Is Marriage in Jeopardy?, Part 1
This article contains some of the frequently asked questions and often-heard statements about marriage, along with the answers that will help you in the debate.
Articles within this series
Are you confused about what “marriage” really means today?
Many people, even Christians, are confused by the arguments they are hearing today on the subject of homosexual marriage. Superficially, what the advocates are saying may seem fair and logical. Scratch the surface, however, and you’ll find that their assertions don’t hold up.
This article contains some of the frequently asked questions and often-heard statements about this important issue, along with the answers that will help you in the debate. This is a cataclysmic social battle, and it will be with us for some time to come. No Christian, no citizen, can afford to sit this one out on the sidelines.
Q. Shouldn’t two people who love each other be allowed to commit themselves to one another?
A. Absolutely, and people do that all the time. But we don’t call it marriage. There are lots of loving commitments that are not marriage. Friends are committed to each other, a parent is committed to a child, grandparents to their grandchildren, and people are committed to their pets. All of these are forms of love. All of them result in commitments. None of them is marriage.
Q. What’s wrong with letting homosexuals marry?
A. No human society—not one—has ever tolerated “marriage” between members of the same sex as a norm for family life. And that is what is at stake here, making “marriage” between two men or two women as normal as between one man and one woman. It is saying that neither arrangement is any better than the other. As Dr. Dobson writes, only until the last few “milliseconds” of history and experience (i.e. Canada and some European nations) have we arrogantly believed we can improve upon this ancient and universal institution.
This public meaning of marriage is not something that each new generation is free to redefine. Marriage is defined by the God of nature and nature’s God—and a wise society will protect marriage as it has always been understood. Marriage is the way our culture promotes monogamy, provides a way for males and females to build a life together, and assures every child has a mother and father.
Q. Homosexuals can’t have children, but many other couples can’t as well. Why do we let them marry?
A. This is the exception and not the rule. Many of these childless couples adopt, and their adoptive children receive the benefits of both father and mother this way. It is impossible for a homosexual couple to bestow that benefit—the presence of a father and a mother— on any child, even if that couple adopts or uses artificial insemination.
Q. Isn’t it true that what kids need most are loving parents, regardless of whether it’s a mother or father?
A. No. A child needs a loving mother and father. A wealth of research over the past 30 years has shown us this. (However, same-sex marriage and parenting intentionally deprive children of a mother or father.) The most loving mother in the world cannot teach a little boy how to be a man. Likewise, the most loving man cannot teach a little girl how to be a woman. A gay man cannot teach his son how to love and care for a woman. A lesbian cannot teach her daughter how to love a man or know what to look for in a good husband. Is love enough to help two gay dads guide their daughter through her first menstrual cycle? Like a mom, they cannot comfort her by sharing their first experience. Little boys and girls need the loving daily influence of both male and female parents to become who they are meant to be.
Q. Isn’t that cruel?
A. That’s only because of the times in which we live. Our society prizes what seems fair, more than what is true. Children truly need both a mom and a dad. It is cruel to intentionally deny them this. The research supporting this is both substantial and unequivocal!
Q. What about people who are too old to have children, even adopted ones? We let them marry.
A. Yes, of course we allow older folks to marry. Having babies is not a requirement of marriage. The reason for supporting the institution of marriage is not rooted only in childrearing. Man and woman were made for each other, and the State has a compelling interest in supporting it — with or without children.
Q. But isn’t it better for a child to grow up with two loving same-sex parents than to live in an abusive home or be bounced around in foster care?
A. You’re comparing the worst of one situation (abusive heterosexual parenting) with the best of another (loving same-sex parenting). That’s apples and oranges.
Those who want homosexual marriage are not asking to take the children living in the most difficult situations, so it’s intellectually dishonest to preface the argument with that claim. They are asking for the same thing all parents desire: healthy, happy children they can call their own. So let us dispense with the idea that same-sex couples will serve some high social good by only taking children in the most difficult situations. They have never asked for this.
Q. Apart from the issue of children, don’t gays have the same legal right to marry that heterosexuals do?
A. All people have the same right to marry, as long as they abide by the law. You cannot marry if you’re already married, you cannot marry a close relative, an adult cannot marry a child, you cannot marry your pet, and you cannot marry someone of the same sex. Let’s be clear, everyone has access to marriage as long as they meet the requirements. This is not about access to marriage. It‘s about redefining marriage to be something it has never been.
Q. But heterosexuals can marry according to their sexual orientation. Why shouldn’t homosexuals be allowed to marry according to their orientation?
A. Then nature itself is intolerant. Marriage has not been “imposed” upon culture by some religious institution or government power from which it needs to be “set free.” It was established by God, is enforced by the nature which God bestowed upon mankind, and we tamper with it at our own peril.
Here’s what is intolerant. Same-sex “marriage” is being forced upon us by a small, but elite, group of individuals dressed in black robes—judges—who say that thousands of years of human history have simply been wrong. That is a very arrogant notion that will bring great harm to our culture.