Rightank

First off, thanks for noting my grammatical errors. I have fixed them. I too, would enjoy a a little back-and-forth on the issue of same-sex marriage.

Philo, I disagree with your characterization of the fight for same-sex marriage as a “human rights” fight. Rather, it is a “special rights” fight. Gays and lesbians choose to be gay or lesbian–whether they want to admit it or not. That choice, like all choices, creates a consequence–which in this case means a prohibition on entering into a marriage relationship (excluding the judical tyranny in Massaschusetts, but I won’t go there now). Same-sex marriage is as much a human rights issue as fat people fighting for bigger seats on airplanes. Both groups are identifiable by their particular lifestyle choice, homosexuality or gluttony, not by the individual’s qualities inherited at birth.

By pushing same-sex marriage into the “human rights” category of causes, one obscures the real danger that same-sex marriage imposes: the dismantlement and corruption of the marriage institution. Traditional marriage is the glue to society. A family is formed by the union of a male and female, and the offspring of that family create their own families and propagate and sustain the human species. Moreover, a man and woman united in marriage is the optimal rearing environment for children. By expanding or enlarging the definiton of marriage to incorporate same-sex unions, the meaning of marriage becomes disjointed and malleable. Moreover, the protections incorporated into our laws to uphold marital unions will protect “marriages” that the legislators who made those laws never intended to protect or uphold.

As far the American opinion of same-sex marriage goes, my prior post directs the reader to (obliquely, I admit) polling data referenced by National Review Online’s Stanley Kurtz located here. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll recently found that 68% of Americans oppose gay marriage while only 28% support it. That’s a 40% spread–a statistical margin very similar to those who overwhemingly voted for and the bleak minority who voted against the Kansas amendment that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Now to Loving. Loving was about race–which is a “human rights” issue. A person cannot choose their innate racial being, they are born white, black, etc. In Loving the Court emphasized the importance of a traditional marriage relationship:

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. See Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12 (1967) (emphases mine).

Why is traditional marriage fundamental to our existence and survival? Because the beginnings of the human race came from the union of one man and one woman (Adam and Eve), and the human race does not survive but for the propogation of its species through conjugal relations between the male and female sexes. Same-sex marriage is not fundamental to our society’s existence and survival. Neither can children be created from the union of a man and a man or a woman and a woman nor do the progenitors of the human race descend from homosexual relations. Loving bolsters heterosexual marriage, recognizing its anchoring effect within society.

I am glad that our Nation’s laws and systems of government have removed themselves from the sludge of racism. However, slavery and its progeny (Black Crow laws, etc.) are very different from the “special rights” movement of gays and lesbians. The laws that uphold, define, and support marriage between one man and one woman are not analagous to racism or racist practices. Rather, they are a product of a conscious choice by our Nation and 49 of our States to sustain our polity rather than throw it into familial chaos.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 2nd, 2005 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Same-Sex Marriage et al.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.