How Does Legalizing Same Sex Marriage
Hurt Marriage, Children and Society?
By Sharon Slater
President, United Families International
While in Washington DC last week, I witnessed the House debate
on the Marriage Protection Amendment. I listened as openly gay Rep.
Barney Frank (D-MA) appealed to the emotions of those present when
he stated, "We feel love and we feel it in a way different
than you. We feel it with someone of the same sex, male or female,
and we look at your institution of marriage and we see the joy it
brings." He then asked the sixty-four thousand dollar question,
"How do we hurt you when we share it?"
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) declared, "It is wrong to take a
beautiful institution like marriage and use it as an instrument
of division."
Ouch. Who wants to promote an amendment to the U.S. Constitution
that would "enshrine hate and discrimination" against
a peaceful, loving minority? Surely the founding fathers never intended
the Constitution to be used as a "mean-spirited" tool
to force "outdated religious morals" upon a minority group
and deny them and their children the benefits of marriage.
Those opposed to the MPA know that the American people overwhelmingly
reject the idea that same-sex unions are the equivalent of heterosexual
unions. They want to impose the will of the minority upon the majority
and they do not want to get caught in the act. They dishonestly
proclaim that those who are in favor of traditional marriage are
trying to use the Constitution to take rights away from people –
"rights" that have never existed and do not exist today.
Who would have thought there would come a day when standing up
for marriage as the union between a man and a woman would be considered
hateful? But, unbelievably, several U.S. Congressmen have now pronounced
that standing for marriage is mean-spirited and proclaimed that
those who support the Marriage Protection Amendment are "bigots."
The founding fathers must be rolling over in their graves. We are
truly living in a world turned upside-down.
To openly gay Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who during the debate
said, "The sky has not come crashing down despite the dire
predictions." I say, "AIDS did not become a pandemic overnight."
It will take at least a generation to see the negative results from
such a rash experiment on our society.
So, exactly how does legalizing same-sex marriage hurt our marriages,
our children and our society?
Once we abandon marriage to the whims and desires of adults seeking
validation of their sexual lifestyles, we denigrate children and
their needs – legally validating relationships that would deliberately
leave them motherless or fatherless. And that hurts society. We
have plenty of data to show what happens to children when they grow
up without a father or a mother. Prisons are filled with adults
who were fatherless as children. The financial burden of welfare
and prison programs on society as a result of children growing up
without their mother or their father is horrific. And that is not
even taking into consideration the immense personal suffering that
inevitably is too often hidden behind these statistics.
During the House debate Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) hit the nail
on the head when he explained that legalizing same-sex marriage
does not just expand marriage, it undermines it. It alters it to
the very core and "totally severs it from its whole purpose,
and that is the relationship between a man, a woman, and a child."
There is no such thing as same-sex marriage. It does not exist.
It is an oxymoron because marriage is a relationship between a man
and woman. We can make a law saying that oranges are apples and
decree that all recipes including apples must now use oranges interchangeably,
but I guarantee that the results will not be the same. You can mandate
that those that grow apples must now use the techniques for growing
oranges but you can't expect the same kind of fruit to grow.
If you change the definition of marriage you sever it from its
very purpose for existing -- you sever reproduction from parenthood
and that is a radical experiment. If you say gender doesn't matter
to marriage, then you are also saying that gender doesn't matter
to parenthood.
Marriage is not just about love and the legitimate or selfish needs
and wants of adults. Marriage is about securing a father and a mother
to their offspring. Congressman J.D Hayworth (R. AZ) took the floor
and said, "Marriage is not about excluding a group of people.
Marriage is about what is best for our children and our society."
Marriage, in and of itself, discriminates and rightly so. Marriage
discriminates against polygamists, pedophiles, those who wish to
enter into legally sanctioned incestuous relationships, group marriage,
and of course, marriage discriminates against same-sex couples who
want to marry. The institution of marriage discriminates to make
sure that those who marry have the potential to create children
in order to perpetuate the human race; and that the union will provide
children with what they need most -- a mother and a father legally
bound together in a family relationship. Marriage confers benefits
to potential parents as they create and rear children. The government
does not care whom you love. The government has no interest in sanctioning
love, friendship, or personal associations. It has a vital interest
in encouraging what is best for society.
During the debate, several Democrats argued that children living
with gay couples need the same protections as those living with
heterosexual couples. I say to them, "WHERE ARE THE MISSING
MOTHERS OR FATHERS OF THEIR CHILDREN?" They certainly had one
of each. What scientific experiment or financial/legal arrangements
were entered into to sever that relationship? Are children now to
be considered as commodities that can be bought or sold at the whim
of adults to interchangeable parents regardless of biology? What
about the rights of the child?
Now you may be saying about this point that I have not addressed
the first part of the question: How does this affect my marriage?
Try this analogy. Suppose you decided to become a doctor and you
qualify and are awarded a license to practice medicine. Then suppose
a special interest group of beauticians cry discrimination and pressure
lawmakers to allow them to receive a medical license upon completion
of beauty school. Would a simple medical license qualify a beautician
to practice medicine? Would you want to receive medical treatment
from such a beautician? I certainly wouldn't. A license alone, though
necessary, does not qualify someone to competently practice medicine.
It is their capacity to be a doctor that does. Simply issuing a
license without demanding that the applicants meet the basic qualifications
does not make for quality medical care.
So it is with marriage.
Your sex has everything to do with your role in marriage including
your ability to produce children and your ability to be a mother
or a father to the children that you produce. The license, though
necessary, does not equip you with the ability to carry out the
required functions of marriage. Discrimination is justified in my
hypothetical example because beauticians are not doctors even if
a new law were to declare it to be so in order to make beauticians
feel better about themselves or so they could have the same benefits
as doctors.
Even if granting medical licenses to beauticians allowed more patients
to be treated (or more children to be cared for in the instance
of same-sex relationships) it would not behoove society to do so.
Would that increase the level of quality medical care and truly
benefit more individuals? And once the beauticians gain this right,
you can bet that other special interest groups such as police officers,
taxi drivers, or school teachers will want this privilege as well.
Then what would a medical license stand for? What will a marriage
license stand for if we legalize same-sex marriage? The value of
my marriage license would be substantially decreased as it would
no longer stand for the same thing it did when I was married.
Not only will legalizing same-sex marriage grossly denigrate the
marriage contract I have entered into by changing the definition
of the marriage institution itself, it will also undermine my ability
to teach the meaning and importance of marriage to my children.
I teach my children that marriage is a sacred relationship between
a man and woman sanctioned by society as the best way to organize
families and rear children. They will be told by society that this
is not so. Our laws, and thus our schools, will undermine my teachings
to my children telling them that there is nothing special about
my marriage to their father and that the sex of my husband is irrelevant
to the role he plays as my husband and their father. My husband,
Greg, could have just as easily been Sue, with no negative consequences
to my children. (Let's just forget the fact that they would not
exist.)
In addition, if same-sex marriage is legalized in my state, my
prerogative as a parent to oppose materials used in school curricula
like "Heather Has Two Mommies" will be destroyed
overnight.
Congressman Pearce, in the debate said, "There is a question
of who gets harmed from same-sex marriage? When we approve same-sex
marriage, we are going to be required to teach that it is okay.
In fact, it is going to be wrong to teach against it. If we think
that that is not going to happen, look at what has happened to the
Boy Scouts of America who dared to take a stance. The all-out assault
on the institution of the Boy Scouts of America has been unending,
trying to get them to change their stance, simply saying, we want
to teach our values."
It is disingenuous for same-sex marriage proponents to say we
have to prove that legalizing marriage between people who have sex
with their same-gender partner will cause my husband and me to divorce
or destroy our marriage. Nobody ever claimed it would. What it would
do is hurt the institution of marriage with a myriad of negative
effects to children and society that we can only begin to fathom.
Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX) ended the House debate by referring to the
MPA saying, "We are starting the effort today. Yes, it may
not pass today. . . So, believe me, everybody in this country is
going to know how you voted today. And they are going to know how
you stood on the fundamental protection of marriage and the definition
of marriage. And we will take it from here, and we will be back.
And we will be back. And we will be back. We will never give up.
We will protect marriage in this country."
It is now up to us to bring Mr. Delay's words to pass. We must
know how our representatives voted on this historic amendment and
make them accountable. And we must not give up. We will be back.
And we will be back, And we will never give up. The battle has only
begun and we will not stop until marriage is protected.
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