Lisa Pampuch, in her column of March 8, asserts that homosexuals
should have the right to marry each other as a matter of civil
rights and equal protection under the laws.
Ms. Pampuch’s argument is flawed. Homosexuals do have equal
civil rights. A homosexual has exactly the same civil rights that I
have.
Lisa Pampuch, in her column of March 8, asserts that homosexuals should have the right to marry each other as a matter of civil rights and equal protection under the laws.
Ms. Pampuch’s argument is flawed. Homosexuals do have equal civil rights. A homosexual has exactly the same civil rights that I have.
A homosexual can speak, write, print, and assemble peaceably, just as I can. He (or she, though I shall use the indefinite pronoun and refer to her as him for the remainder of this column) can own a firearm, just as I can.
He has the same right to free exercise of religion, the same right to due process, the same right to be secure in his person and effects, the same right to a speedy and public trial by jury, the same right to enter into a contract. He even has exactly the same right to marry as I do.
What he does not have, and I do not have, and no one has, is some imaginary “right” to marry “the one he loves.”
In order to marry, both parties (and that is not all three parties, nor all four, but only both) must be of age, unmarried, of sound mind, unrelated to a specified degree, human, willing, and, oh, yes, of opposite genders.
Which other of these constraints is Ms. Pampuch ready to repeal? We need not speculate on Doomsday scenarios; we have sufficient examples in the here and now. Of age? The North American Man-Boy Love Association, aided by the ACLU, is working on that one. Unmarried? The polygamists of Utah and Idaho, aided again by the ACLU, are working on that one, as well as the prohibition against incest.
Human? Bestiality is no longer illegal in Sweden. It was decriminalized at the same time as the decriminalization of homosexual sex, and every year 200 to 300 animals are injured by sexual assaults as a result.
Willing? Does Ms. Pampuch want to discuss how a 7-year-old or a cat can give consent?
My point is that there is every reason to maintain a line somewhere. I will further state that there is every reason to keep the traditional definition of marriage, which was overwhelmingly reaffirmed by California voters via Proposition 22.
Let us assume for the sake of argument that Ms. Pampuch is ready to man the barricades to keep the prohibitions against adult-child sex, incest, bestiality, polygamy, sexual abuse of retarded persons, and so forth. (She better get busy, because all of these prohibitions are under attack.) But we will just limit the rest of the discussion to why marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman.
Point one: It is the law. Mayor Gavin Newsome is in flagrant violation of California state law, specifically, Prop 22. I find it typical of Ms. Pampuch that she snits about President Bush calling for a Constitutional amendment. At least he is following established rule of law, not ignoring it because it fails to suit him.
Point two: whenever we question a moral law or a tradition, it behooves us to examine it carefully. Moral law, tradition, has two possible sources. A religious person would say that moral law is given by God. An atheist would say that tradition, moral law, is the distilled findings of millennia of human experience. In neither case is moral law anything to be trifled with.
The purpose of marriage is to provide a stable, nurturing home for the raising of children. It has nothing to do with Social Security benefits. All human experience, from the history of ancient Greece to the most recent sociological and psychological research, shows that a two-parent, biological home is the safest and best place for children to grow in.
Sweden, Denmark, and Norway legalized gay marriage in 1989. Now a majority of children in those countries are born out of wedlock. A couple lives together for a while, has a child or two, and then drifts apart. Ironically, few homosexual couples ever took advantage of their “right” to marry. And now the homosexual activists who pushed the most strenuously for the “right” admit that their real goal “was not marriage but social approval for homosexuality.” Welcome to Doomsday.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and a former engineer. She is a published independent author. Her column is published in The Dispatch every Friday.
