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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ) ABOUT SAME-SEX "MARRIAGE."**Posted with permission from Mr. Stanton** July 17, 2003, By Glenn T. Stanton The issue of gay "marriage" has arrived on the North American continent. In recent weeks, actual and expected decisions from legal cases in Canada, in the U.S. Supreme Court and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court have brought the question front and center: "Should homosexuals be allowed to 'marry?' " This FAQ seeks to explore that issue, and answers the question with arguments in defense of the traditional conception of marriage. Q. What's wrong with letting homosexuals "marry"? A. One thing we need to realize about this proposition is how fundamentally radical it is. No human society - not one - has ever tolerated "marriage" or permanent familial bonds between members of the same sex; that is, until the last few "milliseconds" of history and experience, with Canada, Belgium and The Netherlands doing so in the last few years. For the full length of human history, marriage has consistently been established upon the coming together of male and female - the two parts of humanity. To challenge this as unjust is to have the arrogance to say that nature itself is intolerant. Moreover, we know that marriage is the surest way to guarantee that children are brought into the world with the benefit of both a mother and a father who have a close, cooperative relationship with one another and with the child - a relationship which is absolutely essential for proper child development. Q. Shouldn't two people who love each other be allowed to commit themselves to one another? A. Absolutely, and people do that all the time. But we don't always call it marriage. Marriage is so much more than just loving someone and wanting to spend your life with them and having access to health benefits and other legal perks. It is nature's ideal union for bringing forth and raising the next generation. That's why we find it as the exclusive model in all human civilizations. After all, not a single person who considers himself or herself homosexual, is the product of homosexual sex. Barring some artificial or technological manipulation, reproduction is exclusively limited to male-female sex. Marriage ensures that those parents will stick around to cooperate in raising that new life. But the benefit of marriage is not just that it brings children into the world; it benefits the couple itself. Marriage solves the paradox of humanity - that we exist as male and female. What other human institution can both heal the divide between the sexes and provide a platform for cooperation - all at the same time? Marriage uniquely "completes" the members of both sexes. Q. That sounds fine, but what about couples who are childless? A. Sterility is not an essential characteristic of heterosexual coupling, but instead an unfortunate breakdown. It is the exception and not the rule. We do not disqualify couples from marrying, based on exceptions. However, sterility is an inherent part of homosexuality, and therefore, children can never come from a homosexual union unless help is provided from the heterosexual world. Q. But surely gays have the same right to marry that heterosexuals do, don't they? A. Homosexuals, like everyone else, do have the constitutional right to marry - as long as they meet the same three criteria that apply to everyone: You must be an adult, you can't marry a close family member and the person you marry must be of the opposite sex. (These rules apply equally to everyone.) Homosexuals are not denied the possibility of marrying someone of the opposite sex because they are homosexual; the law is blind here and, therefore, fair. Q. But heterosexuals can marry according to their sexual orientation. Why shouldn't homosexuals be allowed to marry according to their orientation? A. The fallacy of this argument is that it compares apples with oranges - treating two dissimilar things as one. This assertion is flawed because it rests upon an immense unproven theory: that homosexuality is just as normal as heterosexuality. Historically, heterosexuality has never been considered an orientation. It was only when homosexuality gained political legitimacy that we started thinking about the idea of "orientation" itself. Besides, no court has ever recognized, or scientific institution established, the immutability (i.e., qualities we are born with) of any sexual "orientation" beyond heterosexuality. Q. But isn't this fundamentally a question of equality? A. This may seem like a persuasive argument because all of us desire equality - and few of us are fans of inequality. But we need to understand that marriage developed prior to the concept of equality. Simply put, marriage existed prior to - and is more universally recognized than - the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man or the Magna Carta. Marriage is more basic to the human experience than the ideal of equality, as desirable as that may be. But let's understand what is really being brought into question here: Nature itself is accused of being intolerant. Marriage - the coming together of male and female in a permanent familial bond - has not been "imposed" upon culture by some religious institution, or in fact, by any "authoritarian" power structure from which it needs to be "set free." It was established by Nature's God, is enforced by Nature itself, and we tamper with it at our own peril. What's interesting, however, is that the same-sex proposal has been imposed upon us by an elite group of individuals dressed in black robes - judges - who say that thousands of years of human history have simply been wrong. That is a very arrogant position that will bring great harm to our culture. Q. But doesn't our drive toward equality essentially demand that everyone have access to marriage? A. No, it doesn't. Our culture has benefited from a very robust discussion of equality, liberty and freedom for more than two centuries. Think of the brightest minds and most articulate voices here: John Stuart Mill, Fredrick Douglass, Thomas Jefferson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. None of them has even hinted that the fact that marriage exists exclusively as the union of male and female is an impediment to human equality. Q. But if I am a homosexual and want to marry, how does that - in any way - threaten your heterosexual marriage and family? A. Same-sex relationships assault my children's - and their generation's - understanding of three fundamental things: marriage, parenthood and gender. If we accept homosexual unions as "marriages," then: Marriage becomes merely an emotional relationship that is elastic enough to include any grouping of loving adults. Any narrowing of those criteria to include only one male and one female essentially accuses nature of being intolerant and wrong. Parenthood will now consist merely of androgynous people engaged in the act of caring for kids. "Mother" and "father" become only words we use to address parents - not something men and women are. Any apparent differences are merely superficial and of no practical consequence. The ideal of "the good family man" - the committed father who cares and provides for his children and wife - will disappear. Under the same-sex "marriage" and family experiment, he becomes unnecessary. But sociological research of the last 30 years tells us the father is absolutely necessary. In fact, a sea of research has revealed that "dad" is more essential to the health and development of children than we had ever imagined. Additionally, the absence of the good family man undermines a woman's ability to be a good mother. (You can't have an authentic "yin" without an authentic "yang.") Gender becomes nothing. The same-sex proposition cannot tolerate the idea that any real, necessary differences exist between the genders. If they did exist, then men would need women and women would need men. Our children will learn that gender is like mere personality type. This will create far more, rather than less, confusion and dissension within us as individuals, and within our relationships with others, because it will not allow us to be true to our respective genders. Q. Isn't it true, though, that what kids need most are loving parents? A. Our nation has struggled with the problem of fatherlessness for three decades. What we have discovered from this "experiment" is that a child actually needs more than just "loving" parents; she needs a mother and a father. Research has consistently shown that when a child spends any significant time in a home without both a mother and a father she faces deep and substantial physical, emotional and developmental deficits. The most loving mother in the world cannot teach a little boy how to be a man. Likewise, the most loving man cannot teach a little girl how to be a woman. Little boys and girls need the loving daily influence of both male and female parents. The same-sex "marriage" proposition will create physical and emotional harm for millions of children by intentionally creating radically fatherless and motherless families. Can we honestly say we will ever be comfortable with that? The research that we have indicates that kids who grow up in a same-sex home environment tend to look - in terms of outcome - more like kids who grow up either in divorced homes or step-family situations. We know from the literature that while some kids may sometimes do reasonably well in those situations, overall those situations tend to hurt children significantly. Those kids do not come through those situations unscarred. Q. Oh, c'mon. Hasn't society - to quote Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien - just "evolved" beyond exclusive heterosexuality? We certainly live in a different age than we did 30 years ago. A. Even if you have an evolutionary worldview, marriage has been the universal and most efficient guarantor of a healthy next generation, which is why we find it as the norm in all human civilizations. Remember, successful evolution would seem to demand that we not stray from heterosexual bonding. Again, no person who claims to be homosexual came into this world as a result of homosexual coupling. So homosexuality disqualifies itself as a mechanism for facilitating "evolution" and just about everything else, short of revolutionary social change - which, after all, is the main objective. Q. But doesn't expanding marriage to include homosexuals actually help strengthen marriage? A. No. Marriage is not the creation of human beings; thus, it is not our province to change it. It does not thrive under the inclusive banner of "the more the merrier." A marriage culture is essential to a healthy society. A marriage culture is nourished when we are faithful to and honor its time-tested definition, which is simply not elastic. In addition, there is evidence that homosexual men will have a difficult time honoring the ideal of marriage. Recent research out of the very progressive - and "open" - nation of The Netherlands finds that, on average, homosexual relationships last 1.5 years and that gay men have eight partners a year outside of their current relationships. Contrast that with the fact that 67 percent of first marriages in the United States last 10 years, and more than three-quarters of heterosexual married couples report being faithful to their vows.1 Q. But doesn't our culture benefit from trying new things? Shouldn't we be open to new concepts? A. New does not always mean better. "New" and "Improved" have only become synonymous in our consumer age. Thirty years ago, our nation entered a dramatic social experiment on the family called "no-fault divorce," thinking this would "improve" family life. The intervening 30 years of experience and social science research, however, have judged this experiment a massive failure. Children have been hurt far deeper - and for much longer - than we could have ever imagined. No-fault divorce challenged our understanding of the permanence and durability of marriage. The same-sex proposition challenges our understanding of who can be a party to marriage. Why do we think we will not experience negative consequences if we redefine marriage so fundamentally? Q. Surely, though, homosexuals need marriage to feel like full members of society, don't they? A. Need marriage? No. What we are talking about here is self esteem and it is not the place of government to bestow self esteem on any individual or group. Do we walk down the aisle toward marriage to enhance our self-esteem, or is it for some greater, higher purpose: the well-being and completion of the other part of humanity - our new spouse? What purpose would homosexual "marriage" serve beyond mere companionship? Glenn T. Stanton is Director of Social Research and Cultural Affairs and Senior Analyst for Marriage and Sexuality at Focus on the Family. He is also author of Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society (Pinon Press). -------------------------------------------------- 1Xiridou, Maria; Geskus, Ronald; De Wit, John; Coutinho, Roel; Kretzschmar, Mirjam ."The Contribution of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV Infection Among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam." AIDS, 17 (2003): 1029-38. |
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