point.

As society rewards homosexual behavior, more young people will be encouraged to experiment and more will be discouraged from overcoming homosexual desires.

Popular understanding of what marriage is and what it requires will undergo change. Homosexual relationships, which usually lack both permanence and fidelity, are unlikely to change to fit the traditional model of lifelong, faithful marriage. Instead, society's expectations of marriage will change in response to the homosexual model, thus leading to a further weakening of the institution of marriage. Some homosexual activists have acknowledged that they intend to use marriage mainly as a way to radically shift society's entire conception of sexual morality. (See appendix.)


Recent Polls


Americans are reassessing their stance toward homosexuality and homosexual activism. Major polls show a reversal of "acceptance" of homosexuality and homosexual so-called "marriage" and "civil unions."



A USA Today/CNN poll1 by Gallup in July showed a huge drop in support for homosexual acts between consenting adults. In May, 60% supported legal homosexual acts, with 35% opposed. By July, support had dropped to 48%, with opposition rising to 46%. Among African-Americans, support for legal homosexuality dropped from 58% in May to 36% in July. Among people who attend church almost every week, support dropped from 61% to 49%. Concurrently, 57% of all Americans opposed homosexual "civil unions," with only 40% supporting them.

An Associated Press poll2 in August revealed that support for civil unions had remained steady over the past three years at 41%, but that opposition to civil unions had risen from 46% to 53%. "Close to half of those surveyed said they would be less likely to support a presidential candidate who backs civil unions (44 %) or gay marriage (49%), while only around 10% said they would be more likely."

A Washington Post poll3 in August revealed that "a strong majority of the public disapproves of the Episcopal Church's decision to recognize the blessing of same-sex unions. … So broad and deep is this opposition that nearly half of all Americans who regularly attend worship services say they would leave their current church if their minister blessed gay couples-even if their denomination officially approved those ceremonies, the survey found."

Other findings: "Three out of four frequent churchgoers opposed the Episcopal convention's decision. … But even among those who acknowledged that they rarely or never attended church, nearly six in 10 objected to blessing same-sex couples." The poll also found support among Americans for civil unions falling to 37%.


Conclusion


"Marriage" for same-sex couples (or the counterfeit equivalent under pseudonyms such as "civil unions" or "domestic partnerships") is being promoted as an extension of tolerance, equality and civil rights. But all these devices are really wedges designed to overturn traditional sexual morality and to win official affirmation, celebration, subsidization and solemnization of behavior that is harmful to the people who engage in it and to society, and that is still viewed as morally wrong by a majority of the American public.


For the well-being of children and of society, we must not allow the creation of government-imposed counterfeit "marriage" by any name. Marriage is civilization's primary institution, and we tamper with it at our own peril.


-- Robert H. Knight is director of the Culture & Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America. Mr. Knight was a draftsman of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the current law that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for all federal purposes and allows states to resist demands to recognize counterfeit "marriage" licenses. Some references were drawn from "Questions and Answers: What's Wrong With Letting Same-Sex Couples 'Marry?'" by Peter Sprigg, Family Research Council, InFocus, Number 256, August 14, 2003.