Meridian Magazine: Ten Persuasive Answers to the Question, "Why Not Gay Marriage?"

By Glenn T. Stanton

Part 1 of 2

Editor's Note: The text of this article is the script of a presentation that Glenn Stanton, Focus on the Family's same-sex marriage expert, uses to teach communities how to intelligently and persuasively engage the same-sex marriage issue. Meridian appreciates Focus on the Family's willingness to share this with our readers worldwide. Please don't forget to sign the petition to support the Federal Marriage Amendment. You may do so quickly by clicking here.

In order to appreciate why it is so necessary that you learn how to handle this critical issue, consider this comment from a leader of one of the most powerful same-sex marriage lobbies:

We’re not going to win at the ballot box until we start winning at the water cooler and in the church pews.¹

The battle on this issue is at the water cooler and in the church pews. Here are THE 10 questions relevant to this debate. Master the responses to these questions and you will be well-suited to defend the family.

Question 1: “How will my same-sex marriage hurt your marriage?”

We’re asked this question in nearly every public debate. Our opponent usually brings it up while pointing to his or her partner, whom we meet just before the debate.

If this were only about your marriage, we say, then maybe we could work something out. If we’re only talking about the two of you, then no real harm will be done. But we are not only talking about you two.

Same-sex proponents are asking everyone — all of society — to dramatically and permanently alter their definition of family, to say that male and female are not essential for marriage, family and society. They want us to believe male and female are merely optional for the family.

Saying male and female don’t really matter is harmful to all of us.

Question 2: “Is same-sex marriage like interracial marriage?”

Same-sex marriage and interracial marriage are nothing alike. Segregation was an evil social problem. Marriage as an exclusively heterosexual union is profound social good.

Racism was about power and suppression —- about keeping the races apart, and that is wrong.

Marriage is about bringing male and female together, and that is good.

Marriage has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with a husband and wife working together to create and care for the next generation.

Striking down bans on interracial marriage affirmed marriage by saying that any woman has a right to marry any man. Same-sex marriage redefines marriage — saying men and women are optional for the family. And what is more, it is a very different thing for a child to say, “I have a black mother and a white father, than to say, “I have two moms and no father.” There is no research showing interracial parenting is developmentally harmful to children, but literally thousands of studies indicate that children are hindered developmentally when they are denied their mothers or fathers.²

What is most troubling about this argument is it implies that people who value the necessary contributions men and women bring to marriage are bigots. This is a vile implication and has no place in civil discourse!

Question 3: “Where does it stop?”

If we say marriage is not about husband and wife, mother and father, where do we stop in our redefinition? Andrew Sullivan, a homosexual writer, says, “The right to marry whomever you wish is a fundamental civil right.”³

Really?

What would he say to Jonathan Yarbrough and Cody Rogahn? They were the first couple on May 17, 2004, to get a same-sex marriage license in Provincetown, Mass. When the media asked Yarbrough about their relationship, he said, “I think it’s possible to love more than one person and have more than one partner... In our case, it is. We have an open marriage.”⁴

What will we tell these men when they want to bring their new love interests into their marriage?

When Cheryl Jacques, former director of the homosexual lobbying group Human Rights Campaign (HRC), was asked why same-sex marriage wouldn’t lead to multiple-party marriages, she said “because I don’t approve of that.”⁵

Wow!

Here’s our question for Cheryl: “How come your disapproval of polygamy is more reasonable than my disapproval of same-sex marriage?”

Thought Control?

Same-sex marriage is not about tolerance; same-sex homes are tolerated in society. This is about forcing everyone to accept these experimental families.

Here’s another question: If same-sex marriage is legalized, could the statement, “children need a mother and father” be deemed hate speech? It is becoming exactly that in Massachusetts. Swedish Pastor Ake Green was threatened with prison for preaching from the Bible about homosexuality.

Only months after same-sex marriage became legal in some parts of Canada, legislators there passed a law that carries a maximum two-year jail sentence for saying certain things about homosexuals.

Heather Has Two Mommies K-12

And what about classroom materials? Imagine that your children’s reading books will show Suzie going to feed the ducks hand-in-hand with her two dads. But the ducks — because we can’t get away from nature — will be in male/female pairs!

Consider a recent National Public Radio story from Boston. An eighth-grade teacher there teaches about gay sex “thoroughly and explicitly.” When asked if parents complained about their children learning such explicit material, this teacher said, “Give me a break. It’s legal now.”⁶

Religious Freedom

Don’t be surprised, either, when churches are forced to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies.

Does anyone really believe the ACLU will not challenge churches when they refuse to honor their “constitutionally protected” same-sex marriage? In fact, the Catholic church is being challenged in Canada because a local parish refused to rent out their church reception hall when they learned the reception was for a lesbian couple.⁷

The fact is, once same-sex marriage is legalized, there is no logical stopping point. When you tear marriage away from its moorings, the ship can drift anywhere.

Question 4: “Can’t we all just get along by having religious marriage and civil marriage?”

Some ask, “Why can’t you just keep your religious idea of marriage, and just give us our own kind of civil marriage?” Well, marriage is more than a religious institution. It shows up in all civilizations, not just Christian or religious ones.

Actually, marriage is a human institution that involves both church and state. Churches are interested in making sure marriages are healthy and strong, and city hall — as well as state and federal governments — is interested in what marriage provides state. Churches are interested in making sure marriages society. Maggie Gallagher, a columnist who writes often about marriage, explains:

There is scarcely a dollar that state and federal government spends on social programs that is not driven in large part by family fragmentation: crime, poverty, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, school failure, mental and physical health problems.⁸

Every society needs men and women to cooperate in founding homes and raising children, and marriage is the way all societies accomplish this.

Question 5: “What public good does marriage provide?”

Marriage produces and raises the next generation of humanity, which every society needs. If you don’t believe this is a need, look at the current depopulation trends in much of Europe. Governments there are realizing that a dearth of childbearing couples raises many serious social and economic issues.

Spin a globe and pick any place on earth and visit that place at any time in human history; you will find that they do marriage one way — between men and women. There may be other diversities, such as number of spouses and division of labor, but marriage is always heterosexual.

Why do we find this global and historic universality of marriage?

• Is it because Jerry Falwell or Dr. Dobson have gone everywhere, throughout all time, and forced marriage on all cultures?

• Is it a political trick of the Republican Party?

• Did the Catholic Church enforce it on everyone, everywhere?

No.

Nature enforces and imposes marriage upon all human civilizations, and it does so with very little tolerance. Conversely, there is no public need for the same-sex family. If there were, societies would have created such families to meet the need. But they have not, because same-sex “marriage” meets a personal desire of a few adults, not society as a whole.

Anthropologists tell us marriage, as a heterosexual institution, does four primary jobs. It is the only institution that provides these things, and every society needs marriage to do them.

1)       Marriage socializes men.

Anthropologists tell us that a society’s most serious problem is the unattached male. Marriage is the answer. Natural marriage socializes men by channeling male sexuality and aggression in socially productive ways. And it is women who do this through marriage.

Gail Collins, editor of the New York Times editorial page, wrote a book titled America’s Women, which examines the role of women in American culture. In an Oct. 9, 2003, interview on National Public Radio, Collins said, “the most important implicit role women play in society was to make men behave.”⁹Other scholars have recognized the same thing.¹⁰

But same-sex marriage will not socialize males, because males do not socialize other males. The lack of monogamy and relational durability in gay male relationships is evidence of this. Same-sex marriage fails in this first purpose of marriage.

2)       Marriage regulates sexuality.

By socializing men, marriage regulates sexuality. Marriage establishes sexual guardrails, which are a requirement for successful societies. We cannot survive with everybody doing whatever they want, sexually. Every society must have rules, mores and standards about sexual behavior, and marriage is how societies manage human sexuality. Research is very clear: societies that weaken these sexual standards end up with unexpected social problems.¹¹

There is no evidence that same-sex marriage would serve society in regulating sexuality, and as such it fails this second public purpose of marriage.

3)       Marriage protects women from exploitive males.

When we do not have a social norm of monogamy, women become commodities — things to be collected, used and then discarded. Marriage helps protect women by regulating sex.

When women socialize men through marriage and parenthood, men are more likely to care for and respect their wives and other women. When fewer men are married to women, fewer men care for and respect women.

A wealth of research shows that abuse of women by their partners or strangers is lowest in married homes and highest in cohabiting and dating situations.¹²

Same-sex marriage fails the third purpose of marriage in its inability to protect women.

4)       Marriage provides mothers and fathers for children.

Healthy children define a growing society. And marriage is the way we ensure the next generation grows up with the irreplaceable benefit of their mother and father.

A loving and compassionate society comes to the aid of motherless and fatherless children, but no compassionate society intentionally subjects children to motherless or fatherless families. But this is what every same-sex home does — and for no other reason but to satisfy adult desire.

So, same-sex marriage fails in fulfilling the fourth public purpose of marriage.

No society anywhere has been able to sustain itself with a buffet-like mentality of family, where you simply go through the line, pick and choose what suits you and one choice is just as good as another.

This article concludes in tomorrow’s Meridian Magazine.

From the Focus on the Family booklet “Why Not Gay Marriage” written by Glenn T. Stanton. Copyright © 2005, Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.

Notes

1 Verbatim, Time, December 20, 2004, p. 21.

2 Many of these studies are either presented or represented in: David Popenoe, Life Without Father: Compelling Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensible for the Good of Children, (New York, The Free Press, 1997); Glenn T. Stanton, Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society, (Colorado Springs, Pinon Press, 1997); Ronald P. Rohner and Robert A. Veneziano, “The Importance of Father Love: History and Contemporary Evidence,” Review of General Psychology 5.4 (2001): 382-405; Kyle D. Pruett, Fatherneed: Why Father Care is as Essential as Mother Care for Your Child, (New York: The Free Press, 2000); David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem, (New York: Basic Books, 1994); Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994); Ellen Bing, “The Effect of Child-Rearing Practices on the Development of Differential Cognitive Abilities,” Child Development 34 (1963): 631-648; Deborah Dawson, “Family Structure and Children’s Health and Well-Being: Data from the 1988 National Health Interview Survey on Child Health,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (1991): 573-584; Scott Coltrane, “Father-Child Relationships and the Status of Women: A Cross-Cultural Study,” American Journal of Sociology, 93 (1988) p. 1088; Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, A General Theory of Crime (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 103; Richard Koestner, et al., “The 25 Family Origins of Empathic Concern: A Twenty-Six Year Longitudinal Study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990): 709-717;E. Mavis Hetherington, “Effects of Father Absence on Personality Development in Adolescent Daughters,” Developmental Psychology 7 (1972): 313 –326; Irwin Gar.nkel and Sara McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children: A New American Dilemma (Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1986), pp. 30-31; Sara L. McLanahan, “Life Without Father: What Happens to Children?” Center for Research on Child Wellbeing Working Paper #01-21. (Princeton University, August 15, 2001); Paul R. Amato and Fernando Rivera, “Paternal Involvement and Children’s Behavior Problems,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 61 (1999): 375-384; David Ellwood, Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family (New York: Basic Books, 1988), p. 46; Ronald J. Angel and Jacqueline Worobey, “Single Motherhood and Children’s Health,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29 (1988): 38-52; Richard Koestner, et al., “The Family Origins of Empathic Concern: A Twenty-Six Year Longitudinal Study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990): 709-717; L. Remez, “Children Who Don’t Live with Both Parents Face Behavioral Problems,” Family Planning Perspectives, January/February 1992; Judith Wallerstein, et al., The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study, (New York: Hyperion, 2000); Nicholas Zill, Donna Morrison, and Mary Jo Coiro, “Long-Term Effects of Parental Divorce on Parent-Child Relationships, Adjustment, and Achievement in Young Adulthood,” Journal of Family Psychology, 7 (1993): 91-103.

3 Andrew Sullivan, “Shelby Steele, Separatist: A Fisking,” AndrewSullivan.com online, April 3, 2004, (June 23, 2004).

4 Franci Richardson, “Bay State gays ring in new era: P’town ready for the ‘big day’” Boston Herald, May 17, 2004.

5 CNN Cross.re (February 24, 2004), Transcipt #022401CN.V20.

6 Melissa Block and Tovia Smith, “Massachusetts Schools Weigh Gay Topics,” National Public Radio (NPR), September 13, 2004.

7 Elaine O’Connor, “Lesbians who tried to book wedding at Catholic hall claim discrimination,” Canadian Press NewsWire, January 25, 2005.

8 Maggie Gallagher, “The Stakes: Why We Need Marriage,” National Review Online, July 14, 2003, http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-gallagher071403. asp, accessed 4/7/05.

9 NPR, Morning Edition, October 9, 2003, audio available at NPR Online, http://www.npr.org/templates.story.story.php?storyId=1459945

10 George A. Akerlof, “Men without Children,” Economic Journal, March, 1998; George Gilder, Men and Marriage, (Gretna: Pelican Publishing), 1987.

11 Pitirim A. Sorokin, The American Sex Revolution (Boston, Massachusetts: Porter Sargent Publisher, 1956), pp. 106-107; Joseph Daniel Unwin, Sexual Regulation and Human Behavior (London: Williams & Norgate, 1933) p.71; Marie W. Osmond, “Toward Monogamy: A Cross-Cultural Study of Correlates of Type of Marriage,” Social Forces 44 (1965): 8-16.

12 Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, “Child Abuse and the Other Risks of Not Living with Both Parents,” Ethology and Sociobiology 6 (1985): 197-210; Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, Homicide (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1988), pp. 87-88; Margo Wilson and Martin Daly, “Risk of Maltreatment of Children Living with Stepparents,” in Child Abuse and Neglect: Biosocial Dimensions, ed. R. Gelles and J. Lancaster (New York: Aldine de Gryter, 1987), p.230; Michael Stiffman et al., “Household Composition and Risk of Fatal Child Maltreatment,” Pediatrics 109 (2002), 615-21; Jan Stets, “Cohabiting and Marital Aggression: The Role of Social Isolation,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (1991): 669-80; “Criminal Victimization in the United States, 1992,” U.S. Department of Justice, Of.ce of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics NCJ-145125 (March 1994), p. 31. Albert R. Roberts, “Psychosocial Characteristics of Batterers: A Study of 234 Men Charged with Domestic Violence Offences,” Journal of Family Violence, 2 (1987): 81-93. Kersti Yllo and Murray A. Straus, “Interpersonal Violence among Married and Cohabiting Couples,” Family Relations 30 (1981): 339-347. Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage, (NewYork: Doubleday, 200), p. 155.