Translation

03 October 2008

Institutionalizing Same-sex “Marriage” is Detrimental

I’ve heard it asked – I’m sure you have too – how will legalizing, or institutionalizing same-sex “marriage” (or civil-unions or the like) detriment you personally or society as a whole in secular terms? It’s all about what is legitimate and what isn’t.

Let’s start in assuming that same-sex “marriage” will continue to become legalized (as in, now, MA and CA). The view that marriage is only for two people in eros love will be promulgated and strengthened. In the inevitable juncture that the two people fall out of (eros) love, the marriage effectively becomes de facto, if not de jure, void in the resulting separation, annulment, or divorce. Marriage effectively becomes a temporary state of life as if a couple was not married. In legally making this blanket judgment on the marriage definition, there will be no institutional safeguards for traditional marriage (the legality of no-fault divorces is also detrimental to marriage – another topic).

What is traditional marriage? Traditional marriage is a contractual, covenantal, or sacramental arrangement in which the union of a couple is fortified in mutual fidelity for the upbringing of children. The only people that can naturally have children of their own in this union are a man and a woman (Creating human children any other way is unethical – another topic. Also, human adoption is another topic).

If marriage is redefined, not just in the narrow sense of allowing same-sex couples to legally “marry”, but to redefine it to mean “marriage only in the throws of passion (eros)”, society will break down as marriages break down in response to the diminishment of couples’ passion for one another.

For the state to only and explicitly espouse heterosexual marriage, it legitimizes marriage only in the traditional sense. Thus, when eros love diminishes, extinguishes, or changes, the married couple has a state-backed institution that upholds their marital duty to live in mutual fidelity (even agape, charitable love) for the upbringing of children.

Further, research has shown that children who live with their natural parents in a low conflict home become happier kids overall than those in other family situations, including that of a same-sex couples’ home. Also, married parents are also happier than (an) unmarried parent(s) and live longer.

So, I am against same-sex “marriage” not because I hate homosexual people (I know some personally) but because I think that we will be better off in the long run if we uphold traditional marriage as the norm for a better society today and tomorrow.

I personally believe same-sex “marriages” as well as heterosexual couples living or having sex together is wrong. However, since this behavior does not literally take the life of anyone (as in abortion), people engaging in this detrimental behavior are not to be arrested per se (although I believe sodomy is harmful even if consensual – another topic). This is not because it’s part of a private choice (there is no such thing as a private choice since society as a whole is effected by its members decisions), it’s because this is a free country.

Yet, as the above argument shows, legitimizing same-sex “marriage” via state law will further breakdown society due to the breakdown of the family in general.

We are already in the midst of a societal breakdown. The number of unwed mothers and the number of broken families (through divorce or other means) is up from the 1920’s. Beliefs of some interviewed teens reveal the state of the traditional marriage that is the foundation of a healthy society.

From the blog “Positively in Control”, given the following list of four relationship types, teens report that they are equivalent.

  • Two people who are seeing each other exclusively for some period of time
  • Two people living together
  • Two people who live together and have children but are not married
  • Two people who have taken public vows.

If same-sex “marriage” is legitimized throughout the country, there will be no state institution that will uphold the reality that marriage is an arrangement in which the union of a couple is fortified in mutual fidelity for the upbringing of children. It is in the state's interest - us - to uphold traditional marriage.

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