On Monday, July 27, I submitted a letter-to-the-editor in which I had to edit my writing on this topic to 350 words. It was published on Wednesday, July 29. Due to the word limitation I could only dip my toe in the water - so to speak - but in the below essay I flesh out my thoughts.
Marriage Inequality Wins
It’s now been one month since the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
published its celebration of the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell vs. Hodges with the bold headline “Marriage Equality
Wins” (Saturday, June 27). Much can be said about their one-sided coverage, but
I’ll start with the headline itself. The News-Miner is way too premature in
claiming that marriage equality has been achieved, as two of the people they interviewed
acknowledged. Pete Pinney said, “…there’s a lot still to do”, and Kate Wattum
opined that “…while there’s still more work to be done to reach equality…it’s a
good day for people to be proud of who they are.” Federal judges in most
states, including Alaska ,
overturned the will of the people when they struck down marriage laws
instituted by popular vote, the Supreme Court finished the job by creating a
new right in the U.S. Constitution for same-sex couples to marry, and public
opinion is increasingly swinging toward acceptance of same-sex marriage. So,
with the wind at the back of the gay community, why are the two people just
quoted, along with actor George Takei (who recently made a bigoted comment
about Justice Clarence Thomas for his opinion in the ruling), and a host of
other public commentators not satisfied with their success and say more must be
done? Because this is just the beginning of their marriage overhaul. I have no
doubt that most people - gay or straight - who support gay marriage do so in
good faith because they think not to is discriminatory, mean-spirited,
homophobic, etc. I get that, but if it is discriminatory to deny same-sex
couples the right to marry then it is also discriminatory to reject bigomy,
polygamy, polyandry, and polyamory…not to mention people in incestuous
relationships and adult-adolescent (or adult-child) relationships. If you think
that’s going too far you won’t in a few years. After all, who are we to judge
who other people love?
If marriage is no longer an institution that is necessary
for the rearing and well-being of children, and is instead open to people who
simply love each other regardless of other criteria, then why shouldn’t all of
us be allowed to re-define marriage as we see fit? After all, it was Justice
Kennedy - the deciding vote in the Obergefell
decision - who said in the 1992 ruling of Planned Parenthood v. Casey that, “At the heart of liberty is the
right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe,
and of the mystery of human life.” If 6th graders in Seattle have the liberty
to get implanted with an IUD at school without their parents’ knowledge or
approval (as recently reported), then why shouldn’t they be allowed to marry
55-year-old men? If the idea of a man marrying his mother or his neighbor’s
12-year-old little girl makes anyone squeamish, don’t be, because it will only
be the natural progression of “marriage equality”. Society must continually
“progress” or “evolve”, and it does so by getting people used to new possibilities
over a period of time. Many of us may be offended by at least some of the
‘possibilities’ just mentioned - I hope all of us are - but unless we have a
moral, intellectual, and spiritual anchor rooted in a strong tradition to keep
us from being pulled along with current cultural tides, then we just need to put
up the white flag. The News-Miner will undoubtedly help in this regard, because
the next time “Marriage Equality Wins”, the News-Miner may repeat these words
from their Opinion column: “That’s the right call. The court’s ruling was
correct, and the guarantees of equal protection granted by the 14th
Amendment are more whole today than before the decision.” Justice John Robert’s
begs to differ. He is much more lucid in saying that the U.S. Constitution had
absolutely nothing to do with the Obergefell
ruling. It was all about ideology.
So what’s best for children? Who cares? Not once were
children mentioned in the June 27 edition of the News-Miner except indirectly
in comments about “family” by Senator Lisa Murkowski and discussed below. The
health of the (traditional) family is a microcosm of the health of the wider
culture, and it has been under assault for decades. The factors are many, but
one thing is for sure: the LGBT community cannot be blamed for it. Many in this
camp undoubtedly believe that their participation in marriage will help stop
some of the hemorrhaging, but they are wrong. It will exacerbate it.
A loving family -
composed of mom, dad, and kids - incorporates everything children need to be
well-adjusted, productive citizens who have the tools they need to succeed in
life. This breaks down when marriages fall apart. The truth is that “marriage
equality” is desperately needed in
our society today, but the problem is that it has been improperly defined. You
see, this is a rich vs. poor problem: the rich are getting (and mostly staying)
married and the poor aren’t. The kids from these rich families - liberal and
conservative - are growing up in stable homes, getting a good education,
getting good jobs, and getting (and mostly staying) married. Not so for the
poor. These children often have absentee fathers (nearly ¾ of black kids are
born out of wedlock), are poorly educated, often live in violent neighborhoods,
have high rates of incarceration, and (therefore) have limited opportunities. Guess
which ethnic minority is overrepresented in our prison system? Yep, young black
men. Thank marriage inequality for that.
In the Voices section of the paper, Lisa Murkowski says that
same-sex marriage “…reinforces limited government and promotes family values”
and “…encourages more families to form.” This is wishful thinking, but
delusional. First, children aren’t formed in a mold but come from a father and
a mother. What Lisa means by “more families” is ‘different-kinds of families’.
No, we don’t need that. What we need is for every child to have the right to be
raised in the best possible environment that will give them the best possible
results for current and future success. This means that they have the absolute right of being raised in a loving home
with a mother and a father, and society has the absolute duty of ensuring through our policies and laws that children get
that right. Pay attention to what I’m not
saying: I am not saying that everyone in non-traditional relationships are bad
parents - some are undoubtedly very good ones - but what I am saying is that we, as a society, should refocus our efforts on
reinforcing the tried-and-true natural family structure whose track record goes
back for all of recorded history (and doubtlessly before that). As far as “limited
government” is concerned, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling the gates have now
been flung wide for churches and religiously-based institutions to be sued or
lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose gay marriage. It’s open season on
the religious. So much for religious liberty and the first of all rights in the
U.S. Constitution; and so much for limited government since it will be the government
itself in many cases that will continue targeting religious institutions (just
ask The Little Sisters of the Poor).
The only “Voices” in the News-Miner that opposed “marriage
equality” were those of Alaska ’s
Catholic Bishops and three republican politicians: U.S Senator Dan Sullivan,
U.S Congressman Don Young, and North Pole Senator John Coghill…the first two
who immediately capitulated to the ruling (“the Court has ruled” - have any
democrats said that in regards to the Citizen’s
United ruling?). Curiously, the News-Miner apparently couldn’t find a
single non-politician who had reservations about this society-transforming
decision. Then there is the Catholic Church. The News-Miner was right to them
out for their opposition, because it will not go away: they will remain defiant
and will never change their position on the unique complimentarity of the union
of man and woman and the natural family as the fundamental unit of society. As
the family goes so goes society. Being unpopular by governments and
political/cultural movements is very familiar country for the Catholic Church. Starting
in the mid-1800’s they condemned a disastrous political movement very early in
its history that was all about “equality”, and they did so frequently and in
strong language over many decades. The intellectual leader of this ideology, in
his most famous book, rallied for “Abolition of the family!” His name was Karl
Marx, and his book was called The Communist Manifesto. His ideas were
responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people.
Redefining marriage is a good place to start in abolishing
the family. The saying, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” has
some weight here. The vast majority of people who are in favor of same-sex
marriage today, polygamy tomorrow, and who-knows-what the day after, are well-meaning,
but the results will be to continue to strike hammer blows to an institution
whose foundation has been crumbling for decades. However, there is an
intellectual minority who presumably aren’t Marxists (I wouldn’t know) but who nevertheless
agree with Marx’s statement. These include self-described “queer theorists”
whose goal is to “genealogically explain away the rigid orientation schema
precisely because they believe this will give them the freedom and power to
make, unmake, and remake their sexuality as they see fit” 1. I
wonder if that was what the NPR piece on “gender fluidity” several months ago
was all about. At any rate, there is absolutely no room for marriage in their
worldview, and if you don’t think they have influence, think again.
To come full-circle, yes, “there’s still more work to be
done”. It’s time to takedown marriage once and for all. The Supreme Court is
off to a good start. It’s not just about winning. And it’s certainly not about
how you play the game. It’s about forcing the new morality down the throats of
those who resist…and seeing to it that they say ‘thank you’ afterward. Victory
is not enough: complete acceptance is. All Americans must not only tolerate the
re-definition/s of marriage but to approve of it/them. Those with intellectual
and moral objections had better buckle up because it is going to be a rough
ride.
Sources:
1Against
Heterosexuality, Michael Hannon, First Things, March 2014
Other resources:
Coming Apart, Charles
Murray, 2012
Family Structure
Studies (http://www.familystructurestudies.com)
Emotional Problems
among Children with Same-Sex Parents: Difference by Definition
(http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2500537)
