WHY
NEW JERSEY SHOULD RETAIN CURRENT MARRIAGE STATUTES
Marriage
is the legal, social, economic and spiritual union of a man and
a woman. One man and one woman are necessary for a valid marriage.
If that definition is radically altered then anything is possible.
There is no logical reason for not letting several people marry,
or for eliminating other requirements, such as minimum age, blood
relative status or even the limitation of the relationship to
human beings. Those who are trying to radically redefine New Jersey's
marriage laws for their own purposes are the ones who are trying
to impose their values on the rest of the population. Those citizens
opposed to any change in New Jersey's marriage statutes are merely
defending the basic morality that has sustained the culture for
everyone against a radical attack.
When
same-sex couples seek New Jersey's approval and all the benefits
that the state reserves for married couples, they impose the law
on everyone. According non-marital relationships the same status
as marriage would mean that millions of people would be disenfranchised
by their own governments. The state would be telling them that
their beliefs are no longer valid, and would turn the civil rights
laws into a battering ram against them.
Law
is not a suggestion, as George Washington observed, "it is
force". An official state sanction of same-sex relationships
as "marriage" would bring the full apparatus of the
state against those who believe that marriage is between one man
and one woman. The New Jersey Coalition for Traditional Marriage
views this as outlawing traditional morality.
Eliminating
one entire sex from an institution defined as the union of the
two sexes is a quantum leap from eliminating racial discrimination,
which did not alter the fundamental character of marriage. Marriage
reflects the natural moral and social law evidenced the world
over. As the late British social anthropologist Joseph Daniel
Unwin noted in his study of world civilizations, any society that
devalued the nuclear family soon lost what he called "expansive
energy," which might best be summarized as society's will
to make things better for the next generation. In fact, no society
that has loosened sexual morality outside of man-woman marriage
has survived. Analyzing studies of cultures spanning several thousands
of years on several continents, Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin
found that virtually all political revolutions that brought about
societal collapse were preceded by a sexual revolution in which
marriage and family were devalued.
When
marriage loses its unique status, women and children most frequently
are the direct victims. Giving same-sex relationships or out-of-wedlock
heterosexual couples the same special status and benefits as the
marital bond would not be the expansion of a right but the destruction
of a principle. . If the one-man/one-woman definition of marriage
is broken, there is no logical stopping point for continuing the
assault on marriage.
If
feelings are the key requirement, then why not let three people
marry, or two adults and a child, or consenting blood relatives
of any age? . Marriage-based kinship is essential to stability
and continuity in our state. Child abuse is much more prevalent
when a living arrangement is not based on kinship. Kinship imparts
family names, heritage, and property, secures the identity and
commitment of fathers for the sake of the children, and entails
mutual obligations to the community.
The
US Supreme Court declared in 1885 that states' marriage laws must
be based on "the idea of the family, as consisting in and
springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in
the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that
is stable and noble in our civilization, the best guaranty of
that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress
in social and political improvement.''
