Inherent Legal Difficulties in Same-Sex Marriage

Last year, I wrote about the legal difficulties that same-sex marriage will inevitably bring. Marriage, the public recognition and upholding of a union between a man and a woman, naturally arose because of a biological reality about men and women—i.e., the fact that their union is the kind of union that creates children which need the permanency, sexual exclusivity, and complementarity supported by this public recognition in order to flourish. Despite the current push to reject sexual complementarity as the basis of a family, our concept of family still involves children, and yet there’s no getting around the fact that in order for a child to exist (leaving aside cloning), a man and a woman must be involved.

So what happens when a definitional change is forced onto naturally occurring institutions (both marriage and family)? That’s what the UK is finding out as it tries to create new laws to hold up a new definition. It’s turning out to be not as simple as they thought, and the Church of England is pushing for better legislation:

[Rt Revd Tim Stevens, Convenor of the Lords Spiritual] made clear that the bishops would look not only at strengthening opt-outs for those who oppose a new definition of marriage but at the future practicalities for people in same-sex unions.

He signalled that bishops would seek to introduce a notion of adultery into the bill and extend parental rights for same-sex partners.

Under the current bill people in a same-sex marriages who discover that their spouse is unfaithful to them would not be able to divorce for adultery after Government legal experts failed to agree what constitutes “sex” between gay or lesbian couples.

The bishops are also seeking to change a provision which says that when a lesbian woman in a same-sex marriage has a baby her spouse is not also classed as the baby’s parent.

The result is that in some cases children would be classed as having only one parent….

"The bill now requires improvement in a number of other key respects, including in its approach to the question of fidelity in marriage and the rights of children.

“If this bill is to become law, it is crucial that marriage as newly defined is equipped to carry within it as many as possible of the virtues of the understanding of marriage it will replace.

Extra legislation is needed to try to artificially create a similarity between same-sex marriage and opposite-sex marriage because the two are inherently different in ways that are relevant to the institution of marriage.

Lesbian activist Masha Gessen says that because of these inherent differences and the resulting need for a new legal system to accommodate same-sex couples, the institution of marriage “should not exist” (see the first link in this post for a transcript, or listen here):

[F]ighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there—because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist…. I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality [of my children having five parents]. And I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.

In other words, there’s no way to make same-sex marriage exactly like marriage because of the issue of children, therefore something entirely new must be created for all. The problem is that creating a new, man-made institution by force of law will lead to many unintended consequences. And as Robert Oscar Lopez points out in The Public Discourse, in France the tide of public opinion has been turning against same-sex marriage as people learn more about the children-related legal changes it will bring, including the push to promote surrogacy, which treats both women and children as commodities.

Lopez concludes that the dropping support in France, taking place as knowledge increases, shows that same-sex marriage in this country is not inevitable, nor can opposition to it be explained by a lack of information.

Comments

[i8yourmom4lunch]

I love how you apologists of bigotry like to narrow your vision until it's just black and white to you. Children have little, if anything, to do with marriage, which has historically always been about property and political power. Marriage never guaranteed children, the paternity of children or sexual exclusivity. Furthermore, children are not perpetually inherent of all families, as neither are mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents or anything else since people die/disagree/become vagrants, etc. Think outside of your own box.

Also, your use of UK law doesn't change US law. The fact that the brits can't define sex doesn't mean that we haven't already -thank you Bill Clinton. Neither does homosexuals' inability to have children outside a heterosexual relationship or other fertility practices (nice work on only mentioning cloning). I laugh that the lesbian lady is the only parent, because homosexual adoption is now illegal? lol How does that change the institution of marriage when I know plenty of women who have become pregnant by one and married another? It doesn't.

Try less scare tactic and more reason, mkay? That is your mission statement, after all? Oh, and when you're filing your taxes, acting on behalf of a loved one in a coma, trying to protect a life you've made with that person against government forces, upholding the sanctimony and right to privacy in your relationship in court, etc, et al, and gripping your marriage license all while doing so, remember how you told the world it was all about paternity and enforcing your misogyny.

[Ben]

i8yourmom4lunch, please understand that every single detail that an individual can think of regarding legal homosexual marriage would not be mentioned in a single article. Honestly, one can write many volumes regarding the issues of the concept of homosexuality, and what it provides and penetrates because of it's deemed and accidental consequences and occurrences.

I'm afraid you missed much of the point this article is making. I am not affiliated with the organization Stand to Reason, and I'm sure they do not need any defending. I will not defend them. I want to help you understand the article.

The point of this article is not to scare anyone, nor is it to baffle an individual with illogical reasoning. The point of the article is the following: "How Has Homosexual Principles Affected Governments of Today?". The topics of the article are the following: To display how governments of Britain and France are doing with the new "legislation", how the people are affected by the laws of each country, and to question of "Should we bring this same legislation into the United States?". This article questioning the affects of homosexuality in government and showing how it is not as great and simple as it seems.

Since all of the claims made in the article are facts and experience, it would be foolish to defend or attack such an article. Please know what is being said before you comment.

I will not reply to any further comments. Thank you.

[Jim Abernathy]

I have to think that a person who really was above "scare tactics" would refrain from facile accusations of "bigotry," "misogyny," etc.

And in case it's not obvious to anyone, if marriage were really only about property and political power, there would be no reason for it to have historically been understood as only pertaining to complementary-sex unions.

[brgulker]

The result is that in some cases children would be classed as having only one parent….

Legislation was created to allow heterosexual couples to adopt. Legislation was created to handle artificial insemination in the event of a sterile father. Legislation was created to handle surrogate pregnancies. These types of parents are 'artificial' as well. I doubt anyone at STR objects to most of them.

Legislation was changed dramatically because of the civil rights movement.

That legislation as it currently exists isn't up to the task is in no way an argument against the institution of same sex marriages.

[Chery]

Thanks for writing this. I'll have refer to this and of course the other things written on this blog later when people get in an argument with me about this matter.