Fighting a rising tide of support for gay marriage, social conservatives resort to arguments based on wishful thinking not reason, faith not fact. One floated By Brian Brown, head of the National Organization for Marriage, is that rights are decided by voting majorities.
This particular claim will be tested as the Supreme Court will hear arguments on California’s Proposition 8, in which a majority of voters restricted marriage to one man and one woman. The Supreme Court will also consider arguments over the constitutionality of DOMA.
Against this background let’s have a look at the anti-gay marriage arguments.
Rights are decided by voters.
This argument is daily refuted by the Tea Party/NRA lobby which maintains that the 2nd amendment trumps any vote to restrict guns. Rights are enshrined in the Constitution not decided by the tides of public opinion.
Nine unelected black-robed judges shouldn’t decide something so fundamental as who is allowed to marry.
Right or wrong, the Supreme Court has been the final word on the Constitution since Marbury vs. Madison in 1803. Conservatives loved the Court in Bush vs Gore and Citizens United vs. the FEC. You can’t change the rules in the middle of the game.
Gay Marriage should be a state issue.
Some rights are so fundamental that they trump state law. We fought a civil war to give the right of all Americans to live free – despite what individual states thought about the proposition.
A marriage is traditionally only between one man and one woman.
No it isn’t. Granted it is the norm in most of the non-Muslim world today. But the human race has a rich history of polygamy and polyandry.
Biblically marriage is only permitted between one man and one woman.
This argument is wrong in fact and in relevance. According to the Bible, Solomon – to name one example – had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
More importantly, what the Bible says about marriage is irrelevant. Conservatives make quite a noise about not letting foreign law guide our jurisprudence. And what could be more foreign than a book written by middle-easterners, 2,000+ years ago, in a foreign language.
Forget the Old Testament, the New Testament doesn’t permit polygamy.
The evidence here for polygamy is not as clear. Timothy 3:2 outlines the qualifications to be a bishop. One of which is to be “husband of one wife”. Some infer that means other men had more than one wife. Others see it as meaning a bishop shouldn’t be divorced. Regardless, biblical law is not US law.
Note: Some of the other qualifications for bishops are: must be above reproach, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.(Emphasis mine).
The Bible forbids gay marriage.
Yes, Leviticus 20:13 says gay sex is illegal. But the issue here is one of consistency. Leviticus doesn’t just forbid gays from having sex; it demands that they should be executed.
I hope religious conservatives wouldn’t go that far. But if any did, Leviticus also requires other sinners to meet the executioner: children who curse their parents, adulterers, men who sleep with their fathers’ wives or daughters-in-law, men who sleep with both their wife and her mother, and anyone who sleeps with an animal. The women and – in the case of bestiality – the unfortunate animal, are all to be executed as well.
So much for the Bible. What about the “quality of life” arguments?
Children do better in homes with a mother and a father.
The American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) joined with a slew of professional medical and psychological groups in debunking that argument. There is no evidence that children raised by married gay couples are disadvantaged.
Conservatives fight mainstream science by citing “scientific reports” that support their position. Invariably these reports are sponsored by organizations with an interest in the result and are rarely peer reviewed.
Typical is the New Family Structures Study, the latest “gay-marriage- hurts-children” report (the Heritage Institute laughably calls it “robust”). The report misleadingly compares children of heterosexual couples with children of a parent who had a homosexual affair, not children of gay parents. And it was commissioned by the Witherspoon Institute – a religious organization, with an inherent bias against gay marriage.
Note: this junk science approach is the foundation of climate-change denial and intelligent design.
Marriage is for procreation.
This argument is specious as we do not bar infertile couples from marrying. Further, if marriage is for procreation you have to question the legality of contraceptives.
Some anti-gay marriage zealots try to finesse the procreation problem by arguing that marriage is based on the coital act, not procreation per se. Reducing marriage to a specific type of sex is to ignore its the emotional bonds.
Gay marriage threatens the very institution of marriage.
Gay marriage has been legal in Massachusetts since 2004. Find one heterosexual couple in the Bay State whose marriage has been changed by that fact.
Note: Massachusetts has the fourth lowest divorce rate in the US.
Gay marriage will lead to the legalization of polygamy, pederasty and bestiality.
Why? Back to Massachusetts, before it legalized gay nuptials, marriage was between two consenting adults, afterwards marriage was still between two consenting adults.
Note: the same argument was used to keep anti-miscegenation laws – forbiding interracial marriage – on the books.
Conclusion
There is no reason to ban gay marriage that isn’t based in fear and bigotry.
Note: If you are are for “traditional”, “biblical” marriage you should be lobbying for laws against divorce and adultery.
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