In a recent column at The American Conservative, former Governor Jon Huntsman (R-UT) proposed that it is time conservatives embrace same-sex marriage. Others have argued the same. Conservatives support same-sex marriage, although one may not realize it given the misrepresentation of the issue by the media, the left, academia, and now Jon Hunstman, who have succeeded in framing–or misframing–the debate. The real issue is not about denying same-sex couples the privilege to marry; it is about the role of government distinguishing between relationships.
Governor Hunstman writes:
Conservatives should start to lead again and push their states to join the nine others that allow all their citizens to marry. I’ve been married for 29 years. My marriage has been the greatest joy of my life. There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love [Emphasis added].
He is of course right about that. But it is also moot. Despite portrayals to the contrary, nowhere are people currently denied the privilege of marrying the person he or she loves (notwithstanding those already married, underage, immediate family, etc. More on that below), not under Proposition 8 in California or in any other state. Proposition 8, for instance, does not ban homosexual marriage. It merely declares that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” This means that if a same-sex couple wishes to get married in a local church or other institution and live a happy and fulfilling life together, they have the right to do so. The proposition simply makes clear that government will not endorse that marriage. It will instead remain neutral.
So why does government recognize heterosexual marriage?
Defining Marriage
As the governor’s quote above illustrates, it is commonly believed today that the only requisite for state-recognized marriage is love. This poses difficulties. If love is the only criterion, then on what grounds could the State deny recognition to any arrangement established on that basis–including incestuous, polygamous, and underage relationships? (In case one thinks suggestions of polygamy is fear-mongering, read this.) Nick Cassavetes, filmmaker and advocate of state-sponsored same-sex marriage, acknowledges as much:
Love who you want. Isn’t that what we say? … Gay marriage – love who you want? If it’s your brother or sister it’s super-weird, but if you look at it, you’re not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you’re in love with one another.
For thousands of years and in virtually every society, however, love was never considered enough for State endorsement of marriage. Rather, State sponsorship was predicated upon two ideas: 1) That a man and a woman united through marriage are ideal for child development; and 2) that gender distinction matters for society.
In regard to child development, Ryan Anderson quotes left-leaning Child Trends:
Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage. Children in single-parent families, children born to unmarried mothers, and children in stepfamilies or cohabiting relationships face higher risks of poor outcomes than do children in intact families headed by two biological parents. Parental divorce is also linked to a range of poorer academic and behavioral outcomes among children. There is thus value for children in promoting strong, stable marriages between biological parents.
More, sex distinction is important for society, as each gender has a unique biological nature, which manifests different behaviors, such as male aggression and female nurturance. Eroding these distinctions damages both men and women by creating confusion. Yet in recent decades this is precisely what has happened. Consider what Shulamith Firestone, a prominent early feminist, wrote in 1970:
Just as the end goal of socialist revolution was not only the elimination of the economic class privilege but of the economic class distinction itself, so the end goal of feminist revolution must be … not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally.
Her vision has made serious progress. Dennis Prager highlights some examples of how far it has advanced:
–This year Harvard University appointed its first permanent director of bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer student life. The individual, Vanidy Bailey, has asked that he/she never be referred to as he or she, male or female. Harvard has agreed.
–In 2010 eHarmony, for years the country’s largest online dating service, was sued for only matching men and women. Its lack of same-sex matchmaking meant that it violated anti-discrimination laws in some states. As a result, eHarmony was forced to begin a same-sex online service.
–Each year more and more American high schools elect girls as homecoming kings and boys as homecoming queens. Students have been taught to regard restricting kings to males or queens to females as (gender-based) discrimination.
–When you sign up for the new social networking site, Google Plus, you are asked to identify your gender. Three choices are offered: Male, Female, Other.
–Catholic Charities, which operates the oldest ongoing adoption services in America, has had to end its adoption work in Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, DC because the governments there regard placing children with married man-woman couples before same-sex couples as discriminatory.
–The socialist French government has just announced that in the future no government issued document will be allowed to use the words “mother” or “father.” Only the gender-neutral term “parent” will be acceptable in France.
–And in Rhode Island this year, one school district cancelled its father-daughter dance after the ACLU threatened to sue the district for gender discrimination. Only parent-child events, not father-daughter dances or mother-son ballgames, will be allowed.
Although not the intent of many proponents, government promotion of same-sex marriage would further dissolve gender distinction by declaring whom one marries irrelevant. Would such a message make a better society?
The Proper Government Role
None of what is written is to suggest that gay couples shouldn’t receive equal marriage benefits, or that they cannot be great parents and couples. They should receive the former, and only ignorance would argue the latter. Passing legislation that extends the same benefits enjoyed by heterosexual married couples to same-sex couples need not redefine the age-old State role in marriage, however.
Conservatives support gay partners choosing to unite their lives together at a local church or other institution, but by recognizing that union government shifts its policy from neutrality to sponsorship, which redefines the purpose of state-recognized marriage, and promotes the idea that male-female distinction is inconsequential.
Overall interesting article David, thank you.
However, as Russians would say, there a few drops of tar that ruin an entire barrel of honey. Mainly in the conclusion.
First of all, you state – “None of what is written is to suggest that gay couples shouldn’t receive equal marriage benefits, or that they cannot be great parents and couples. They should receive the former, and only ignorance would argue the latter.” Is it not at least somewhat contrary to “…family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage…”?
Secondly, homosexual monogamy is a myth with extremely rare exceptions. It is in fact ignorant to state otherwise in face of overwhelming statistics.
Thirdly, if you do a serious search you will come across the [pre-PC era] research indicating that the sexual child abuse is disproportionally more prevalent amongst ss couples with children. Please note Google buries the search results, you’ll have to really look for it.
Fourthly, likewise if you look into the history of homosexuality in USA, you will find out that AMA used to classify the condition as the mental illness [non dependent on genes or any other birth condition]. What changed? Homosexual activists within AMA forced the redefinition. The change was based on politics.
Fifthly, a child needs both female and male role model for a healthy environment and development [see research similar to the one you quoted about biological parents]. SSM can not provide that.
And at last, but not at least, homosexuality is a moral wrong [just like murder, lying, adultery, theft, etc]. Moral wrong, [unless one subscribes to moral relativity and post modernism, in which case 'left' would be a better home for one], does not change with the culture or time, because it is reflective of the unchanging human nature.
In view of the above, and much more not mentioned here, the conclusion [that interestingly does not fit and even goes against the rest of the article] is rather suspect. One might even view it as an attempt to “pretend to deal with their arguments, but then present your point as having won”. Andy as any other road to hell, this one is also paved with “fairness, good intentions and non-discrimination”.
This is probably the most bigoted, irresponsible, and shameful reply I’ve ever seen to a blog in my life.
First you go on about HUGELY discredited accounts of homosexual sexual escapades, child abuse and the like. These are so discredited they have become the butt of jokes in society. It’s the same as claiming black people can’t coach because their brains are smaller. I mean, hell, there were even studies that showed this.
Then, shockingly, you sink even further into whatever rabbit hole you’ve dug for yourself.
Homosexuals are only not classified as mentally insane because of politics?!
You, sir, win the biggest Scrooge of the Year award.
The only moral wrong here is if I were to read your lie-filled comment and not call you out on it. Even David presupposed your attempt to paint this type of picture by calling at least one of your absurd positions “ignorant”. He’s being kind.
Dear Shaun,
Thank you for confirming that Ad Hominems is all that homosexuals and their allies have in terms of intellectual (or more accurately – pseudo intellectual) response.
I especially enjoyed the straw man of sublime racist accusation mixed with an assumption that the homosexuality is as genetic as the skin color. The latter statement indicates someone has not been keeping up with the research.
Unfortunately, such juvenile response does not change the reality. Nor does the tired “it has been debunked”, it hasn’t. True, the homosexuals and their allies have attempted to turn it into a butt of a joke (does one detect hint of an obsession with ‘butts’, Shaun?), but ridicule is effective suppressing the truth only in mindless sheepies.
Now, while Shaun is busy coming up with some more kindergarten insults demonstrating his “broad mindedness and tolerance” and other libtarded PC virtues, others may perhaps like to find out what really happened in AMA and how homosexuals pressured the organization to reclassify them from mental patients into “experts”. The insane are now running the asylum.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1172711/posts
David,
I have several problems with this post, but allow me to just focus on a few.
It seems that your major beef with same sex marriage is that “government promotion of same-sex marriage would further dissolve gender distinction by declaring whom one marries irrelevant.” I find this line of argumentation to be a non-sequitar. Your view seems to be that if society were to affirm marriage equality for same sex couples then we must therefore be rejecting some traditional standard of marriage that you appear to think is absolute. But just because society chooses to affirm same sex marriage, it does not follow that we then must necessarily accept “incestuous, polygamous, and underage relationships”, even if your criterion is love. The argument only makes sense if you are implying that same sex marriage is analogous to incest, polygamy, and underage relationships because in each of those relationships people love each other too. But based on your conclusion that “conservatives support gay partners choosing to unite their lives together”, I don’t think you intend to make that analogy.
Another way of seeing the fallacy in your logic is to recognize that your conclusion is based almost entirely on a slippery slope. Your argument is that affirming same sex marriage must necessarily lead to acceptance of the other forms of marriage that you fear which makes who one marries irrelevant. The problem is that you haven’t presented any evidence to say that allowing same sex marriage makes polygamy, incest, or underage relationships more likely, or following your line of argument, inevitable. Think about the DirecTV commercial that starts with, “When your cable company keeps you on hold you get angry! When you get angry you go blow off steam. When you go blow off steam accidents happen…Don’t wake up in a roadside ditch.” But how many people who are left on hold with their cable company actually end up in a roadside ditch? Similarly, how many polygamous, incestuous, or underage relationships do you actually think will occur if we allow same sex couples to marry?
In case you’re still not buying it, one of the easiest ways to expose a slippery slope is to argue it in reverse. I could argue that as long as the Government continues to restrict same sex couples from getting married why could it also not prohibit heterosexual couples of different religions from marrying or people who speak different languages or those who are mentally ill or have certain genetic disorders? Therefore, if we continue to prevent same sex couples from getting married, soon the Government will start restricting the kinds of marriage I listed.
In sum, I interpret this entire piece mostly as an attempt to give cover to the bigots in your party whose only line of argumentation is that being a homosexual is an abomination and against heavenly Father’s will, so we need to do everything we can to prevent them from destroying our society. You try to make it seem like conservatives’ beef with same sex marriage has more to do with the proper role of Government rather than bigotry, but if your faulty logic is any indication, the role of Government has almost nothing to do with it.
“Your argument is that affirming same sex marriage must necessarily lead to acceptance of the other forms of marriage that you fear which makes who one marries irrelevant. The problem is that you haven’t presented any evidence to say that allowing same sex marriage makes polygamy, incest, or underage relationships more likely, or following your line of argument, inevitable.”
Actually David’s problem was that he didn’t expect someone isolated from the world by a cocoon to be chiming in. But David doesn’t need to answer the charges of slippery slope. None exists as kindly demonstrated by “progressive thinkers” pushing the boundaries to polygamy, incest, pedophilia, etc.:
-Nick Cassavetes: Incest Is OK, “Who Gives A S**t If People Judge You?”:
“Cassavetes adds, “Isn’t that what we say? Gay marriage – love who you want? If it’s your brother or sister it’s super-weird, but if you look at it, you’re not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you’re in love with one another.”
- GAWKER: Born This Way: Sympathy and Science for Those Who Want to Have Sex with Children:
“Currently, there is no significant longitudinal evidence that pedophiles can be made to not be attracted to children, and thus it can be defined as their orientation. And if pedophilia is a sexual orientation, that also means it’s futile to send pedophiles to prison in an effort to alter their attractions. Doing so is akin to sending a homosexual child off to a religious-based”
- secularhumanism.org: Why Is Polygamy Illegal?
“Gay men were once routinely suspected of being pedophiles, a suspicion that persists today but with considerably less prevalence and respectability. Indeed, opposition to gay marriage still relies on specious arguments about the harm it poses to children. Some fools still compare homosexuality to bestiality, just as the Supreme Court once compared polygamy to human sacrifice. We progress when we base the extension of rights on reason, not bias or judicial hyperbole. “
- TMZ: ‘Sister Wives’ Family — Just Like The Gays!
“The Mormons and the gays — they don’t always get along … but thanks to a brand new lawsuit about to be filed by “Sister Wives” star Kody Brown, it seems they have more in common than you’d think! “
And here is the same path that was taken with “normalizing” homosexuality:
They’re mainstreaming pedophilia:
“Matt Barber, associate dean of the Liberty University School of Law, and I attended the “B4U-ACT” pedophile conference Aug. 17. To eliminate the “stigma” against pedophiles, this growing sexual anarchist lobby wants the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to redefine pedophilia as a normal sexual orientation of “Minor-Attracted Persons….
All speakers focused on pedophiles as healthy, normal and unfairly victimized by stigma and mean words. Following repeated assertions that pedophiles never force children, are gentle and loving, one researcher did cite a child “victim” who was raped and sodomized.
One speaker laughingly compared doing an obscene act “on” a child to doing the same obscene act on a shoe. No one protested, and some chuckled. One young female suggested pedophiles might be helped by engaging in “sex play” using naked pictures of pseudo children, allied with some sadism, bridal gowns, etc. This Ph.D. social worker candidate proudly noted her objection to any “repression.””
Hi Tim,
Thanks for the comments.
My argument is not a slippery slope. In fact, there is no slope. It is definitional. If love is all that matters for government sponsorship, then regardless of how different incest, polygamy and underage relationships are from same-sex relationships, love is the common factor warranting state recognition for all of them; how, for example, would three people who love each other be denied recognition by the State based on that standard?
The moment you argue “because that’s different from same-sex marriage” is the moment you’re changing the standard from love to something else. But if the standard is love, as I argued, then anything goes, and there’s no ground for the government to deny recognition.
And nor am I arguing that, should love become the criterion, then suddenly everybody will be marrying everyone, brothers, sisters, etc. But are you really suggesting there are no people who would participate in group marriages? If so, read the link I included in my piece saying “read this.” You may argue that it’s no big deal for those people who want to group marry, but that’s different from denying that government would have to recognize it, as you argued above.
Finally, the “slippery slope in reverse” argument you advanced doesn’t work. You write that you “could argue that as long as the Government continues to restrict same sex couples from getting married why could it also not prohibit heterosexual couples of different religions from marrying or people who speak different languages or those who are mentally ill or have certain genetic disorders?” As I stress in my piece, government is not “restricting” anything. A same-sex couple can get married at a local church, for instance. Government is simply choosing not to recognize that marriage. But for what you’re talking about government would have to pass laws restricting people with mental illness or different religious beliefs from getting married.
By the way, all of this is tangential to my main argument, which is the blurring of gender distinction.
Two points. First, after re-reading your piece, I realize that you qualified your statement by saying “if love is the *only* criterion…” but I’m not sure it matters. The reason your argument is a slippery slope has nothing to do with how the state defines a “sponsored marriage,” but rather, by your assumption that justification for affirming Government sponsored same sex marriages will justify more extreme decisions until we arrive in a situation where “declaring whom one marries [is] irrelevant.” This kind of logic presumes that there are no significant differences between “love” between two consenting adults and “love” between a man and several women, a brother and sister, a man and a penguin, or a man and a lamp (Anchorman anyone?). Thus, the argument goes, society is unable to stop government sponsorship of polygamy, incest, beastiality, and underage relationships. But of course, there are several reasons why a society would define “love” between two consenting adults differently from polygamous “love” or sibling “love” or other kinds of “love.” So, as I mentioned in my original comment, you fail to provide any evidence stating that using love as a criterion for Government-sponsored marriages will make it significantly more likely (or inevitable) that Government sponsored marriages of all forms will be the norm, which will eventually lead to the erosion of “gender distinctions.”
Second, the “slippery slope in reverse” argument was made to expose your faulty logic, and you seem to think you’ve gotten off on a technicality. Sorry. If you just replace “restricting marriage” with “refusing to sponsor marriage” it’s still the same argument.
I know your real point was about blurring gender distinctions and how that was bad for society, but I felt like there were bigger problems with your argument that I needed to cover. To me, your “gender distinctions” conclusion will be affected more by the direction society takes as a whole, no matter if Government chooses to sponsor certain kinds of marriages or not, thus making your point moot. Also, this gets into the debate regarding whether homosexuality is truly a choice as opposed to a something people are born with, and while I personally believe the latter, it seemed almost pointless to address it.
David,
The gentlemen above is having problems comprehending a simple concept that slippery slope can not exist if the ideas accused of slippery slope are already happening in reality. This makes makes the possibility of understanding abstract concepts somewhat unlikely (as evidenced by his last post). That “technicality” makes his “slippery slope” accusation impossible is as just lost on him as the reality showing that your prediction is already happening.
You are dealing with a post-modernistic belief (pre embedded with proper emotional conditioning), not rational thinking. As such it is immune from the logical constraints.
It akin to a conversation I once had with a libtard who even after having been shown a medical textbooks definition and explanation of what ‘life’ is, still was bleating that a baby in a womb is not alive, because it was a “technical” definition. When pressed on what ‘alive’ meant to him, he confessed it was whatever he wanted it to mean.
Likewise, Tim’s definition of ‘slippery slope’ is whatever he wants it to be. Irrelevant of both reality or logical constraints.
This [post-modernistic] religion can be properly compared to a meth addict sitting at a traffic light and “changing” the red light to green. We all know what happens afterwards.