Support for same-sex marriage has three underlying premises. First, that homosexuality is innate and immutable. Second, that marriage is a basic human right amounting to no more than a contract between consenting adults.
Lastly, no societal harm has come from legalized same-sex marriage. Therefore, just as society now accepts interracial marriage, society must also accept same-sex marriage. The problem with this rationale, however, is that each premise is categorically false. Equality is not the issue. The claim by a sub-culture to posses the “right” to redefine marriage for the larger culture is.
As for the premises, first there is no “gay gene.” Homosexual attraction is not genetic like skin color. Numerous experts including Dr. Dean Hamer, the openly homosexual “gay gene” researcher and Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project agree that homosexuality is not hard-wired by DNA. Avowed lesbian, Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, Professor of Developmental Biology and Women Studies at Brown University, summarized the situation well 8 years ago, “[Although the claim that homosexuality is genetic] provides a legal argument that is, at the moment, actually having some sway in court, [f]or me, it's a very shaky place. It's bad science and bad politics.”
”Bad science” because persons of differing sexual orientation are genetically indistinguishable and sexual orientation can change. Fausto-Sterling herself is an example. She had been married prior to her committed same-sex relationship with playwright Paula Vogel. Regarding her experience of sexual plasticity Fausto-Sterling explains, “The women's movement opened up the feminine in a way that was new to me, and so my involvement made possible my becoming a lesbian.”
Over 100 studies document change of homosexual orientation. Even Dr. Robert Spitzer, the father of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, the “Bible of Psychiatry”, altered his lifetime view and now supports the right to re-orientation therapy. In 2003 he published a study confirming that many dissatisfied homosexuals can make substantial long-term changes in their orientation.
As for the comparison to the battle for interracial marriage, this argument fails because lifting the ban against interracial marriage never changed the definition of marriage. Marriage remained the faithful union of one man and one woman; the foundation of the natural family. Race is not intrinsic to marriage; gender is. If there were a ban against a homosexual man from marrying a woman, or against a lesbian from marrying a man, that law would parallel the interracial ban and constitute unjust discrimination.
Falsely equating sexual orientation with skin color maliciously renders supporters of natural marriage equivalent to racists and avoids rational debate. As the National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) “gathering storm” campaign revealed, eliminating gender from the definition of marriage has already infringed upon physician, parent and religious rights. The greatest harm, however, is that same-sex marriage weakens the institution of marriage overall, and weakens the truism that children are best served by a mother and father.
This is not a “conservative scare tactic.” Many social radicals, Judith Stacey, Nan D. Hunter, Maria Bevacqua, David Chambers and the openly homosexual Yale Law professor William N. Eskridge, Jr. among them, have professed a desire to see natural marriage “die,” and champion same-sex marriage as the means to that end.
Legalizing same-sex marriage requires redefining marriage primarily according to sexual attraction. Consequently, any and all combinations of marital unions become defensible. The coexistence of multiple forms of marriage such as polygamy, polyandry, group and intergenerational marriages will eliminate any meaningful shared definition of marriage. Without a substantial shared public meaning, the institution of marriage –and its attendant benefits – will die.
Scandinavian advocates for legalized polygamy used same-sex marriage laws as their wedge and succeeded in achieving their goal. The same scenario is now developing in Canada. Same-sex marriage has also been associated with increased rates of cohabitation, out of wedlock births and decreased natural marriage rates. Similarly, David Blankenhorn, author of The Future of Marriage, has analyzed data from 35 countries revealing that support for marriage is weakest in those nations where support for same-sex marriage is strongest.
This is concerning because natural marriage is the most pro-child institution we have. Anything that contributes to decreased rates of natural marriage harms children.
The nonpartisan research center Child Trends found that compared to all other family forms children fare best when reared in families headed by their biological parents in a low-conflict marriage.
Legislators and justices will do well to heed the findings of J.D. Unwin, British anthropologist and author of Sex and Culture. After studying 86 societies spanning 5,000 years of history he found a distinct correlation between increasing sexual freedom and social decline. Unwin postulated that when social regulations forbid indiscriminate satisfaction of sexual impulses, the sublimated sexual impulses are channeled into a “social energy” that builds society. Conversely, he found no instance in which a society retained its creative energy after abandoning monogamous male-female relationships.
The primary societal purpose of the institution of marriage is to bind a man to his biological children and their mother in order to raise the next generation. Defending natural marriage is not bigotry.
Enshrining natural marriage in law protects the greater common good for everyone – including our friends, family and neighbors with homosexual attractions.
Dr. Cretella is a member of the Board of Advisors, NOM-RI. Arthur Goldberg, JD is a rabbi and President of Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality.
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