Should Same-Sex Marriage Be Allowed?

“The debate over whether homosexual couples should be allowed to legally ‘marry’ is not about rights, equality, or discrimination, despite the often heated rhetoric to that effect. Still less is it about the allocation of an entitlement package of legal rights and financial benefits. Instead, this is a question of definition: How do we define the social institution we call marriage? To answer that we must ask, What is the public purpose of marriage?…

Why is marriage a public, civil institution, rather than a purely private one? The answer, I would argue, is that marriage is a public institution because it brings together men and women for the purpose of reproducing the human race and keeping a mother and father together to cooperate in raising to maturity the children they produce…

Nevertheless, some observers ask, What harm could same-sex civil marriage possibly do to anyone else’s heterosexual marriage? One answer is, it could destroy it… As the transient, promiscuous, and unfaithful relationships that are characteristic of homosexuals become part of society’s image of marriage, fewer marriages will be permanent, exclusive, and faithful–even among heterosexuals. So-called ‘conservative’ advocates of same-sex civil marriage are optimistic that legal unions would change homosexuals for the better; it seems far more probable that homosexuals would change marriage for the worse…

In fact, homosexuality and homosexual civil marriage would rip the fabric of society in ways that may be difficult, if not impossible, to mend.”

“The claim being made by advocates of gay marriage and its editorial proponents such as the New York Times (November 20, 2003) is, the ban of gay marriage is simply about prejudice. They are wrong, for discrimination means that because of prejudice we do not allow a person of a particular race, religion or sexual orientation to participate in our existing institutions or enjoy the same activities others do…

Marriage is a contract, and as with all contracts there are elements that define it and superimpose on those committing to it. For the contract to be legal and binding, each party to it must abide by its inherent elements. In this case, the elements are one man, one woman…

Certainly prejudice against homosexuals is not at the root of those wishing to preserve the integrity of marriage. Those opposed to gay marriage do not advocate against homosexuals the historic discriminations — such as denial of voting, housing, employment, etc… It is not the homosexuality per se but the union of the same-gendered that is oxymoronic with marriage…

The problem bedeviling society over the last forty years is more than having been asked to tolerate and accept modes of conduct heretofore outside the respectable pale. It is that those engaged in those activities demand that society redefine its institutions and overturn cherished and wise traditions in order not only to accommodate but also affirm as equally legitimate and desirable such activities.”

“It’s self evident to most people that male-female relationships are essentially different from same-sex relationships. For society to recognize that fact in the law is entirely legitimate…

There are all sorts of human relationships that the government doesn’t license – friends, roommates, co-workers, dance partners, siblings, neighbors. Because we license one type of relationship does not obligate us to license every type. It’s perfectly legitimate to treat different relationships differently. People happily engage in all sorts of behavior without official government sanction; couples can live together happily without it. So happiness of couples is not the reason society sanctions marriage…

One of the inherent, fundamental interests of government is to perpetuate the society it governs, and try to provide the next generation with stable homes, preferably with a mother and father. We officially sanction marriage for the sake of society, more so than for the sake of married couples. Same-sex and opposite-sex couples simply do not fulfill the same role in our society. We are under no obligation, through our laws, to pretend otherwise. That would be irrational.”

“It might be asked how a law can be contrary to the common good if it does not impose any particular kind of behaviour, but simply gives legal recognition to a de facto reality which does not seem to cause injustice to anyone. In this area, one needs first to reflect on the difference between homosexual behaviour as a private phenomenon and the same behaviour as a relationship in society, foreseen and approved by the law, to the point where it becomes one of the institutions in the legal structure. This second phenomenon is not only more serious, but also assumes a more wide-reaching and profound influence, and would result in changes to the entire organization of society, contrary to the common good. Civil laws are structuring principles of man’s life in society, for good or for ill. They ‘play a very important and sometimes decisive role in influencing patterns of thought and behaviour’. Lifestyles and the underlying presuppositions these express not only externally shape the life of society, but also tend to modify the younger generation’s perception and evaluation of forms of behaviour. Legal recognition of homosexual unions would obscure certain basic moral values and cause a devaluation of the institution of marriage.”