Same-Sex Marriages
If you read this blog regularly, you know that I think very highly of the work done by Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason. In this recent article by Greg at Townhall.com, he deals with the challenges offered by those who wish to revise the very meaning of marriage in modern America. I’d like to summarize the responses because I’m not sure if I’ve heard a more well-thought-out response anywhere.
The first challenge offered against traditional marriage has to do with civil rights:
We’re being denied the same rights as heterosexuals. This is unconstitutional discrimination.
Greg, first of all, points out that there are actually two complaints here: First, that homosexuals don’t have the same liberties under the law which heterosexuals have. Second, that they don’thave the same legal benefits. Regarding the first charge, it simply is not true. Homosexuals have exactly the same liberties under the law as do heterosexuals. Any homosexual can marry and receive the same protection as heterosexuals. He simply cannot marry someone of the same sex. But for that matter, neither can a heterosexual marry someone of the same sex. All citizens have the same rights regarding marriage. To ask for the ability to marry someone of the same sex is to ask for special treatment under the law, as no one has this liberty or right to do. Denying a homosexual this right is not a violation of equal protection under the law.
What about the claim that homsexual couples do not have the same legal benefits, such as concerning taxation, family leave, health care, etc.? It is true that those couples do not enjoy the same benefits as do married heterosexual couples. But why should they? There are other non-married relationships which do not have these privileges, e.g., a pair of spinsters, non-gay brothers, etc. If homosexuals are treated unfairly in this area, so is every other arrangement of unmarried citizens, regardless of whatever loving commitments they may have to each other.
So, why do married couples receive special benefits and others do not? There is good reason. That reason is not because they are long-term, loving, committed relationships. The reason is that they involve children. The government has a significant interest in building stable families in which future citizens are raised. Marriage is not meant to be a shortcut to tax relief, insurance rates, or other benefits. Marriage has a unique purpose to which unique benefits are fitted.
Koukl quotes Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council in summation. Gay citizens…
… already have the same right to marry as anyone else – subject to the same restrictions. No one may marry a close blood relative, a child, a person who is already married, or a person of the same sex. However much those restrictions may disappoint the incestuous, pedophiles, polygamists, and homosexuals, the issue is not discrimination. It is the nature of marriage itself.
Next, further objections by those who wish to redefine marriage.