In the last few weeks, several courts have moved toward recognition of gays’ right to marry. The ultra-conservatives of the Republican Party have gone ballistic. Mike Huckabee has threatened to take his ball and go home. Like it or not, this is progress.
THE REASONS FOR RECOGNIZING SAME-SEX MARRIAGE ARE SIMPLE.
First, it’s about equality. Rather than being a psychological abnormality, as was believed in the fifties, homosexuality is a natural condition. The notion that there is ‘something wrong’ with anyone who prefers the same sex was debunked, a long time ago. An excellent narrative on the history of psychological thoughts on homosexuality is found here.[i]
The majority of humans are heterosexual. The majority of humans are also right-handed. Being in the minority doesn’t make one inferior. Discriminating against someone for being in the minority is innately unfair. Left-handed people have the same rights as those who are right-handed. Homosexuals have the same rights as heterosexuals.
That’s the moral reason. The legal reason is the application of the equal-protection and due-process clauses of the Constitution. Granting a marriage license is a government function. Recognizing the existence of a marriage for tax and estate purposes is a government function. Everyone is supposed to equal treatment by the government (including state governments under the 14th Amendment) in its performance of its functions.
In case you haven’t noticed, there is a clear pattern to the decisions recently rendered by the federal courts on this question. They are overwhelmingly recognizing that discrimination against gays by government entities violates the Constitution.
THE REASONS GIVEN AGAINST RECOGNIZING SAME-SEX MARRIAGE ARE NOT VALID.
The right wing, especially those who call themselves Christians, keep making the same, tired arguments. What is amusing is how often these arguments are quite similar to arguments used earlier, for everything from maintaining slavery to forbidding interracial marriage.
So let’s take a look at the more popular excuses for blocking gay marriage.
Same-sex marriage will destroy the sanctity of marriage.
This argument is often accompanied by the appropriate verse from Leviticus, declaring homosexuality to be an abomination. Of course, those who quote this verse tend to ignore many of the other things the Old Testament says. A humorous take on this, called “Why Can’t I Own a Canadian?”[ii] makes this point quite well. Christians who condemn homosexuality tend to forget one other thing. There is no record of Jesus ever having said one word about it.
In Matthew 19, Jesus did say a little about divorce and remarriage. That would seem to be a more direct statement on ‘the sanctity of marriage’ than the cherry-picked verse from Leviticus. Yet no one seems (these days, at least) to want to try to make divorce illegal.
But all of that is beside the point. Churches may regard marriage as sacred, or some such thing. And I have no problem with any religious organization telling its members what is right or wrong for them. Where I have a problem is a church telling everyone else, particularly those who don’t share their beliefs, what they can and cannot do.
Marriage is a legal status. You do not have the right to use your religion, to determine another’s legal status. To do so would be a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
I addressed this indirectly one of my books. In the first chapter of Differential, I had the main character debating a preacher. The argument about the sanctity of marriage seems familiar, until the reader learns that the subject is interracial marriage. That was a real issue in the sixties, where this scene occurs. The argument was made then, too. It is as unpersuasive now as it was then.
If we allow gays to marry, it will lead to pedophile marriages, and people marrying dogs.
Really? Show me the evidence that these things have become more frequent in Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kingdom , Sweden, or Luxembourg. This argument is basically saying that homosexuality is a perversion, and legalizing same-sex marriage will somehow set a precedent for legalizing other perversions. Any change to the law should be weighed on its own merits, not on what someone thinks may be the next point of contention. Where do we draw the line? For me, that’s easy: consenting adults.
We should encourage procreation.
Procreation happens by instinct. Letting those who don’t share that instinct marry will not change it, for those who do. Besides that, overpopulation is a serious problem. The encouragement to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ was seven billion people ago. We can let up any time now.
The majority of the voters and/or the individual states should have the right to decide this issue.
That’s why we have the Bill of Rights. It protects the minority from the excesses of the majority. As far as the states’rights argument is concerned, see the discussion of the 14th Amendment, above. Had we left it to the individual states, slavery might still be legal in some of them. And we almost certainly wouldn’t have integrated schools in all of them.
CONCLUSION.
As with most social issues in this country, same-sex marriage has taken some time to reach maturity. In my mind, two things led to this point. 1) The recognition by the psychological community, discussed above, that homosexuality is not a psychological abnormality, and 2) The recognition by the court system that homosexuality is not a crime.[iii]
Once we realized that gays are not sick and are not criminals, it led inexorably to the conclusion that they are normal human beings. As such, they have the same rights as heterosexuals.
[i] http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty_sites/rainbow/html/facts_mental_health.html
[ii] http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/areasontosmile/2011/11/dear-dr-laura-why-cant-i-own-a-canadian.html#
[iii] Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)