As I have knocked on doors in my area and talked to people about Proposition 8, I have found that those who have investigated the subject of same-gender marriage the least generally think of it as an issue of equality. This is a result of the platform carefully crafted by homosexual activists. This platform obscures the issues that are truly at stake. I will address this argument here with 3 main premises, which I will use to draw the conclusion that the controversy over same-gender marriage is not an issue of equality:
1. Marriage does not belong to the government.
2. The government gives equal recognition to same-gender couples as it does to heterosexual couples.
3. Most homosexuals do not want to marry.
1. Marriage does not belong to the government.
Marriage existed before government. Since the beginning of this world, men and women have married and started families. Throughout history, governments have recognized marriage because of the benefits that marriage provides for society - benefits like stability, the proper and safe channeling of male sexual energy, and the transmission of wholesome values to the rising generation. Governments did not create marriage. They did not define marriage in the beginning, and they are not the authority to receive appeals for a re-definition of marriage now.
The argument for same-gender marriage treats marriage as if it is the creation of the government, and as if the government alone is authorized to bestow or deny marriage to citizens. This argument is, therefore, based on a faulty premise.
2. The government gives equal recognition to same-gender couples as it does to heterosexual couples.
In reality, the government already recognizes the union of same-gender couples in California. It also recognizes the union of heterosexual couples. Under the domestic partnership laws, these couples can live together and receive all of the governmental benefits that married couples receive.
Heterosexuals, participating in an institution called marriage, which existed before the government was ever formed, are recognized as "married". This is something that goes far beyond two people of whatever sexual inclination, deciding to live together for what may be a short or an extended period of time. It does not need governmental recognition. And whether marriage is recognized by the government or not, it is a bulwark of a strong society. It has its foundations in religious laws given by God Himself, and the principles and values that surround this institution of marriage are the most essential part of it. These principles and values are what have given marriage its value in societies throughout history, not the fact that governments have recognized that institution.
3. Most homosexuals do not want to marry.
At the risk of saying something that will sound incredibly un-PC, I will state what I believe to be an accurate and important truth: most homosexuals do not want to enter into a same-gender marriage. While they may feel resentment towards those who oppose same-gender marriage, in reality they do not plan on settling down and living the type of domestic union that marriage suggests. This fact is manifest in the surprisingly small number of same-gender couples who have taken the plunge in states or countries where same-gender marriage has been legalized. Those who have entered into 'marriage' seem to have done so with a very different vision than heterosexuals of what that relationship is supposed to be like. For example, Jonathan Yarbrough, who, with his partner Cody Rogahn, was the first in line for a marriage license in Provincetown, MA in 2004, was quoted by the Boston Herald as saying:
"I think it's possible to love more than one person and have more than one partner ... in our case we have an 'open marriage'" (Boston Herald, May 17, 2004).
Jonathan Yarbrough and his partner Cody are going to get married and continue to have sex with other people, presumably at the same rate they did before "marriage". Is there a good purpose for this "marriage"?
The question arises, then: if governments did not create marriage, and if the government already gives equal recognition to same-gender relationships as heterosexual relationships, and if most homosexuals do not want to get married, what is this argument really all about? My answer is that the push for the government to re-define marriage to include same-gender unions is about forcing society to accept and condone a lifestyle that is largely not accepted or condoned. Since society will not accept and condone it, these activists want to make that acceptance mandatory by getting government involved. We are not talking about tolerance here - most people already tolerate homosexual individuals and allow them to live the lifestyle of their choice without prejudice. We are talking about members of society being forced to acknowledge that homosexuality is right and good and acceptable. The first group of people to feel this force will be our children, who will be taught in schools as a mandatory part of the curriculum that there is no moral difference between same-gender marriage and traditional marriage. This undertaking has been mis-labeled as a pursuit of "equality". But "equality" has never meant that one person be denied the right to object to another person's choices or lifestyle. To define equality in that way would be to put the concept of equality in direct opposition to the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience. That is not what the word means.
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3 comments:
19 million dollars contributed to NO on Prop 8 says your number three reason is ridiculous.
Thanks for your comment. Actually, I have to disagree with you - that money doesn't say that. If you follow my argument, what I'm saying is that there is a political agenda behind this push for marriage that is not based on a desire to marry but a desire to force acceptance.
What the money means is that there were enough people who supported that agenda, or enough people who were convinced by the marketing of that agenda, to contribute that amount of money.
I enjoyed your post very much. This is something I recently came across. This information is also posted on my blog here:
http://beetlebabee.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/the-agenda/
The Homosexual Agenda
Author: Alan Sears, Craig Osten
Q. Craig, with the recent Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, and an expected decision from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts that could create gay “marriage” on American shores, the whole idea of same-sex marriage has come front-and-center in American life. But isn’t same-sex “marriage” just one part of the homosexual agenda?
A. Yes it is. The agenda of homosexual activists is basically to change America from what they perceive as looking down on homosexual behavior, to the affirmation of and societal acceptance of homosexual behavior.
It is an agenda that they basically set in the late 1980s, in a book called “After the Ball,” where they laid out a six-point plan for how they could transform the beliefs of ordinary Americans with regard to homosexual behavior — in a decade-long time frame.
Q. Now, wait a minute. We hear all the time from gay activists that “there is no such thing” as a gay agenda. They snicker at the very idea.
A. But there is an agenda. They admit it privately, but they will not say that publicly. In their private publications, homosexual activists make it very clear that there is an agenda. The six-point agenda that they laid out in 1989 was explicit:
1. “Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible.” That was aimed at making people so tired of the issue they would want to give them anything they want to make them shut up.
2. “Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers.” That’s why they exploited things like the tragic murder of Matthew Shepard. It was a tragic murder, yet they have used that and spun that to demonize people like Dr. James Dobson and other Christian leaders who have taken a biblical stand on homosexual behavior — people who have love and compassion for those trapped in that behavior.
3. “Give homosexual protectors a just cause.” That was designed to tap into and exploit the almost innate sense of fairness that Americans have; to the sympathy that we have — especially liberals have — for those who seem to be disenfranchised.
4. “Make gays look good.” That’s what they’ve done through media campaigns, through television programs, like “Will and Grace” and others, where homosexuals are portrayed as the most normal, stable people in America.
5. “Make the victimizers look bad.” They portray people of faith — people who have legitimate and biblical reasons to oppose homosexual behavior — as homophobes and bigots. They also try to “muddy the moral waters” by getting liberal churches, many of which have thrown out a great deal of the Bible, to say that homosexual behavior is just fine from a theological perspective.
6. “Get funds from corporate America.” In fact, they have. They have gotten corporate America to sign on to their agenda, and it is very interesting how they have done that. It’s based on fudging the truth — and outright lies.
By the way, the authors of “After the Ball” admit that the use of lies is perfectly fine in their struggle. Their main thing is to get people to believe them. That is all that is important.
What’s interesting is that gay activists go to corporations and say, “We are an aggrieved class; we are discriminated against.” Then, on the other hand, they go to corporate America and say, “Look how much money we have. We make double what a traditional family makes. We are a market that you want to advertise to and cater to.”
Corporate America signs on — whether for domestic partner benefits, or whatever — because they don’t want to alienate that market.
Q. You mentioned lies. Isn’t one of the lies that homosexuals really want marriage?
A. That’s one of the biggest lies. Actually, what they have said at conferences — including one international conference in London in 1999 — is that they really don’t want marriage, they want the destruction of marriage. Basically, once they get marriage, they want to redefine it — they call the concept “monogamy without fidelity.” In other words, marriage would mean that you could be with a person but say, “I can go ahead and have sex with anybody else I want, but my spouse and I live together.”
One homosexual activist said, “We can now dethrone the (traditional) family based on blood relationships, in favor of the families that we choose.”
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