Politics and Culture

**update**

If I had a choice between a McCain win and a Proposition Eight win, I'd pick the proposition any day. It goes to my argument that it's much more important to defend that which is both fundamental and irreversible than that which will ebb and flow like tax rates. Before we get to my argument, let's dispose of three myths/lies:

1. There is no "right to marry." It's not mentioned in the either the federal or California state constitutions. States have always come up with the rules for marriage. Some of those rules have been to prohibit bigamy, intra-family marriage, underage marriage, and polygamy. Some have been against things we no longer think important like miscegenation.

2. If there were a right to marry, nobody would deny gay people that right, provided that they follow the same rules. In the case of Proposition 8, everybody would be able to marry one other person of the opposite sex who is of a certain ancestrally distant relationship.

3. It's not, as the anti-8 campaign dishonestly claims, a matter of freedom versus government involvement. Both proponents of gay marriage and those opposed wish the government to recognize and encourage, by virtue of that recognition and certain monetary and legal rewards, marriage. At this time, everybody claims to tolerate certain rules for marriage- nobody now thinks marriage should be extended towards human-animal relationships, for example- so it's not a matter of not having a line at all, but of where to draw the line. The libertarian position would be to not have government recognize anything called marriage, and just deal with whatever contracts people agree to, whether it stipulates a traditional marriage, polygamy, one renewable every five years, or whatever else will make people happy.

When somebody wants to change something, especially something as venerable and important as marriage, he should have some compelling reasons to do so. Let me respond to some of the most common arguments in favor of same-sex marriage:

Gay marriage is pro-marriage:

First, what kind of societies allow people of the same sex to marry? The answer is: countries that already hold marriage in low esteem like the Netherlands, Scandinavian nations, and out-of-their-mind, rights-to-apes Spain. Those countries had already experienced dramatic declines in marriage accompanied with high out-of-wedlock births and high rates of co-habitation, when they began to give legal status to same-sex romantic relationships.

Has gay marriage helped to reverse those trends?

No. In the Netherlands, marriage has become less popular than wooden shoes. It hasn't increased marriage rates in Spain or Canada either.

In the United States, states with the lowest marriage rates, and lowest esteem for marriage, one can conclude, are the most accepting of same-sex marriage.

Drilling down to the individual level, it's not hard to imagine that the people supporting gay marriage today were the ones saying that marriage was "just a piece of paper" twenty years ago.

In fact, one can easily assert that not a few gay marriage supporters don't really care about the institution they want to expand beyond its traditional boundaries. Some would "go nuclear," as proven by the recent proposed California proposition to eliminate "marriage" from state language and make every relationship a "domestic partnership," as well as the fact that the people most in favor of gay marriage are those that hold marriage is least esteem: Hollywood actors, leftists, feminists, etc.

Why?

Gay marriage has a demoralizing effect. Besides the evidence above, we have the logical conclusion that something easily changed is less meaningful. Or, whenever you lower standards for something, it loses esteem. Would people respect the Green Berets if it accepted Michael Moore? If the Ten Commandments were put up for referendum, would people respect them as much (Always a challenge, as Moses himself found out.).

Look at what's happened to the esteem in which we hold the constitution since new "rights" began to sprout from justices' mental gardens. The consequent loss of honor for marriage will lead to its eventual demise- at least as anything more than a cultural artifact, for mainstream society.

Gay marriage won't harm anybody's strait marriage:

Nobody in favor of exclusive opposite-sex marriage has made the argument that gay marriage would directly harm his marriage- it's the biggest, strawiest man outside of Kansas.

What gay marriage will do is harm all future marriage. In other words, if you hope that your children marry, you'd have less of it in a world with gay marriage, as per the demoralization argument above.

A better question, one that it seems people wanting to the change should have the burden of answering is: How will gay marriage help my marriage? In no way, of course.

Indeed, how will gay marriage help my society? Again, if you think that marriage is a positive for society, then same-sex marriage will only hurt.

It certainly won't help gays themselves to participate in a debased, meaningless ritual.

Other arguments:

Children:

Why would I purposely make it harder to instill my beliefs on my children?

I don't demand society completely mirror my personal beliefs, but I'd still like a culture amenable to them. As the culture and many institutions grow in hostility to traditional beliefs- just look at the No on Proposition 8's ads- I choose to influence the only public institution I can, government.

Although dishonestly denied by opponents of proposition 8, children will be taught that gay marriage is OK. It's happened in Massachusetts, and it will happen in California unless parents decide not to. Proposition 8 is one of those decisions.

Malleable sexuality:

One common misconception is that sexuality is fixed at birth. We know that societies that have promoted homosexuality like... everywhere else except the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim civilizations, homosexuality has been more widespread than the small percentage that it's been in the great monotheistic cultures.

We see that women, at least, go back and forth between lesbianism and heterosexuality with apparent ease and quite frequently: Madonna, Anne Heche, Brittney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and a few acquaintances of mine have all switched back and forth and back again.

Men, although probably less apt to treat their sexuality so cavalierly, don't find homosexuality horribly repulsive under the right circumstances and in the correct atmosphere.

I also have anecdotal evidence. In the high school where I teach, within a culturally conservative Hispanic neighborhood, I see many girls experimenting with lesbianism. I've had girls come to me crying about how they've done this or that and many who like both boys and girls and can't quite decide between them. Ostentatious displays of female affection is very common on my campus. College too.

Now, some of this is unstoppable cultural change or mere trendiness, and many would either encourage this behavior or ask, "so what?"

Well, for those of us who prefer their children to conform to a male-female sexual relationship, it's kind of a big deal. There's no doubt in my mind that lesbian choices (I can't say the same for male homosexuality, at least from my observation.) will be more common with official recognition of same-sex marriages. As Dennis Prager points out, when girls tell their teachers that they want to marry, or when students mention it to each other, the natural follow up question will be, "Do you want to marry a boy or a girl?"

Feeling no pressure to make the effort for a heterosexual relationship, girls who don't have tremendous success with boys may give up on them altogether.

Aesthetics:

I make an argument for the aesthetic superiority of opposite-sex relationships here. If you've ever seen the now-common male high school cheerleader in a skirt, you know what I'm talking about.

The purpose of marriage recognition by the state:

Have you ever wondered why people celebrate marriages- have parties, blessings, and ceremonies? The reason is that people think that it's important- that it's good for individuals, society, and good in and of itself. We don't throw public parties for lease contracts.

The state, having as one of its (for non-libertarians, at least) goals, the advancement of the good has, therefore, the promotion of marriage as one of its legitimate functions. I agree.

Why is marriage important?

The primary reason society has an interest in marriage is to promote stable relationships. Why should the government care if Dick breaks up with Jane? Because of Dick Jr. and Sally, the theory being, and backed up by experience, some research, and common sense, that the best relationship for children to experience is the one- or a reasonable facsimile in the case of adoption- that created them in the first place.

Marriage also promotes closeness between two groups who are naturally furthest apart in temperament, males and females. Marriage encourages men and women (men more than women) to be loyal to each other.

Society doesn't promote marriage so that people can "love" each other. In most cultures, including Christian society up until the late middle ages, marriage had nothing to do with romantic love and everything to do with the above two reasons as well as economic security for women (now mostly irrelevant) and children and the bonding of families, empires, and such.

Since same-sex marriage neither encourages closeness and mutual aid between two dissimilar groups and their union can't produce children nor should we hold same-sex households as ideal for child-rearing; I see no reason for society to embrace same-sex marriage.

Why do some want same-sex marriage?

The only reason to allow people of the same sex to marry is for those in the same-sex relationship to have society's approbation. There's nothing homosexual couples can't do now, least of all "love," that state sanction would afford them. Supporters of gay marriage don't want society to leave same-sex couples alone; they want society to stand up and applaud.

For most, the desire for acceptance of gay marriage comes from a sincere love of their gay friends and family members, and one needn't ascribe any nefarious motives or hidden agendas to people who support same-sex marriage to make a case against it, though I'm sure some exist, especially amongst the cultural terrorists from the furthest left reaches of the political spectrum.***

Promotion of Natural Law:

I don't expect the non-religious to support arguments from religious authority, but some may be swayed by the case for the superiority of the opposite-sex sexual relationship from Natural Law. It's explained briefly here. It also has to do with the obvious design of nature- 50-50 proportion of men and women, the only coupling capable of reproduction, etc. Cutting off marriage from any superior purpose to the sexual and emotional gratification of the participants only further erodes respect for marriage.

Unexpected consequences:

We've already seen churches sued for not renting out their property for gay weddings, and, yes, parents told they have not right to question the teaching of homosexual relationships to grammar schoolers. We know about the suits against the Boy Scouts, and, in Massachusetts, Catholic Charities can no longer facilitate adoptions unless it agrees to give homosexuals equal consideration. Although not all of these cases are related to gay marriage exactly, they're part of a trend towards government enforced ideological conformity as it relates to homosexuality.

Who knows what things await us in the future? My mother asked what would happen if a man marries an immigrant man for the purposes of normalizing his papers.

What about paternity? Is it irrelevant now? Does that mean that fathers don't have any rights? Responsibilities? We know of a case in New Jersey where a woman went back to being a heterosexual (malleability) and moved out of the apartment she shared with her former lesbian lover. The child wasn't the lovers', of course, but the court ruled that the lover still had visitation rights. Can you imagine this poor woman having to take her child to this woman?

Summary:

Unless opponents of Proposition 8 come up with something better than lies about constitutional "rights" and social intimidation by deeming people "intolerant" and "homophobes," I see no reason to change the status quo as it regards marriage and a great many reasons to fear that its acceptance would lead to further social deterioration.

However:

Society should hold the opposite-sex relationship as ideal, but not persecute people who choose another way just like we don't persecute people who choose to live together or not marry at all. It goes without saying that we love our neighbors and praise all positive forces in our society.

***Hatred is a motivation for some pro-gay marriage people: like going with "B.C.E." instead of using "B.C.," purposely not having spring break on Holy Week, and crucifixes in urine, people just like to tweak conservatives.

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