"I Do" or "Please Don't"
With the recent decision by the Hawaii courts regarding the legalization of marriage
between same-sex couples, a political debate across the United States has begun. Many
people believe that this is a monstrous step to legalizing same-sex unions country wide,
especially since legal tradition recognizes marriages performed in other states as
binding within every other state, but also because Hawaii is known for it's liberal,
ground-breaking first steps that the other states often follow the model of. If the
states have any will, however, they will not fold to the pressure put on them by this
state and the gay rights groups, they will continue to not recognize a man and man or a
woman and woman as a man and wife.
What is marriage anyway? Isn't it the union of two people who love each other to prove
their commitments to one another for the future? Yes, but there is more. Webster's
Dictionary defines marriage as:
"a) the state of being joined together as husband and
wife, b) the state of joining a man to a woman as her
husband or a woman to a man as his wife."
Legally, however, marriage is more than just a statement of love. Marriage comes with
economic and legal benefits that one cannot receive alone. For example, joint parental
custody, insurance and health benefits, the ability to file joint tax returns, alimony
and child support, and inheritance of property and visitation of a partner or a child in
the hospital. In fact, the Hawaii Commission on Sexual Orientation itself concluded that
denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples deprived applicants of these legal and
economic benefits. So, are homosexuals fighting for the right of marriage to state their
love as the gay rights groups suggest or are they pushing for the right of marriage
because of the many benefits that come with it? The answer is obvious - they are
fighting for the benefits that come along with marriage. If they were fighting for love,
then where would we stop these "feelings?" If homosexuals were allowed to marry because
they love each other and they consent, then couldn't a pedophile marry a younger child as
long as both parties fully consented? If homosexuals were allowed to marry because they
love each other, then couldn't one man marry many wives because he loved each one and
they each loved him? If homosexuals were allowed to marry because they love each other,
then couldn't a son and his mother, or even a brother and a brother, marry because they
love each other? As one member of the Episcopal Laity Group said, "a line must be drawn
and it must never be crossed. Marriage is for a man and a woman, and that's the way
marriage will always be."
The gay rights' activists claim that this denial of love, in the form of marriage, is a
form of discrimination. These gay rights' activists claim that this denial of love is
similar to when slavery was being defended, women's voting rights were being denied, or
even more specifically and more related, the anti-miscegenation laws of a few decades
back. This is clearly an attempt at tugging at the nation's heart chords by comparing
the struggle for same-sex unions to several notable, if not the most notable, equality
struggles in the history of the United States. The comparison to the defense of slavery
or the denial of women's voting rights by gay right's groups is simply unfounded.
Homosexuality has never been considered morally "good," and it is a tremendous jump from
saying that black-skinned people should work for white-skinned people just because of
skin color or women can't vote just because of sex to saying that homosexuals can't marry
just because of their sexual habits. There is a clear distinction. First of all, Colin
Powell once noted that skin color (and gender in this case) and sexual behavior are
completely different and incomparable. Skin color and gender are born into, and they
have absolutely no effect on conduct or character, sexual behavior on the other hand, has
everything to do with character, morality, and society's basic rules of conduct. If
anything, homosexuality is comparable to smokers, compulsive gamblers, pornography
fanatics, sex addicts, and pedophiles because these are all people whose traits (whether
inborn or not) directly effect society. This also directly relates to interracial
marriages because a person's skin color does not produce a certain effect on conduct or
character. If polled at the time of the respective movement (anti-slavery, women's
rights, or interracial marriages), a majority of the United States population would have
supported the movements (population includes those who are directly involved), but in the
United States today, over 2/3rds of the population are against same-sex marriage
(according to national polls run by Newsweek and CNN). On top of that, along with
marriage goes the assumption of sexual activity. The sexual activity of one homosexual
with another (sodomy) is illegal in many states and allowing gays to marry would be
turning a head to this illegal act.
Whether sodomy is illegal or not, it is still practiced, claim the gay right's
activists. While this is concedable, they also say that monogamous relationships are
safer in the homosexual community than polygamous relationships. This is one of those
statements that sounds good, because it is true in the heterosexual community, but the
facts prove otherwise, because the homosexual community is not the heterosexual
community. The general feeling among gay right's activists is that with the threat of
AIDS and other diseases among promiscuous, homosexual men, it is a "societal good" to
encourage homosexual monogamy. However, in cities where homosexual monogamy is already
being encouraged, AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases are actually soaring!
(Survey from the Centers of Disease Control report by Associated Press, "HIV Found in 7
Percent Gay Young Men: Education Fails to halt Spread," The Washington Times, February
11, 1996, p A-3; Michael Warner, "Why Gay Men Are Having Risky Sex," Village Voice, New
York, January 31, 1995, Vol. XL., No. 5) AIDS is most likely transmitted in unsafe sex
acts, and an English study recently published that the most unsafe sex acts occur in
homosexual steady relationships. Men in steady relationships practiced more anal
intercourse and oral-anal intercourse than those without a steady partner. Said one
former homosexual, William Aaron, "in the gay life, fidelity is almost impossible. . .
the gay man must be constantly on the lookout for new partners . . . the most homophile
'marriages' are those where there is an arrangement between the two to have affairs on
the side . . ." (OUT Magazine) So, the myth that homosexual marriage will decrease the
number of gay AIDS patients because of less promiscuity is completely unfounded. The
myth by these gay right's activists show how common sense in the heterosexual community
must not be applied as common sense in the homosexual community, and vice versa, because
they are two different communities. In fact, the gay right's activists use of this myth
simply shows how they want to play on the heterosexual community's fear of AIDS in order
to gain something advantageous for themselves.
The fear of AIDS, discrimination, and denial of love are all tactics used by those in
support of same-sex unions, but clearly all of them are ineffective arguments when
examined. In it painfully obvious that the only advantage to same-sex unions for
homosexuals is the legal and economic benefits, but it is at this point that the
homosexuals are receiving favoritism rather than equality. When two people are allowed
to marry just because of legal and economic reasons, regardless of whether or not they
are marrying in the traditional sense, it is clearing being discriminatory against those
in the heterosexual community who are marrying for love. It is giving gays an advantage
rather than equality. Homosexual unions should not be allowed in the United States, and
as a representative of St. Athanasius Roman Catholic Church said, "marriage is a
privilege not a right."
INTERVIEWEES
Episcopal Laity Group, 1-800-307-7609
St. Anthanasius Roman Catholic Church, 703-759-4555
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