Legalize Gay Marriage

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Gay marriage was banned in Michigan in 2004. 59% of voters voted "yes" on Proposal 2, which amended the Michigan Constitution as follows:

§ 25 Marriage.

              Sec. 25. To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.

History: Add. Init., approved Nov. 2, 2004, Eff. Dec. 18, 2004.

Look at the reason given in the amendment for why only unions between a man and a woman are recognized:

To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children . . .

That doesn't make the least bit of sense. The amendment doesn't secure and preserve the benefits of marriage; it denies them to the gay couples in our society. The amendment is a sham and needs to be repealed.

What the anti-gay marriage people want us to believe is that somehow gay marriage will jeopardize heterosexual marriage. Just how this would happen is hard to imagine. Most married couples know that strains on the marriage come primarily from what goes on between the two partners, not what's happening with other couples. Another couple's blissful relationship doesn't make yours any better, and their troubles don't hurt your marriage.

I think that some people are just uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality, but rather than openly condemn the homosexuals directly - which might appear unchristian -  they indirectly demean gays by opposing any legislation that would suggest homosexuality is normal and accepted. When it comes to opposing gay marriage, they have to hide their true intentions by concocting a reason other than that homosexuality is wrong. Thus, the argument that gay marriage would jeopardize heterosexual marriage.

Here is what the Catholic Church and James Dobson of Focus on the Family say about it. Note that neither cite any Biblical prohibition.

Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is against gay marriage although it "takes a very high view of marriage and human sexuality". So it says in a report on gay marriage on the website Catholic Answers. Heterosexual married couples are happier, healthier and richer. So why deny gay couples happiness, health and wealth? Because

There is no data showing similar benefits for same-sex couples. We don't know whether same-sex couples would enjoy any of these benefits, and there are reasons to think they would not.

Same sex marriage has been legal in The Netherlands since 2001, and there must be thousands of gay couples who have lived as unmarried couples for decades.  If there is "no data", it is because the Catholic Church has not looked for it. The Church should be ashamed to deny gays the tremendous benefits of marriage without the data to support its position.

One of the reasons the Catholic Church thinks gay marriages would not be as wonderful as heterosexual marriages is that they would lack "sexual complementarity".

[N]either a man by himself nor a woman by herself is biologically completely human.

Take note, all you single adults out there: the Church says you are biologically incomplete humans.

Each lacks the perfections and capabilities of the opposite sex, and in that sense each is incomplete - and lonely - without the other . . . without the complementarity between a man and a woman on all these levels, the deepest forms of union are not possible. The unity possible to two men or two women will be necessarily lopsided, both spiritually and anatomically, and therefore ultimately unsatisfying.

And all you gay couples have noticed, of course, that you are anatomically lopsided.

Two men together cannot capture the fullness of human personhood, and neither can two women; for that, you need one man and one woman. However exclusive, unconditional and permanent same-sex relationships may aspire to be, they lack the complementarity that the deepest fulfillment requires. This fact may explain some of the amazing sexual behavior in the homosexual subculture.

Sexual complementarity between man and woman makes possible another feature of marriage: the giving of life. The love between man and woman is designed to call new human life into existence and in so doing make the shared life of the couple more abundantly fulfilling. It does not always produce new life, but that is what it is designed to do. So marriage, to succeed, must be exclusive, permanent, unconditional, and open to new life.

What if, as a man, you are not attracted to women? Or you are a woman who is not attracted to men? Wouldn't a heterosexual marriage be somewhat less than satisfying in spite of the sexual complementarity?

Even if it was true that homosexual marriage would lack all the wonderfulness of heterosexual marriage, how would it threaten heterosexual marriage?

One of the downsides to redefining marriage to include same-sex couples would be the weakening of the meaning of marriage, which would cause more divorces.

How would allowing gay marriage weaken the meaning of marriage? The Catholic Church does not explain, but it does say that

If homosexual "marriage" were to be legalized, and homosexuals were later found to be unable to create exclusive, permanent, unconditional marriages, their failure would reinforce the idea that marriage lacks these qualities and is just a matter of private happiness to be discarded on whim. That would be a great step backward for society, for it would increase divorce and all its associated pathology and create yet another impediment to the happiness and fulfillment of millions of people.

So the contention that gay marriage would jeopardize heterosexual marriage is based on two possible but improbable outcomes:

  1. Gay marriages would be more likely to fail.
  2. Failure of gay marriages would make the whole institution seem less permanent and cause heterosexual couples to take it less seriously.

What if the truth turns out to be that homosexual marriages are found to be more stable than heterosexual marriages? Does that mean heterosexual couples should be denied the right to marry?

James Dobson/Focus on the Family

This is from the Focus on the Family website:

Q. But how does someone’s homosexual “marriage” threaten everyone else’s families?

A. Gay activists are not asking for just one homosexual marriage, even though they often personalize it by saying, “Don’t you interfere with my family and I won’t interfere with yours.” What the activists want is a new national policy saying that no longer is a mom and a dad any better than two moms or two dads. That policy would turn some very important principles upside down:

Marriage would become merely an emotional relationship that is flexible enough to include any grouping of loving adults. If it is fair for two men or two women to marry, why not three, or five, or 17? The terms “husband” and “wife” would become merely words with no meaning.

Notice how Dr. Dobson immediately goes off track here. He raises the specter of group marriage, which is not the issue. We are talking about gay couples.

Parenthood would consist of any number of emotionally attached people who care for kids. “Mother” and “father” would become only words.

Gender would become nothing. The same-sex proposition cannot tolerate the idea that any real, deep and necessary differences exist between the sexes. It must rest on a “Mister Potato Head theory” of gender difference (same core, just interchangeable body parts). If real differences did exist, then men would need women and women would need men. Our children would learn that sexual differences are like mere personality types. Wait until your kids start bringing those papers home from school.

These previous two paragraphs are gibberish. We are not talking about cloning here; gay marriage will not change the fact that each child has a biological mother and father. And no one is denying that differences exist between the sexes. Mr. Dobson is avoiding the question. How does gay marriage threaten everyone else's families? Clearly, he doesn't have the answer.