Same-sex Marriage Arguments

A columnist in the Chicago Tribune wrote a column about why the arguments against same-sex marriage fail.  I certainly appreciate that he responds to the arguments with rational responses rather than ad hominem attacks or red herrings.  That's a refreshing change.  But I still think his responses fall short of undermining the reasons.  Here's why.

"Gay marriage violates tradition." He says that tradition is a mixed bad and expanding rights requires overturning it.  In principle, he's right.  But we don't appeal to tradition just for the tradition's sake.  "We've always done it this way."  it's a universal tradition across millennia, cultures, races, and religions.  It's pretty much universal tradition.  So there's a pretty big precedent that can't be dismissed.  And there's reason behind this vast tradition.  It's the way societies work best to organize families to protect children to perpetuate the next generation.  Look, tradition has been overturned before the push for same-sex marriage.  It was most notably overturned in the U.S. when no-fault divorce was introduced and the sexual revolution ensued.  Families have been eroding for a while now and the results aren't good.  Experience would argue that there was wisdom behind tradition and we should return to it instead of advancing on to further social experiments.

"Gay couples can't produce children."  He cites other cases of marriage we allow that don't produce children.  True enough, but citing exceptions doesn't undermine the rule.  In general, society's interest in marriage is the children they produce.  Same-sex marriage doesn't create an exception but an entirely new class of marriages in which children do not result as a rule.  While individuals may be free to engage in these relationships, society and government just don't have a stake in them so marriage doesn't apply.

"Having a mom and a dad is better for children than having two moms or two dads."  All of our experience says so and so do studies.  Study after study in the last 30 years has demonstrated the horrific consequences for children in single-parent families and broken homes.  The damage to children and society as a result is significant.  J. Warner Wallace guest hosted the radio program Sunday and opened the show commenting on this.  You can listen here.

"Legalizing same-sex marriage will put us on the slippery slope toward legalizing polygamy." He asserts that same-sex marriage does not fundamentally alter the two-person model of traditional marriage.  Only if you consider the sexes interchangeable.  It's not as though the two people being male and female is incidental to the traditional marriage.  It's a fundamental change to the definition.  And there is a logical slippery slope between the way proponents of same-sex marriage justify their arguments and polygamy. Once the arguments are encoded in the law, there's nothing in principle that keeps the justification for one from justifying the second.  Supporters of same-sex marriage admit that further radical redefinition of marriage is part of the agenda.

"Same-sex marriage trivializes and therefore weakens the institution of heterosexual marriage." To the extent that heterosexuals have already weakened and trivialized marriage with divorce, living together, and out-of-wedlock parenting, the institution has already taken some significant hits.  But that doesn't mean we should make further changes that undermine it.  And the fact is that homosexual couples haven't taken advantage of the freedom to marry in significant numbers according to the U.S. Census and studies in other countries.  That seems to indicate that the goal isn't marriage as much as social acceptance that marriage conveys.

"Homosexual behavior is immoral and ought not be encouraged."  He doesn't want to argue morality.  Fair enough.  But arguments about morality aren't simply based in religion.  Largely, morality arguments are drawn from nature, which can give us a good justification for design and purpose.  Greg gives a case here

But all of this really is beside the point.  The real issue is whether or not marriage is a right.  It's not.  It's nor more a right than a drivers' license is a right.  As far as goverment's recognition of marriage, there is no right to either on.  They're civil arrangements that the goverment has an interest in.  The only obligation to rights the government has is to treat equally all citizens who meet the qualifications.  If you pass the driver's test, you get a license.  If you meet the qualifications for marriage, you also get a license and recognition from the government.  And in that respect, everyone - heterosexual or homosexual - has exactly the same access to marriage:  Each is equally free to marry one person at a time of the opposite sex.  The qualification for marriage has never been to marry who you love, it's bee to marry an individual that creates a union the government has an interest in.  Everyone else is free to carry on relationships as they wish. 

It doesn't come up in this column, but just because I think it's such a good argument, here is Frank Beckwith's explanation for why the analogy between interracial marriage and same-sex marriage fails.

Comments

[Malebranche]

Melinda gives the columnists reply to the first two objections (about tradition and reproductive potential). When she gets to the objection that having same-sex parents is not the best for children, however, Melinda doesn’t even bother to give the columnist’s response (although Melinda does give the link to the article, so how much can one complain?). This is what the columnist says:

Making that case won't be easy. Studies show little developmental or social difference between children raised by heterosexual parents and children raised by homosexual parents. In fact on 2010 study in the journal Pediatrics found that children of lesbians scored better in such areas as self esteem, behavior and academic performance than children of straight parents.

Second, even if we concede for the sake of discussion that a stable, loving male-female couple is the gold standard for parenting, it's otherwise offensive to deny those who fall short of the gold standard the right to marry.

For instance, even if data-mining researchers could demonstrate a strong probability that certain pairings would produce suboptimal parents --- couples without high school diplomas, say, or couples with a 30-year gap in their ages or couples with three or more divorces between them -- we would never think of denying such couples marriage licenses.

Instead of presenting these claims, Melinda skirrs right passed them in order to bring up data gathered from studies on single parent households and divorced families. One would have thought that studies comparing children in same-sex parent households with children in traditional households would be more directly germane to the issue. Perhaps the reason the folks at STR aren’t overeager to look at that data directly is that once you do, you no longer get the impression that the studies directly relevant to same-sex parenting are uniformly suggestive that kids are very much worse off because of it. Consider, for instance, the following excerpt (taken from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/16/gay-parents-better-than-straights_n_1208659.html)

Research has shown that the kids of same-sex couples — both adopted and biological kids — fare no worse than the kids of straight couples on mental health, social functioning, school performance and a variety of other life-success measures. In a 2010 review of virtually every study on gay parenting, New York University sociologist Judith Stacey and University of Southern California sociologist Tim Biblarz found no differences between children raised in homes with two heterosexual parents and children raised with lesbian parents.

"There's no doubt whatsoever from the research that children with two lesbian parents are growing up to be just as well-adjusted and successful" as children with a male and a female parent," Stacey told LiveScience.
There is very little research on the children of gay men, so Stacey and Biblarz couldn't draw conclusions on those families. But Stacey suspects that gay men "will be the best parents on average," she said.

My aim is not to defend that research against all reasonable suspicion, but to merely point out that for all its preoccupation with homosexuality and same-sex marriage, STR has not so much as even hinted at ambiguities in the evidence or trends in the evidence that point toward the hypothesis that kids in same-sex families do just fine (someone correct me if STR has in fact alerted their readers about this).

Finally, the columnist Melinda is interacting with makes a point made on this blog before, namely that it is lunacy to make laws that permit only couples in the best circumstances to adopt children. Even if being raised by a same-sex couple is not the best, it in no way follows from that that same-sex adoption should be categorically forbidden by law. What could be clearer?

Much of the way STR interacts with the objections raised against their view reminds me of a remark made by Pierre Bayle, a so-called fideist and major influence in the Enlightenment:

In answering the objections raised to him, the author approaches his task like almost all other theologians and philosophers. He answers very fully and exactly all of the weak ones and omits or touches only in passing on those which press him very hard.

[Billy]

Homosexuality is a sin. That's why it's wrong. Same sex marriage is an oxymoron. I realize that people have tried to explain away the Bible's stance on this ( which is ultimately God's stance). If someone doesn't believe the Bible to be Revelation from God then they won't agree with me obviously. There is probably no limit to man kinds ability to contrive means of explaining away their depravity. All the studies and viewpoints that are used for and against homosexual activity should not be used as superior to the authority of God's word. It's like using a ladder that is something other than God's authority to climb up to the realization of His authority and then throwing the ladder away. God must be the starting point in considering right and wrong or you could end up anywhere in the discussion. All ultimate commitments must be self validating or they are not ultimate (circular reasoning).

[Karen]

Maybe the separation of church and state would be well applied here. If the arguement is that marriage is between a man and woman in the eyes of god, then its a religious argument that doesn't belong in government. If the goverment says, "hey, you nice couples sharing a household can have some tax breaks and share in each other's inheritance and 401(k)s," then marriage is a contract between two people. It shouldn't matter their gender. If Melinda feels that marriage is not a right, then the qualifications for the issuance of the license should not identify any protected class (age, race, sexual orientation) just like they can't discriminate against homosexuals from getting a drivers license.

[Billy]

To say that government is somehow established without God's sovereignty would be a false statement from a Christian perspective. I do think the current trend is in favor of a separation of church and state. Historically speaking I haven't decided how I feel it was intended to be by the "founding fathers". It is what it is. People will still do what they want to whether the laws support it or not. However, the idea of a contract between two people for those tax breaks, inheritance, etc. doesn't sound terribly menacing. It would make more sense than "gay marriage". This topic has been really big lately where I live and so I have heard lots of different perspectives on it. The contract idea is not a bad one. Not to be misleading, I still don't believe the Bible is ambiguous on the moral implications of homosexuality.

[RonH]

Suppose we make each person equally free to marry one person of the opposite sex and same race. That's equal.

[Billy]

That's peculiar

[Rolf Anderson]

Suppose we make each person equally free to marry one person of the opposite sex and same race...who live in the same country in the same city with the same color of hair not over six feet tall...

Yes, it would be "equal" but ignores what marriage is.

As Greg Koukl has written, and with which I agree, one's ethnic origin has nothing to do with marriage. One's sex is fundamental to marriage and to the essential public purpose of marriage.

[Billy]

1 Corinthians 7:1-2. The only way to avoid fornication if you are not going to be abstinent is to marry- one man with one woman. Nothing in there about ethnic origin. I too concur with Greg and Rolf.

[Philobite]

RonH: "Suppose we make each person equally free to marry one person of the opposite sex and same race. That's equal."

That's precisely correct... opposite sex, same race: You can't marry a horse, an elephant, a dolphin, a centipede or a bacterium. You are free to marry a person of the opposite sex of the same race as you: human.

[Lori Lazo]

Today in the AP, I posted the following comment reguarding the Boston appeals court finding the Defense of Marriage Act being unconstitutional. (A special "thanks" to Greg for his "Tactics on Defending the Faith", which I read at least 13 years ago and still serves as a strong foundation in my ability to stand for may faith today!
_______

@ Brian says: "There's no reasonable argument against gay marriage. The best opponents can do is say it will invoke God's wrath or that it vaguely damages the fabric of society."

Actually, there is a very good reason - The Gay lifestyle is inherently INTOLERANT. Homosexual men exclude women & Lesbian women exclude men.

In the workforce, a man who will not treat a woman equally is considered a "Chauvinist" and the unfair treatment is noted and addressed. But a Homosexual man in the workforce can oppress a female worker and be supported, simply because "gay" is an agenda being promoted instead of carefully examined for what it is. It is an agenda of intolerance... period.

And if you do not agree, you will be surprised, threatened, overruled, etc. THAT is what damages the fabric of society (American Democracy). And this is not a "what if" situation, I experienced homosexual discrimination in the workplace and all America is continually being threatened and taken to court to overturn the DOMOCRATIC voice of America who has cast their votes in opposition to gay marriage.

If a ruler overturned a democractic vote, he would be called a dictator... and yet you fail to see how the intolerant tactics of the gay marriage movement damages the fabric of society?

[Billy]

Philobite

I was thinking of race as white, African American, Asian, etc. The comment under those circumstances seemed to be heading in another direction. Humans and animals marrying is not good.

[Billy]

Sometimes my brain does funny things.

[obey shorty bee]

need somee help on my project;
i help bee thankfull if you people could help and answer my question.

why shouldn't samee sex bee legalized

[Amy]

OSB, check out these posts and the links they link to:

Same-Sex Marriage Challenges and Responses
What Is Marriage
Three-Judge Panel Strikes Down Prop 8
Inconsistent Same-Sex Marriage Advocates

Hope that helps!