Finally, Marriage Is For Everyone?

On my AOL screen the other day I saw an image of a lady with a sign reading “Finally, Marriage Is For Everyone.” Her sign was a response to the recent decision of the California Supreme Court (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gaymarriage16-2008may16,0,6182317.story ), which overturned the state’s ban on “gay marriage.” There are a ton of issues and implications involved here but I want to be relatively brief.

First, this is only a matter for the States, a States rights issue, if it does not fall under the application of the Comity Clause of the U.S. Constitution. If it does, and I don’t see how it doesn’t, then it becomes a federal issue, and this is why some have moved for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage the traditional way.

Second, marriage is NOT for everyone, nor should it be. You cannot, for instance, marry your sister, nor for that matter can you marry more than one person – like, say, your brother and sister. Yet there are, no doubt, a small minority of people who would want these “rights”. Why do we deny them their rights (the incest produces deformed children argument not withstanding – the state could simply demand the two “lovers” be “fixed”)? The question points to the fact that marriage between a man and a women must be somehow different in kind from these other unions…

Third, there’s the inevitable “homophobia” charge. Most people who don’t support “gay marriage” are not homophobes – a phobia is an irrational fear. The fear of most of us is a rational fear, a fear legitimately grounded in the idea that objective morality exists, homosexual acts are objectively wrong, and supporting things, especially politically, that are objectively wrong undermines the principles, which ultimately support Constitutional safeguards and human rights.

Fourth, most of us who do not support “gay marriage” do support the full range of common human rights for those persons homosexually inclined, and also afford them the decency and civility which the dignity and value inherent to them, as human beings, rightly warrants. On the other hand, it is the very basis upon which the idea of equality, human dignity and value rests to which many of us feel the proponents of “gay marriage” are ultimately laying an axe -- I’ll explain why in a future post.