New Study on Gay Marriage (Excerpted)
Source: Consider This
The language used to promote this amendment and oppose same-sex marriage rights is similar to the rhetoric that has been used throughout the history of the United States to justify withholding the rights of some to marry. In the late 1800’s [sic], miscegenation laws were reinstated and expanded after Reconstruction. The justifications used by judges and policymakers then are being echoed today by same-sex marriage opponents. […] Now, they claim same-sex relationships are “mere subjective preferences” designed to “satisfy the desires” of gay couples. Then, they claimed that interracial marriage was contrary to God’s will. Now, they say that a gay relationship is “not right, and it’s not biblical.” The biggest argument by far was the claim that interracial marriages were unnatural.
Those who claimed that America would be overcome by familial chaos if married women were allowed property rights were wrong. Those who condemned interracial couples were prejudiced and wrong. They used language filled with accusations supposedly supported by God’s law to claim that the interracial love was immoral, lust-driven, perverse, and, most of all, unnatural. Those very same words are being used now to oppose the rights of gays and lesbians to marry.
We should ask ourselves, “If religious, scientific, moral opposition to interracial relationships—sex, marriage, and adoption—were wrong, notwithstanding the sincerity and good faith of those who believed in the opposition, then are the same arguments any more justified when they are used to oppose same-sex relationships?”
In a word: yes.
There is no biological basis to race. In fact, in terms of human anatomy and physiology, race does not exist. There is more differentiation within racial groups than between racial groups. However, in terms of human anatomy and physiology, gender very much does exist. Comparing same-sex marriages to interracial marriages is a faulty analogy, and probably more counterproductive than useful to those who would support gay marriage.
Further, homosexuality is unnatural. That doesn’t mean it is wrong, but it definitely is not the way human beings, as a species, were designed. Modern biology accepts that the drive to reproduce is basic to all successful species, including ours. That’s one of the major underlying reasons that sex exists. Using a strictly biological (not theological) argument, then, it’s clear that homosexual relations – which by their very nature are not procreative – are not “natural” in the sense of the original reason that sex evolved.
Does this mean I oppose gay marriage? No, but that’s because of the favorable tax and benefits treatment enjoyed by married couples in this country. I oppose legal marriage benefits in general; they effectively penalize single people for something that generally is completely out of their control. I’ve said several times that the reason I don’t think the gay marriage issue has arisen until now is because of the increasing material benefits associated with marriage. It isn’t about “love” at all. (As a side note, the idea of love as a basis for marriage is a very recent social innovation anyway.)
This is why I think the government has no business meddling in marriage in the first place. There are ample contractual examples that carry the same benefits as marriage. Let couples – homosexual or heterosexual – use those if they wish the legal benefits. (It’s the same thing as a marriage by a justice of the peace.) But leave the concept of marriage to the theologians and call all legal marriage by what it really is: a civil union.