From the Ruth Institute, you can download a free pamphlet entitled 77 Non-Religious Reasons to Support Traditional Marriage. I have commented a little about same-sex marriage on this board, but not a lot. One of the reasons is that there is not a lot of hard-concrete evidence either for or against same-sex marriage.
SSM is a recent invention. The Netherlands allowed SSM in 2001. We simply have not had enough time to evaluate what impact SSM will have on our children. Depending on what sources your believe, gays are about 10% of the human population. Not all gays choose to enter into an exclusive relationship. Since same sex couples are so few, and not all same-sex couples choose to have children, it will still be many years, probably not until the late 2020's when children of same-sex couple are fully-grown and mature adults; before there will be enough children from same-sex marriages to evaluate their effect on society as a whole.
As time goes on, many of these 77 Reasons will be discredited, while others will be affirmed. There may be items added to this list. One criticism that I have of this pamphlet is comparing same-sex couples to step families. With many step families, those that were created by divorce and remarriage of one or both of the biological parents, one biological parent is outside the home, but still involved in the lives of the children. That creates a dynamic that many same-sex families will not have.
I can also state that the 77 Reasons pamphlet, in linking biological and legal parentage, discredits families where parents are not able to have children of their own and have to resort to artificial means of conception or adoption. For research I did about 10 years ago, about 10 percent of young, heterosexual couples will not be able to conceive without some sort of medical intervention. We should not take a stance on traditional marriage that diminishes couples like this.
The author of this pamphlet is a PhD in family psychology. However, this particular piece has not been peer reviewed nor sanctioned by a 3rd party. She makes some good points. Based upon this, here are some arguments that are legitimate, with my own numbering system.
1. Same-Sex Marriage looks at marriage from an adult point of view. The ability to conceive children is not considered by many and a reason to keep traditional marriage.
Let's take a moment to consider how same-sex couples would bring children into the world.
A. Adopt.
B1. Two gay men: Simply, a male gay couple has to 1. Determine whose sperm to use. 2. Find an egg donor. 3. Find a woman willing to carry the child through pregnancy. There may be legal complications if #2 and #3 are the same person.
B2. Two gay women: It's a little bit less complicated. They simply need to find a sperm donor and determine who will carry the child during pregnancy.
Adoption and artificial insemination should be available as options for heterosexual couples to have children, but should be used in extreme circumstances when couple can't otherwise have children. The normal biological method to create children should continue to be the norm. Again, one should not make children conceived of artificial means less a lesser person. And adoption is a beautiful option for those not able to conceive, or for children who can't otherwise get parents who want them. Now, back to legitimate non-religious arguments for traditional marriage.
2. The gender of the marriage partner matters just as much to the gay person as it does to the straight person. Gay men who choose to marry will prefer a man. Gay women who choose to marry will prefer a woman. One can't really take gender out of the marriage relationship.
3. Same Sex Marriage assumes that in the marriage relationship, and in the parent-child relationship, that men and women are interchangeable. We do not have inform information to know if this is the case, but we do know what happens to children who are born and raised in single-parent families. We do not yet know if same-sex parents will have the same challenges that single parents have.
4. Same Sex Marriage marginalizes the role of the missing gender parent. Where two men are allowed to marry, the emotional role of the mother is marginalized. Where two women are allowed to marry, the emotional role of the father is marginalized. It is assumed that two parents, even though they are of the same gender, are enough.
5. No one has the right to a child. Children are people and have rights that can't be marginalized nor ignored. Family law had traditionally acted in the best interest of children. From the experience we have with single parents, children are best served in homes where there are both genders.
6. Same Sex Marriage opens the door for children to have more than 2 legal parents...much like divorce does.
7. The state will have to write news laws, and with the assistance of the courts, the state will have to legally protect same-sex marriage. Courts will have to enforce the belief that fathers and mothers are interchangeable. Traditional marriage is self-supporting.
8. Traditional marriage is based upon biology. Humans reproduce sexually. This means it takes both male and female gametes to create a zygote. This does not change with sexual orientation.
9. Support of Same Sex Marriage reduces marriage to little more than the official public sanction of a sexual relationship. It passes public benefits that were meant mainly to assist parents with children to any couple. The original purpose of "Married filing join return" was to help a traditional couple where the mother stays home and takes care of the household while the father goes to the office to earn a paycheck. It does not really assist couples where both work, especially in cases where both spouses earn close to the same amount of money (Marriage Penalty).
Let me also state here that children of gay couples are the same as children of straight couples. Parentage should not be a reason to give children lesser status.
Marriage based upon love is a very new concept in and of itself. In the 1800s, people rarely married out of love. They looked for someone with a pleasant disposition because they knew that they would be in it for the long hall. In spite of all of this, here is what we can do for those with same-gender attraction.
1. Support laws that ban discrimination of homosexual, bi-sexual and trans-gender persons in housing and in the work-place.
2. Support laws that ban discrimination based upon marital status.
3. Support laws that ban discrimination based upon parental status.
4. No matter what happens in the Same-Sex Marriage debate, gay couples will have children. Treat all children the same no matter who their parents are.
Since homosexuality is based upon feelings that we do not completely understand, it is no reason to condemn nor ostracize anyone who feels this way.
Posts
