The Current Debate over Same-Sex “Marriage”

Jordan Lorence, Esq. Alliance Defense Fund

© Alliance Defense Fund 2012

We’ve Been Here Before, If That Is Any Comfort

The Mormon polygamy controversy in the United States, 1845-1895

[C]ertainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth, fit to take rank as one of the co-ordinate States of the Union, that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man & one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guaranty of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social & political improvement. Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15, 45 (1885)

Purpose of Marriage Amendment:

To Prevent State Courts from Invalidating the State Marriage Statute

Based on the State Constitution.

State courts in nine states have invalidated their states’ marriage laws based on the state constitutions, with Minnesota case possible # 10:

California, Hawaii and Alaska: Voters overturned court decisions with constitutional amendments. Maryland, New York and Washington: State appellate courts overturned lower court decisions invalidating state marriage laws. Connecticut, Iowa and Massachusetts – state law invalidated by state supreme court.

Fighting for Marriage and Helping the Poor

Marriage fights poverty -

Research shows that divorce and unmarried childbearing increase the economic vulnerability of children and mothers…

Marriage builds wealth –

“Married couples build more wealth on average than do otherwise similar singles or cohabiting couples, even after controlling for income.”

Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-One Conclusions from the Social Sciences, Institute for American Values (2002)

updated second edition 2005.

Marriage helps children -

Parental divorce increases children’s risk of school failure and reduces the likelihood that they will graduate from college.

Children who live with their own two married parents enjoy better physical health and less infant mortality than do children in other family forms.

Marriage is associated with reduced rates of alcohol and substance abuse for both adults and teens.

Marriage reduces domestic violence, child abuse and other crime -

Married woman experience less domestic violence than women in cohabiting or dating relationships.

A child not living with his or her own married parents is at greater risk for child abuse.

Boys raised in single parent homes are about twice as likely (and boys raised in stepfamilies are three times as likely) to have committed a crime that leads to incarceration by the time they reach their early thirties.

What is the State’s Interest in Marriage?

Why does the government license marriages but not friendships? Aren’t they loving relationships, too?

Is a marriage license the government’s confirmation that two people really love each other?

Did societies develop marriage as a delivery mechanism for government benefits?

Did societies develop marriage as a way for people to save money through pooled resources?

So why do societies regulate marriage?

A consensus of world cultures from the dawn of time, separated by centuries and continents, agree that they must create and sustain a public institution called “marriage,” that they uniformly define as one man and one woman:

“The family – based on a union, more or less durable, but socially approved, of two individuals of the opposite sexes who establish a household and bear and raise children – appears to be a practically universal phenomenon, present in every type of society.

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, “The View From Afar,” pp. 40-41 (1985).

Nations from the dawn of history have regulated marriage. The consensus of world cultures from their collective experience is that:

- The interaction of men and women will inevitably produce children. Society must deal with that reality and has an interest in making sure that children, the next generation of citizens, are raised in the best way.

- Children are best raised by their own father and mother, so society must develop ways to ensure that happens.

Nations from the beginning of history have regulated marriage. The consensus of world cultures from their collective experience is that:

- Societies have learned from their collective experience that if they allow everyone to do whatever they want in terms of family and sexual behavior, societies get…

- irresponsible men

- exploited women

- neglected and undisciplined children

Same-sex couples do not implicate this interest to promote marriage because:

1. Same-sex couples cannot produce children except for some sort of planned heterosexual intervention.

2. Same-sex couples do not have a father and a mother, so it is not the optimal environment for raising children from society’s standpoint.

Who is not necessary to raise the child, the father or the mother?

“We are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to th[e] foundation of the family. They are mentors and role models… But if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that what many fathers also are is missing – missing from too many lives and too many homes….We know the statistics – that children who grow up without a father are 5 times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; 9 times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison… We need [fathers] to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it’s the courage to raise one.”

Barack Obama made a similar point in a speech given June 15, 2008, the day before California started granting same sex marriage licenses:

Same-sex couples do not implicate this interest to promote marriage because:

3. Advocates of same-sex marriage are not pro-

marriage but pro-personal choice.

Marriage is an option that should be open but is not a superior choice from society’s standpoint. That sounds too much like the discredited “anything goes – personal choice” philosophy that creates immense social problems for societies.

Story of “Pierre” who called me on a San Francisco public radio show in 2004.

Redefining marriage changes its foundation from a Procreation model to a Self-Satisfaction/Self-Autonomy model.

“Adopting gay marriage would contribute significantly to changing the public meaning of marriage from a structured social form to a private relationship, from an institution with defined social purposes to a right of personal expression.”

David Blankenhorn, The Future of Marriage (2007) at 205.

. . . It is at moments like this that we realize that marriage itself has changed. . . . From being a means to bringing up children, it

has become primarily a way in which two adults affirm their emotional commitment to one another.

Andrew Sullivan, Introduction to Same-Sex Marriage, A Reader: Pro and Con, (1997), n. 82 at xix.

Harm #1

Example: Contrast Tiger Woods’ response to adultery with that of same-sex “marriage” advocates:

Openly homosexual author Andrew Sullivan has admitted that most homosexuals’ “understanding of the sexual commitment in a marriage is considerably broader that what nearly all heterosexual couples would tolerate.” He added that homosexuals have a “need for extramarital outlets.”

“The same boundaries that apply to everyone apply to me. I brought this shame on myself. I hurt my wife, my kids, my mother…”

Tiger Woods - Feb. 19, 2010

It will increase attempts to legalize polygamy.

•  Mormon polygamists in British Columbia are arguing in court that the Canadian court decisions legalizing same- sex “marriage” should also legalize polygamy.

•  “If same-sex orientation becomes a legitimate grounding for same-sex marriage, it is likely that bisexual orientation could become a legitimate grounding for group marriage.” David Blankenhorn, The Future of Marriage (2007) at 207.

•  Growing Muslim populations in Europe will agitate for legalized polygamy.

Harm #2

Religious liberty and the freedom of conscience will suffer for people or institutions that believe in marriage.

•  Business owners sued for discrimination

•  Speakers sued for “hate speech”

•  Counselors and social workers losing their professional licenses

•  Religious colleges losing their accreditation or sued for discrimination

•  Religious institutions losing their tax exemptions

Harm #3

People will increasingly be converted into commodities by being paid to use their bodies to serve the reproductive choices of others.

Harm #4

Is this “progress” or

In 2011, a male Spanish couple showed their twins carried by the impoverished Indian woman they paid for surrogacy “services”.

human trafficking?

Typical Arguments Raised for Same-Sex “Marriage”

1.  Marriage is a fundamental right, so regular marriage laws violate the human rights of same-sex couples.

The “right to marry” is a right to enter into a marriage consisting of a man and a woman, not a right to redefine marriage to include anyone(s).

This is not “marriage equality,” but marriage deconstruction. No society can have a common, uniform definition of marriage – it is all radical self-autonomy based in self-fulfillment.

Typical Arguments Raised for Same-Sex “Marriage”

2.  Marriage has changed over the centuries. Women used to be their husband’s chattel, and some states banned interracial marriages.

This argument confuses the dynamics of marriage with the definition of marriage. Two marriages both consisting of one man and one woman, can be totally different in the social dynamics between the husband and wife – well educated husband and wife living in condo in the big city contrasted with Amish couple living on a farm.

.

3. Marriage laws banning same-sex marriage are morally wrong like old laws prohibiting interracial marriage – Loving v. Virginia (1967).

- Race is not an inherent part of marriage – the interracial couple sought to enter into marriage as traditionally defined – one man and one woman

- But sex is an inherent part of marriage – only a man and a woman together can produce a child, and they can be of any racial background.

- American miscegenation laws prohibited only white people from having an interracial marriage.

For example, Asians could legally marry blacks and whites could marry Indians in certain circumstances.

4. The law allows infertile couples and old couples to marry, so society should permit infertile same-sex couples to marry.

- Most opposite sex marriages do produce children.

- Only a man and a woman marriage can produce children. A same-sex couple cannot produce children, absent third party heterosexual help.

- The infertility of many couples is temporary.

- An infertile couple still can do something no

same-sex couple can ever do – raise a child with a mother and a father.

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too difficult for me?”

Jeremiah 32:27

“Oh give us help against the adversary, For deliverance by man is in vain.

Through God we will do valiantly, And it is He who shall tread down our adversaries.”

Psalm 108:12-13

Same-Sex “Marriage” is not Inevitable

The Current Debate Over Same-Sex “Marriage”

Jordan Lorence, Esq. Alliance Defense Fund

© Alliance Defense Fund 2012