“Same sex marriage should be recognized by law”
No, they should not be recognized,
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. reminds us, "A page of history is worth a volume of logic." Western history provides very little support for extending
the legal category of marriage to include same-sex unions.
Marriage is frequently thought of as a religious institution laden with prejudices. It is true that Judaism and Christianity have contributed much to
the Western understanding of marriage. But marriage also absorbed parts of the secular marital codes of Greek law, Aristotelian philosophy, Roman
law, and German law. Even in ancient secular systems, legal marriage was seen as a way to help society regulate and achieve a complex set of desires
and goals: sexual activity, procreation, paternity (presumed), mutual help, parental care and accountability - all contributed to the orderly
maintenance of civilization.
Changing law to accommodate same sex marriage would have unknown and quite possibly unintended consequences to the detriment of society.
The body of sociological knowledge about same-sex parenting is scant at best. The numbers of gays and lesbians raising children are so small relative
to the population (and their visibility so recent) that there are no rigorous, large-scale studies on the effect of same-sex marriage on the couples'
children. Steven Nock, a leading scholar of marriage at the University of Virginia wrote in March 2001 (after a thorough review of the studies on
same-sex parenting) that every study on this question "contained at least one fatal flaw" and "not a single one was conducted according to
generally accepted standards of scientific research."
Is it wise, then, to develop legal policies that go to the heart of family life and the societal good without better knowledge? – My answer’s, it is
not very wise at all!
Denmark is a great example of the law of unintended consequences, In an article titled “The End of Marriage in Scandinavia” published in The Weekly
Standard, written by Stanley Kurtz, dated 02/02/2004,
“ A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Not
coincidentally, these countries have had something close to full gay marriage for a decade or more. Same-sex marriage has locked in and reinforced an
existing Scandinavian trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood. The Nordic family pattern--including gay marriage--is spreading across
Europe. And by looking closely at it we can answer the key empirical question underlying the gay marriage debate. Will same-sex marriage undermine the
institution of marriage? It already has.”
www.weeklystandard.com...
In the courts ruling from Bower’s v Hardwick, I would like to cite the judge’s opinion on constitutional violation, referencing to the courts making
law outside of the democratic process.
“The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots
in the language or design of the Constitution.... There should be, therefore, great resistance to expand the substantive reach of those Clauses,
particularly if it requires redefining the category of rights deemed to be fundamental."
JB1, your references to Alabama law while quaint, specifically dealt with marriage within the traditional context of marriage between a man and a
woman – not same sex marriage. If you are trying to infer that modification of law dealing with marriage in the traditional sense justifies or allows
same sex marriage under the law, or makes it OK and good law, you are wrong in that assumption. It was correcting a racial inequality in marital law
and that’s a different subject for another time and debate
Lets assume for a moment that the courts do indeed trample the rights conferred on the republic and the democratic process is subverted by a ruling
for same sex marriage, putting it into law. What are some of the unintended consequences? The basis for marriage of same sex partners rather than
civil union is the equal protection clause in the U.S. constitution – nothing in the law says they cannot marry, it just says they must marry like
everyone else. But on to the consequences, Because legal precedent will be made, One should be able to marry –
Your; brother, mother, sister, father, 1st cousin, aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather or any combination thereof, under the doctrine of equal
protection.
Now one can hardly agree that this would be a good thing for society but that’s how the law works – you cannot make a special exception for one group
without inferring that right on another.
