Our State of North Carolina held its primary back on May 8th. On the ballot is a referendum stating that marriage between one man and one woman will be the only marriage recognized by North Carolina. An Amendment to our State Constitution now states just that. Many states have already put this restriction into their Constitutions and several others have state laws that ban same-sex “marriage.” Locally, the homosexuals and liberals are kicking up a huge stink because a County Commissioner has proposed a resolution in our county to support the Amendment to our State Constitution. The LGBT lobbyists are geared up to protest….”Oh, the injustice of it all!”
Well, we would not be discussing this except for socialist government interference in personal business. I have Libertarian friends who, while they don’t like the idea of gay marriage, can’t think of a Constitutional reason to deny gays “marriage.” Because the Constitution does not specifically address marriage, they think we should just stay out of it and let them have marriage. I disagree.
Before I go further, I wish to clue you into my thinking. I am a Christian, a traditionalist, a married woman, mother of two children, divorced once, and committed to my family’s best interest. I have no hate or bigotry against gays or other anomalies of gender, but at the same time, I don’t celebrate them either. I frankly don’t care what is done in someone’s private bedroom (assuming consenting adults) and have no interest in regulating that beyond the protection of innocents. So my interest has nothing to do with inserting my beliefs into someone else’s life other than recognizing the sky is the sky and marriage is between one man and one woman.
However, while I am not attempting to insert my views into their personal decisions, the LGBT factions wish to insert their beliefs into my life by co-opting the definition of marriage. Their desire is to bend definitions of a cultural and natural institution that will, with a doubt, confuse children and cause more chaos in our culture. If marriage is nothing more than a civil government contract, then you can assume that a contract can be made between several or any individuals who wish to call their relationships “marriage.” If marriage is a religious sacrament, ordained by Our Creator, the question is settled. Game over. The traditional definition of marriage is by nature, both literally and figuratively, exclusive. But, even if it were just a civil contract, the reasons for keeping that exclusivity are many.
The secular reasons have to do with cultural morés, psychological influences on children, keeping the population healthy, providing familial protection for children, genealogical respect for inheritances, etc. Financial reasons also exist. Illegitimacy rates increase exponentially. (for those who like to think that homosexual marriage has no effect on heterosexual marriage customs.) Statistical information can be found here.
No amount of factual information will convince the LGBT proponents they should not have what they want but cannot have, i.e. the kind of marriage between a man a woman created through nature and culture. I don’t believe we should even be having this discussion. The entire premise is a travesty as far as I can tell from logical and Biblical perspectives both.
The government we are suffering through today wishes to replace the family with government. They can’t do it. A government cannot replace the male and female parents of children or teach the bonds therein. Yet, cradle to the grave government is what we are seeing manifest itself. So why not homosexula “marriage?” Why not polygamy? Why not all sorts of gender bending other options? As long as government is becoming the parents, who needs biological parents? And no, I don’t believe marriage is only for procreation, but I do believe that marriage exists for two opposite sex participants.
Orthodoxy Today presents a view of marriage regarding the feminine identity:
(The very word “marriage” comes from the Latin word for mother, mater.) It exists for the gathering-in of a woman’s sexuality under the protective net of the human or divine order, or both.
WHY SHOULD I not be able to marry a man? The question addresses a class of human phenomena that can be described in sentences but nonetheless cannot be. However much I might wish to, I cannot be a father to a pebble–I cannot be a brother to a puppy–I cannot make my horse my consul. Just so, I cannot, and should not be able to, marry a man. If I want to be a brother to a puppy, are you abridging my rights by not permitting it? I may say what I please; saying it does not mean that it can be.
In a gay marriage, one of two men must play the woman, or one of two women must play the man. “Play” here means travesty–burlesque. Not that their love is a travesty; but their participation in a ceremony that apes the marriage bond, with all that goes into it, is a travesty. Their taking-over of the form of this crucial and fragile connection of opposites is a travesty of marriage’s purpose of protecting, actually and symbolically, the woman who enters into marriage with a man. To burlesque that purpose weakens those protections, and is essentially and profoundly anti-female.
If you recognize homosexual coupling as described in that quote, as it is actually, you might wonder what gay marriage does to the standing of women in society. I would say it diminishes the standing of women with regard to natural law. Absolutely.
But isn’t that the point? The legal standing of natural law is what is being shredded in the instance of homosexual “marriage.” Natural law is the basis for Jefferson’s assertions in the Declaration of Independence.
“Nature has written her moral laws on the head and heart of every rational and honest man, where man may read them for himself. If ever you are about to say anything amiss, or to do anything wrong, consider beforehand you will feel something within you which will tell you it is wrong, and ought not to be said or done. This is your conscience, and be sure and obey it… Conscience is the only sure clue which will eternally guide a man clear of all his doubts and inconsistencies.” Thomas Jefferson
Again, I would rather not be having this discussion. It’s ridiculous on its face, and greatly damaging in all aspects to our society. The socialists in our government have been trying to rid our nation of our common natural law since the Progressive movement started over 100 years ago. This is but one more evidence of that. Gay marriage is not a right that can be given by a socialist government. Our rights don’t come from government. It is nothing more than another tool to take down our natural rights as given by Our Creator as stated by Jefferson in the Declaration. But even if you don’t subscribe to that substantiation, you can see there are many other considerations making gay marriage a very bad idea.
Other sources:
Pew Research on Religion and Family Life
In August 2010 The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life conducted their annual “Religion and the Issues: Results from the 2010 Annual Religion and Public Life Survey.” The survey revealed that only 35% of the population considers religion the main influence on their opinion about same-sex marriage. Of this number, 60% are opposed to same-sex marriage. That means only 21% of the population is opposed to same-sex marriage primarily on religious grounds. The other 27% of the population that is opposed to same-sex marriage is opposed to same-sex marriage primarily on other grounds such as education, personal experience, and the views of family and friends. Put another way, the majority of those who are opposed to same-sex marriage are motivated primarily by reasons other than religion.
“The laws of marriage do not create marriage, but in societies ruled by law they help trace the boundaries and sustain the public meanings of marriage. . . . Without this shared, public aspect, perpetuated generation after generation, marriage becomes what its critics say it is: a mere contract, a vessel with no particular content, one of a menu of sexual lifestyles, of no fundamental importance to anyone outside a given relationship.”
“If marriage is simply a business arrangement, subject to regulations, then the products of the business are also open to inspection and regulation, correct? So the government can regulate your children? Is this where family social service agencies get their authority to go into a home and confiscate the children, when any unproven accusation is made?
Is this why schools can decree that all children will be taught about sex, beginning in kindergarten, and that “no parental option to decline is allowed”? Or the school staff can take a young woman from her school to an abortion clinic and never inform the parents that she was even pregnant?”
‘We do know, however, that it would radically change the customs, laws, and moral expectations embedded in millennia of human experience. Marriage and family law reflect the historically cumulative complexities of necessarily public concerns about property, inheritance, legal liability, and the legitimacy of children–the latter entailing a host of responsibilities for which parents, and especially men, can be held accountable.”
