Rightank

Today, we celebrate America’s independence from Britain and relish in the history of our Nation. It is wonderful to live in a free land, “the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.”

My debt of gratitude extends from the sacrifice and heroism of George Washington in leading the liberation of the Thirteen Colonies to the sweat and blood of the American solider combating terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. The terrorist thugs fight to squelch what we and other free nations have: freedom.

Thank God for America. Thank God for those who founded the United States of America. Thank God for those who have fought for our liberties–I salute you all.

Stuffed Tiger (”ST”), thanks for your responses. I’ve enjoyed reading them.

Routinely, same-sex marriage supporters confuse the sphere of interests that the introduction of same-sex marriage presents. ST, one of your gripes with my viewpoint is that I label the fight for gay/lesbian marriage as a “special rights” fight instead of a “human rights” fight. This is problematic, in your view, because it could produce in a slippery-slope fashion a dehumanization of homosexuals. Moreover, how can I possibly deny a lesbian marital rights who is in love with another woman and raising a child together?

There is an enormous difference between societal interests and individual interests when contemplating the legalization of same-sex marriage. Individual interests are those mentioned by the woman in New York who laments she cannot be married because she is lesbian. Personally, she is hurt. However, is preventing her individual harm (by granting her a marriage license) more valuable to society than the societal harm caused by legalizing same-sex marriage? The answer is a resounding NO. Societies, throughout the history of the world, from Aristotle to today have nurtured and sustained heterosexual marriage as the foundation of their society. The United States is the beacon to the world in part because of its ability to nuture a robust, productive, and patriotic citizenry by encouraging marital coupling and subsequent rearing of children. That lesbians and gays feel bad or even ostracized is irrelevant. It is the societal or public interest that justifies government support of traditional marriage, not the individual or personalized feelings of love that draw a couple together.

Also, traditional marriage is the “glue” of society because that union not only produces children but rears the children as well. A male-female parent environment is the optimal setting for a stable rearing of offspring. Each parent teaches the child about their roles in society, each sex uniquely contributing to the child’s development. Same-sex couples cannot replicate this uniqueness because they are missing the male or female counterpart. Admittedly, there some couples are infertile and cannot reproduce or some couples marry in the older years when conception is either impracticable or impossible. But this tiny minority of marriages that fall into this category do not outweigh the vast majority of marriages that do successfully procreate and bear the burden of raising the next generation.

ST, you also gripe about the divorce rate and out-of-wedlock births as undermining my argument that marriage is the glue of society. First, to divorce. The divorce rate in United States and other nations is pathetic (and also overemphasizes those who are divorced multitudinous times). Primarily, this is due to no-fault divorce. This leads to increased societal instability which marriage is designed to foster and protect. Our divorce laws need revision. But that does not mean we should introduce an untested, less valuable form of “marriage” into society to further weaken and hamper the institution. Moreover, marriage laws exist to provide an incentive for co-habitating couples to marry precisely because of the instability inherent in those types of relationships (i.e., either the male or female can walk out without any consequence).

Lynn Wardle, Professor of law at Brigham Young University, highlights the unique contributions and benefits that heterosexual marriage brings to society:

1. Safe sexual relations
2. Responsible procreation
3. Optimal child rearing
4. Healthy human development
5. Protecting those who undertake the most vulnerable family roles for the benefit of society, especially wives and mothers
6. Securing the stability and intergrity of the basic unit of society
7. Fostering civic virtue, democracy, and social order
8. Facilitating interjurisdictional compatability.
See Lynn Wardle, “Multiple and Replenish”; Considering Same-Sex Marriage in Light of State Interests in Marital Procreation, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 24: 771, 779-780.

These are the many of the reasons why traditional marriage is the glue of society. Relationships, simply, are not that glue. There are many types of relationships (co-worker, friend, acquaintance, lover) but only one has the potential of creating and raising offspring that sustain a nation’s vitality. That is heterosexual marriage.

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 Wednesday, Spain joined Belgium and The Netherlands as the only countries to legalize same-sex marriage.

Despite the huge public outcry, the Socialist legislature carried through the measure. The reaction on the blogosphere has been interesting.

Andrew Sullivan argues that the Spanish decison (combined with the Dutch and Belgian) creates problems for gays who desire to work in the U.S. but cannot bring their gay lover in a “married” fashion. Sullivan implies that because our country prohibits gay marriage, U.S. immigration policy unjustly discriminates against immigrants whose country of origin adopts a more radical approach toward marriage. The argument Sullivan advances is a simplistic ruse for serepitiously advancing same-sex marriage, similar to second-parent adoption. The United States is not required to acquiese to the societal norms of other countries, especially in the immigration area. To cry discrimination is coddlesome and weak.

Others use the Socialist Spaniards as an opportunity to promote their characterization of same-sex marriage as a “human rights” cause. After utterly confusing the rationale behind institution of marriage, Philo of the Baltimore Group insists that same-sex marriage is “inevitable” in the U.S. because it’s a “human right”–Americans just need to wake up. Well, you might want to consider moving Philo. I heard Canada is a great place to live. Support for traditional marriage is strong, vastly overpowering any desire for same-sex marriage. The activist judges love same-sex marriage but the American people stand opposed, for reasons I’ve expressed before.

Another blogger dismisses any notion of societal normality and leaps up-and-down about the Spainish decision. Too bad he forgets that by granting same-sex marriage rights to gays, that decision affects the entire polity and institutional mechanisms (courts, adminstrative agencies, etc.) that hold a society together. Hey Ed, you might want to read up on the Dutch and how their society is doing after legalizing gay marriage.

The Spanish paper, El Pais, editorializes that the whole country of Spain should feel “proud” to have same-sex marriage. Incorrectly, like Ed, they also state that “same-sex marriage doesn’t diminish or harm heterosexual marriage nor attack the traditional family.” Same-sex marriage is again a “rights” issue, a mere extension of the rights equally given to other Spaniards. Including Spanish husbands/sons and mothers/daughters? Of course not. Same-sex marriage advocates and supporters cannot make this argument because there are other relationships (polgamy, intra-family) that are prohibited from forming a marriage relationship, precisely because society does not benefit from those types of relationships qua heterosexual marriages.

Those radicals who support same-sex marriage will twist every “victory” toward their individualized movement toward “equality.” However, as most Americans recognize, the institution of traditional marriage is the bulwark of our society and tradtional marriage supporters (like myself) will not allow its deleterious effects run rampant among our society.