Why should I care about "protecting marriage?"
Who cares if a couple of guys want to marry each other? What’s the harm?
How does this hurt my/your marriage?
They've had same-sex marriage licensing in [a state our country] for [x] years, and isn’t the place still there? Have things fallen apart?
When has a member of the clergy ever been forced to perform a wedding against his or her will?
These are questions that are often asked of those who stand up to defend marriage from being neutered.
However, in most places, it isn't up to us to demonstrate that there will be harm. The burden of convincing falls on the people asking for change. The federal government and all but a handful of states recognize marriage as uniting the sexes, so in those cases, it is those who want to neuter marriage who must demonstrate why doing so would be of overall net benefit to society. While a marriage license may solve practical challenges for a brideless or groomless couple, those issues can be addressed without neutering state marriage licensing.
The universal understanding of marriage has been that it unites a bride and a groom. Only recently, in a few places, has there been deviation from this concept.
With that in mind, let's examine the questions.
Why should I care about "protecting marriage?"
Marriage laws have an impact on all of us, even those of us who never marry. If the recent past is any indication, around 90% of Americans will be married at some point in life, and we can expect the numbers to remain high unless the marriage strike makes dramatic gains or something else dramatic happens. Marriage is the basic building block of society, uniting both basic kinds of human beings – men and women.
We have ample evidence that raising children within a marriage better prepares them to be well-adjusted, productive citizens who will commit less crime and experience fewer negative indicators. Yes, those who seek to neuter marriage have a vested interest in trying to counter every study or intuition that backs this up. But their actions betray them. They live as though there is a difference between men and women, and they also tout the value of diversity. It is only when it comes to the raising of children that they go against these two principles. The difference between men and women is important to them in choosing a partner - it is also important to children when it comes to their parents.
By nature, every child has a mother and a father. Marriage encourages unified parenting, providing a default establishment of legal paternity for any child born to the bride, and providing children with protection, nurturing, and provision from both a male and a female role model. Every child, barring incarceration or otherwise strict seclusion, will interact with both women and men throughout his life, and thus being raised with the inclusive diversity of both a male and female role model is to his benefit.
While there are parents who die, abandon their children, or must have their parental rights restricted or terminated to protect children, in general, marriage encourages stability and cooperation in childrearing and otherwise codifies a child's natural right to her mother and father.
Who cares if a couple of guys want to marry each other? What's the harm? How does this hurt my/your marriage?
Nothing is stopping consenting adults from sharing a home, bed, and life together; having showers and parties; entering into contracts (in some places, domestic partnerships); having a ceremony with consenting clergy, wearing dresses or tuxes, holding flowers, making vows, exchanging rings, stomping a glass; having a reception with gifts, a cake, bouquet-tossing, garter-tossing, and dancing through the night; taking a honeymoon vacation; changing names; calling themselves married; requesting that others consider them married; and celebrating anniversaries.
Indeed, this has been going on for several years now, it is all legal, and there is no serious movement to pass legislation to change this.
However, state licensing is a public issue. When someone applies for a state license, it becomes the issue of any citizen. Each of gets our say when it comes to marriage licensing law.
Since neutering marriage licensing is a new concept, there isn't much direct history to use as an example of negative effects. No-fault divorce and other changes in family law are the closest kind of changes with enough history. Since the implementation of no-fault divorce, divorce rates have skyrocketed, as has the rate of nonmarital cohabitation.
A "marriage" without a bride and a groom is a counterfeit. It devalues marriage in the same way that other counterfeiting harms the authentic. How much more of a problem is it to get the government involved in counterfeiting?
Since same-sex pairings, as a category, are unable to produce children, applying the label "marriage" to such relationships indicates that marriage is not about children. If marriage is not about children, why bother to marry to raise children? If marriage is not about children, but instead the wants of the adults, then public policy regarding marriage will inevitably shift further away from the interests of children.
Neutering marriage perpetuates the false and destructive notion that men and women are interchangeable, devaluing both masculinity and femininity and the value of joining the two. Notice that a social commentators often bemoan when a workplace or some professional organization or educational program is all-male. This "lack of diversity" is recognized as a problem. Is diversity not important in the basic unit of society?
This isn't about what two people get to call their relationship - it is about forcing the rest of us to affirm brideless or groomless pairings as marriage, and prevent us from distinguishing between marriage, two men, or two women. The state is YOU and ME. It isn't like, when the state issues a marriage license, it is "someone else".
They've had same-sex marriage licensing in [fill in the place for how ever many years], and isn’t the place still there? Have things fallen apart? When has a member of the clergy ever been forced to perform a wedding against his or her will?
The most serious consequences of neutering marriage will likely be generational, not immediate, though there will be some immediate consequences. However, the neutering of marriage licensing was only in one state out of fifty (and only to residents of that state), and now more recently, a handful of states have joined in (as have a few nations). The federal government has never recognized a brideless or groomless pairing as marriage. As a result the states with neutered licenses have been islands still subjected to the influence of surrounding and national culture, where marriage is mostly presented as uniting the sexes. But see what has happened in the state that has had neutered licenses for the longest, Massachusetts.
The activist groups have publicly said they are currently holding back for strategic reasons, including public relations. If marriage is neutered at the federal level and imposed on all fifty states and all territories, or if it is neutered in a significant number of states so that the activist groups feel secure enough not to care about general public perception, we will definitely see further steps.
Those further steps could include a concerted effort to use neutered marriage licenses as tools in filing lawsuits, and using neutered marriage as a platform and precedent on which to build other legal, social, and cultural "reforms" that we haven't even considered or that haven't even been part of the public debate as of yet. We have already seen businesses with owners who have objections of conscience to participation in an event endorsing homosexual behavior targeted by their own state government and vilified by people who can only be considered fascists.
Possible results:
1. A greater percentage of children may be raised out of wedlock, or for a longer period out of wedlock. This has happened in the Netherlands, which was the first country to neuter marriage. Perhaps this is mere coincidence – are we willing to take that gamble?
2. The government will do less to protect – and may work against – a child's right to a mother and father. Someone who made children in a heterosexual relationship but enters into a homosexual relationship will more easily be able to gain custody of those children and legally replace the mother or father of the children with his or her new partner. How difficult would it be for the (majority) custodial parent to convince a court that their new legal spouse, being present in the home, should replace the other parent?
Adoption agencies will not be able to give preference to a bride+groom couple when placing children.
3. Free speech will be stifled. In the workplace, civic organizations, in academia, and in anything with any government ties, you will not be able to express the view that marriage unites the sexes. This isn't about a same-sex couple getting to use the word "marriage" to describe their relationship – it is about YOU and ME not being able to use the word "marriage" to describe the unique thing that unites both a bride and groom into a legal, social, and spiritual bond that provides children with both a mother and a father. Civil and criminal cases may be filed against anyone who personally fails to affirm that a same-sex pairing is marriage, including claiming slander/libel, defamation, and denial of civil rights. Likewise, esteeming (bride+groom) marriage may become actionable "hate speech", and those who do it will be portrayed as bigots (as they already are being portrayed by the marriage neutering advocates).
4. Any depiction of marriage, such as in the general media or school curriculum, will be required or strongly pressured to include brideless or groomless "marriages".
5. Parents and employees will lose any "opt-out" leverage they have when it comes to promotions of homosexual behavior or neutered marriage.
6. Religious organizations, congregations, and clergy will be pressured or outright forced to perform, host, and affirm same-sex "weddings", and will be prevented from presenting Scriptural teachings about homosexual behavior or marriage uniting the sexes.
7. When "disparities" are noticed between both-sex couples and same-sex couples, courts may order government programs to correct those disparities. For example, if a study shows that depression is more common in same-sex couples than bride+groom couples, taxpayers may be obligated to pay for treatment programs targeted towards same-sex couples in an effort to correct this disparity. Any evidence that these disparities are a result of the relationships being inherently different will be rejected.
8. Same-sex couples may be granted the "right" to taxpayer funding for reproductive technology and programs, including fertility treatments and surrogate mothers, to correct the "inequality" with both-sexes couples who are able to conceive children at no cost.
9. Several bad legal precedents will be established or strengthened: a) Constitutional rights applying to couples and groups, rather than just persons and states; b) the majority being forced to cater to any kind of minority, including professional groups, who ask for changes the majority does not want; c) a right to a state license; d) government involvement in private, personal relationships [the reason for their involvement in marriage is based on the natural tendency towards children who are involuntary participants].
10. It will be the official government position that homosexual sodomy is equivalent to coitus.
11. It will be the official government position that men and women are not only equal but interchangeable.
Doubt that these things can happen because they haven't happened before? We've never neutered marriage in our national culture before, granting a new tool to a highly organized and effective activist coalition that had demonstrated a history of taking a mile when given an inch. We have no reason to believe that this coalition will stop with neutering marriage. Based on what this coalition has done before, the successes of the true civil rights movement that this coalition has modeled their campaign after and attempted to hijack, and the fascist organizations that participate in their rallies - we'll have to fight these things with our hands tied behind our backs if we allow marriage to be neutered.
Neutering marriage would be one of the biggest social shifts in human history, changing the basic unit of society. It will effectively eliminate the heteronormative orientation of culture, replacing marriage with a counterfeit, discounting the distinctions between the sexes, devaluing both masculinity and femininity.
This isn't about Adam and Steve being able to exchange vows on the beach in front of their family and friends. This is about the rest of us not being able to have our say that the kind of union that produces children and provides them with both a mother and a father is uniquely beneficial to society and is the ideal. The activists are trying to prevent us from even having a word that distinguishes this relationship from others. It is time we stopped allowing ourselves to be politically, socially, and legally bullied by a tiny minority with a seemingly pathological need for affirmation from everyone else, and their demand that we reorder all of society in an attempt to make them feel more comfortable, regardless of how it makes the rest of us feel.
Neutering marriage discourages and devalues marriage.
These are questions that are often asked of those who stand up to defend marriage from being neutered.
However, in most places, it isn't up to us to demonstrate that there will be harm. The burden of convincing falls on the people asking for change. The federal government and all but a handful of states recognize marriage as uniting the sexes, so in those cases, it is those who want to neuter marriage who must demonstrate why doing so would be of overall net benefit to society. While a marriage license may solve practical challenges for a brideless or groomless couple, those issues can be addressed without neutering state marriage licensing.
The universal understanding of marriage has been that it unites a bride and a groom. Only recently, in a few places, has there been deviation from this concept.
With that in mind, let's examine the questions.
Why should I care about "protecting marriage?"
Marriage laws have an impact on all of us, even those of us who never marry. If the recent past is any indication, around 90% of Americans will be married at some point in life, and we can expect the numbers to remain high unless the marriage strike makes dramatic gains or something else dramatic happens. Marriage is the basic building block of society, uniting both basic kinds of human beings – men and women.
We have ample evidence that raising children within a marriage better prepares them to be well-adjusted, productive citizens who will commit less crime and experience fewer negative indicators. Yes, those who seek to neuter marriage have a vested interest in trying to counter every study or intuition that backs this up. But their actions betray them. They live as though there is a difference between men and women, and they also tout the value of diversity. It is only when it comes to the raising of children that they go against these two principles. The difference between men and women is important to them in choosing a partner - it is also important to children when it comes to their parents.
By nature, every child has a mother and a father. Marriage encourages unified parenting, providing a default establishment of legal paternity for any child born to the bride, and providing children with protection, nurturing, and provision from both a male and a female role model. Every child, barring incarceration or otherwise strict seclusion, will interact with both women and men throughout his life, and thus being raised with the inclusive diversity of both a male and female role model is to his benefit.
While there are parents who die, abandon their children, or must have their parental rights restricted or terminated to protect children, in general, marriage encourages stability and cooperation in childrearing and otherwise codifies a child's natural right to her mother and father.
Who cares if a couple of guys want to marry each other? What's the harm? How does this hurt my/your marriage?
Nothing is stopping consenting adults from sharing a home, bed, and life together; having showers and parties; entering into contracts (in some places, domestic partnerships); having a ceremony with consenting clergy, wearing dresses or tuxes, holding flowers, making vows, exchanging rings, stomping a glass; having a reception with gifts, a cake, bouquet-tossing, garter-tossing, and dancing through the night; taking a honeymoon vacation; changing names; calling themselves married; requesting that others consider them married; and celebrating anniversaries.
Indeed, this has been going on for several years now, it is all legal, and there is no serious movement to pass legislation to change this.
However, state licensing is a public issue. When someone applies for a state license, it becomes the issue of any citizen. Each of gets our say when it comes to marriage licensing law.
Since neutering marriage licensing is a new concept, there isn't much direct history to use as an example of negative effects. No-fault divorce and other changes in family law are the closest kind of changes with enough history. Since the implementation of no-fault divorce, divorce rates have skyrocketed, as has the rate of nonmarital cohabitation.
A "marriage" without a bride and a groom is a counterfeit. It devalues marriage in the same way that other counterfeiting harms the authentic. How much more of a problem is it to get the government involved in counterfeiting?
Since same-sex pairings, as a category, are unable to produce children, applying the label "marriage" to such relationships indicates that marriage is not about children. If marriage is not about children, why bother to marry to raise children? If marriage is not about children, but instead the wants of the adults, then public policy regarding marriage will inevitably shift further away from the interests of children.
Neutering marriage perpetuates the false and destructive notion that men and women are interchangeable, devaluing both masculinity and femininity and the value of joining the two. Notice that a social commentators often bemoan when a workplace or some professional organization or educational program is all-male. This "lack of diversity" is recognized as a problem. Is diversity not important in the basic unit of society?
This isn't about what two people get to call their relationship - it is about forcing the rest of us to affirm brideless or groomless pairings as marriage, and prevent us from distinguishing between marriage, two men, or two women. The state is YOU and ME. It isn't like, when the state issues a marriage license, it is "someone else".
They've had same-sex marriage licensing in [fill in the place for how ever many years], and isn’t the place still there? Have things fallen apart? When has a member of the clergy ever been forced to perform a wedding against his or her will?
The most serious consequences of neutering marriage will likely be generational, not immediate, though there will be some immediate consequences. However, the neutering of marriage licensing was only in one state out of fifty (and only to residents of that state), and now more recently, a handful of states have joined in (as have a few nations). The federal government has never recognized a brideless or groomless pairing as marriage. As a result the states with neutered licenses have been islands still subjected to the influence of surrounding and national culture, where marriage is mostly presented as uniting the sexes. But see what has happened in the state that has had neutered licenses for the longest, Massachusetts.
The activist groups have publicly said they are currently holding back for strategic reasons, including public relations. If marriage is neutered at the federal level and imposed on all fifty states and all territories, or if it is neutered in a significant number of states so that the activist groups feel secure enough not to care about general public perception, we will definitely see further steps.
Those further steps could include a concerted effort to use neutered marriage licenses as tools in filing lawsuits, and using neutered marriage as a platform and precedent on which to build other legal, social, and cultural "reforms" that we haven't even considered or that haven't even been part of the public debate as of yet. We have already seen businesses with owners who have objections of conscience to participation in an event endorsing homosexual behavior targeted by their own state government and vilified by people who can only be considered fascists.
Possible results:
1. A greater percentage of children may be raised out of wedlock, or for a longer period out of wedlock. This has happened in the Netherlands, which was the first country to neuter marriage. Perhaps this is mere coincidence – are we willing to take that gamble?
2. The government will do less to protect – and may work against – a child's right to a mother and father. Someone who made children in a heterosexual relationship but enters into a homosexual relationship will more easily be able to gain custody of those children and legally replace the mother or father of the children with his or her new partner. How difficult would it be for the (majority) custodial parent to convince a court that their new legal spouse, being present in the home, should replace the other parent?
Adoption agencies will not be able to give preference to a bride+groom couple when placing children.
3. Free speech will be stifled. In the workplace, civic organizations, in academia, and in anything with any government ties, you will not be able to express the view that marriage unites the sexes. This isn't about a same-sex couple getting to use the word "marriage" to describe their relationship – it is about YOU and ME not being able to use the word "marriage" to describe the unique thing that unites both a bride and groom into a legal, social, and spiritual bond that provides children with both a mother and a father. Civil and criminal cases may be filed against anyone who personally fails to affirm that a same-sex pairing is marriage, including claiming slander/libel, defamation, and denial of civil rights. Likewise, esteeming (bride+groom) marriage may become actionable "hate speech", and those who do it will be portrayed as bigots (as they already are being portrayed by the marriage neutering advocates).
4. Any depiction of marriage, such as in the general media or school curriculum, will be required or strongly pressured to include brideless or groomless "marriages".
5. Parents and employees will lose any "opt-out" leverage they have when it comes to promotions of homosexual behavior or neutered marriage.
6. Religious organizations, congregations, and clergy will be pressured or outright forced to perform, host, and affirm same-sex "weddings", and will be prevented from presenting Scriptural teachings about homosexual behavior or marriage uniting the sexes.
7. When "disparities" are noticed between both-sex couples and same-sex couples, courts may order government programs to correct those disparities. For example, if a study shows that depression is more common in same-sex couples than bride+groom couples, taxpayers may be obligated to pay for treatment programs targeted towards same-sex couples in an effort to correct this disparity. Any evidence that these disparities are a result of the relationships being inherently different will be rejected.
8. Same-sex couples may be granted the "right" to taxpayer funding for reproductive technology and programs, including fertility treatments and surrogate mothers, to correct the "inequality" with both-sexes couples who are able to conceive children at no cost.
9. Several bad legal precedents will be established or strengthened: a) Constitutional rights applying to couples and groups, rather than just persons and states; b) the majority being forced to cater to any kind of minority, including professional groups, who ask for changes the majority does not want; c) a right to a state license; d) government involvement in private, personal relationships [the reason for their involvement in marriage is based on the natural tendency towards children who are involuntary participants].
10. It will be the official government position that homosexual sodomy is equivalent to coitus.
11. It will be the official government position that men and women are not only equal but interchangeable.
Doubt that these things can happen because they haven't happened before? We've never neutered marriage in our national culture before, granting a new tool to a highly organized and effective activist coalition that had demonstrated a history of taking a mile when given an inch. We have no reason to believe that this coalition will stop with neutering marriage. Based on what this coalition has done before, the successes of the true civil rights movement that this coalition has modeled their campaign after and attempted to hijack, and the fascist organizations that participate in their rallies - we'll have to fight these things with our hands tied behind our backs if we allow marriage to be neutered.
Neutering marriage would be one of the biggest social shifts in human history, changing the basic unit of society. It will effectively eliminate the heteronormative orientation of culture, replacing marriage with a counterfeit, discounting the distinctions between the sexes, devaluing both masculinity and femininity.
This isn't about Adam and Steve being able to exchange vows on the beach in front of their family and friends. This is about the rest of us not being able to have our say that the kind of union that produces children and provides them with both a mother and a father is uniquely beneficial to society and is the ideal. The activists are trying to prevent us from even having a word that distinguishes this relationship from others. It is time we stopped allowing ourselves to be politically, socially, and legally bullied by a tiny minority with a seemingly pathological need for affirmation from everyone else, and their demand that we reorder all of society in an attempt to make them feel more comfortable, regardless of how it makes the rest of us feel.
Neutering marriage discourages and devalues marriage.
PW: "We have ample evidence that raising children within a marriage better prepares them to be well-adjusted, productive citizens who will commit less crime and experience fewer negative indicators."
ReplyDeleteCitation, please. You post a conclusion for which you suggest there is evidence. I think there may be other equally supported conclusions
PW: "in general, marriage encourages stability and cooperation in childrearing..."
But the emphasis on childBEARING might be better placed on childRAISING ?
.