[PLUG-TALK] Same sex "marriage" threatens valid marriages...

[Michael Robinson]

PART III: THREATS TO MARRIAGE


How would allowing homosexual marriage threaten heterosexual marriage?

One of the downsides to redefining marriage to include same-sex couples
would be the weakening of the meaning of marriage, which would cause
more divorces. Human nature being what it is, if the meaning of marriage
is weakened, it will be psychologically easier for even more people to
divorce. Look at what happened when "no-fault" divorce was legalized.
The divorce rate skyrocketed.35 If the nature of marriage is further
undermined in the minds of couples then when things get rocky, more
couples will be tempted not to work through their problems and get happy
again but rather to divorce and find someone else.

That is a bad idea, because most marriage therapists agree that divorce
generally "doesn't work." Divorce doesn't solve the problems that caused
the first marriage to break up. Divorced people bring the same problems
to their new marriages that broke up their old ones. That's why second
and later marriages are statistically far more likely to end in divorce
than first marriages are.36 Also, a large majority of couples who
contemplate divorce but stay together describe themselves as "happily
married" five years later.37 So staying together "works" better than
divorce.



Why would same-sex marriage increase the divorce rate?

Feelings of love are only part of what holds a couple together. When
things get tough, as they do from time to time in every marriage,
external factors help hold the spouses together-external factors such as
concern about their kids or about the attitudes of society, including
their friends, relatives, co-workers, or church. The exploding divorce
rate we have seen since "no-fault" destroyed much of the stigma of
divorce shows how important external factors are in keeping couples
together.



Wouldn't couples who need these external aids to stay together be better
off divorced?

Usually not. As I mentioned, the overwhelming majority of couples who
contemplate divorce, yet for some reason stay together, find themselves
happily married five years later and glad they didn't divorce. They are
grateful for the external factors that helped keep them together when
things were tough. Also, the "happy divorce" myth has been debunked
completely. While it is true that health correlates positively with
happiness in marriage,38 people in difficult marriages are statistically
happier and healthier than divorced people.39 Divorce makes most things
worse.



How did no-fault divorce weaken the factors that hold couples together?
Is that what increased the divorce rate so much in the '70s and '80s?

That is certainly part of it. No-fault laws coincided with a message
from Hollywood that marriage is a mere convenience, an institution that
exists only for personal happiness and pleasure, something that could be
discarded or traded in for a snappier model. Books and movies taught the
same message. But it did not work. Far from it.

As mentioned earlier, Dr. Morowitz at Yale found that divorce had the
same impact on longevity as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day-for both
men and women. There also are many other health and longevity impacts,
such as unmarried people getting sick more often, staying in the
hospital longer, and so on. Divorce has a very negative impact on the
couple, but its impact is even worse on their children.



What are the effects of divorce on children?

The children of happy marriages are statistically much healthier,
physically and mentally, than the children of divorced parents or the
children of single parents who were never married. This is not to say
that all children of divorced or single parents are doomed to be
physically or emotionally impaired. There are many exceptions to
statistical generalizations. Rather, the evidence shows that being born
into a happy marriage gives the average child great statistical
advantages in health, happiness, future longevity, and career success
over children born into less fortunate circumstances.40

Even being born into an unhappy marriage is generally better than
growing up in a broken home. The '70s myth that "a happy divorce is
better for children than an unhappy marriage" has been proven false
overwhelmingly. Even married parents who fight often have happier and
healthier children than divorced parents.41 That may sound surprising,
but social scientists have found that kids don't care much about the
quality of Mom and Dad's emotional life; they just want Mom and Dad to
be there, and if one of them (usually Dad) goes, his departure never
stops hurting, and it never stops generating painful consequences.42
"Staying together for the children" makes sense. Children whose parents
divorce get less education, are less successful in their adult careers,
and are far more prone to drugs, illicit pregnancy, and getting divorced
themselves when they grow up. Children of divorce are even more likely
to be injured accidentally than the children of intact marriages, and
they die at a younger age.43

Remarriage generally does not improve the lot of the children of
divorce. Children in "blended" families are dozens of times more likely
to be the victims of physical violence or sexual abuse than children who
live with both natural parents,44 and they are far less healthy, happy,
and successful in the long run.45 To make matters even worse, statistics
show that 76 percent of second marriages break up within five years, as
do 87 percent of third and 93 percent of fourth marriages-all of which
expose the involved children to further turbulence and desertion.46

Social science is very clear: Marriage brings health, happiness, wealth,
and length of days to husband, wife, and children. It is marriage itself
that makes the difference, not any pre-existing personal advantages of
people who marry. Children benefit from marriage even more than parents
do.



Couldn't a same-sex couple adopt, just like a childless heterosexual
couple, and commit themselves to each other exclusively, permanently,
and unconditionally? In such a case, would it be fair to exclude them
from marriage?

Even if it were possible for homosexuals to commit themselves to each
other in the ways described, their relationships would still lack the
orientation to procreation, the openness to life, that marriage is all
about. This of itself means that any unions between homosexuals are not
marriages, regardless of what people may wish to call them.

Further, if you wish to extend marriage to same-sex couples, you must
look at the scientific evidence regarding the ability of male or female
homosexuals to sustain such healthy relationships. This is
unquestionably a sensitive subject, but it is important to the
legalization debate. If homosexual "marriage" were to be legalized, and
homosexuals were later found to be unable to create exclusive,
permanent, unconditional marriages, their failure would reinforce the
idea that marriage lacks these qualities and is just a matter of private
happiness to be discarded on whim. That would be a great step backward
for society, for it would increase divorce and all its associated
pathology and create yet another impediment to the happiness and
fulfillment of millions of people.



PART IV: HOMOSEXUAL "MARRIAGE"


Why isn't it enough for marriage if two people have feelings for each
other?

Marriage is about more than just the feelings of two people. Feelings
are important, but they aren't the whole of it. We all know that
feelings change and that any marriage has its ups and downs. A good
marriage has more ups than downs, a bad one more downs than ups, but
emotions change from one day to the next. Sometimes they're very loving,
and sometimes they're very negative.

Marriage does involve very personal feelings, but this does not mean
that it is merely a private matter. Whether it succeeds or fails, a
marriage has a huge impact on the couple, their children, those around
them, and the entire society. As an institution, marriage is the
business of everyone in society. It takes more than emotion to hold a
marriage together, as we have seen.



What does the scientific evidence show about homosexuality?

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from
its list of diagnostic disorders. In retrospect, this decision appears
to have been inspired by political pressure rather than medical
evidence.

Homosexuals of both sexes remain fourteen times more likely to attempt
suicide than heterosexuals47 and 3½ times more likely to commit suicide
successfully.48 Thirty years ago, this propensity toward suicide was
attributed to social rejection, but the numbers have remained largely
stable since then despite far greater public acceptance than existed in
1973. Study after study shows that male and female homosexuals have much
higher rates of interpersonal maladjustment, depression, conduct
disorder, childhood abuse (both sexual and violent), domestic violence,
alcohol or drug abuse, anxiety, and dependency on psychiatric care than
heterosexuals.49 Life expectancy of homosexual men was only forty-eight
years before the AIDS virus came on the scene, and it is now down to
thirty-eight.50 Only 2 percent of homosexual men live past age
sixty-five.51

Male homosexuals are prone to cancer (especially anal cancer, which is
almost unheard-of in male heterosexuals) and various sexually
transmitted diseases, including urethritis, laryngitis, prostatitis,
hepatitis A and B, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, and genital
warts (which are caused by the human papilloma virus, which also causes
genital cancers).52 Lesbians are at lower risk for STDs but at high risk
for breast cancer.53 Homosexuals of both sexes have high rates of drug
abuse, including cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other psychedelics,
barbiturates, and amyl nitrate.54

Male homosexuals are particularly prone to develop sexually transmitted
diseases, in part because of the high degree of promiscuity displayed by
male homosexuals. One study in San Francisco showed that 43 percent of
male homosexuals had had more than 500 sexual partners.55 Seventy-nine
percent of their sexual partners were strangers. Only 3 percent had had
fewer than ten sexual partners.56 The nature of sodomy contributes to
the problem among male homosexuals. The rectum is not designed for sex.
It is very fragile. Indeed, its fragility and tendency to tear and bleed
is one factor making anal sex such an efficient means of transmitting
the AIDS and hepatitis viruses.

Lesbians, in contrast, are less promiscuous than male homosexuals but
more promiscuous than heterosexual women: One large study found that 42
percent of lesbians had more than ten sexual partners.57 A substantial
percentage of them were strangers. Lesbians share male homosexuals'
propensity for drug abuse, psychiatric disorder, and suicide.58

The statistics speak for themselves: If homosexuals of either gender are
finding satisfaction, why the search for sex with a disproportionately
high number of strangers? In view of the evidence, homosexuals will not
succeed at establishing exclusive relationships. Promiscuity is a hard
habit for anyone to break, straight or homosexual. Promiscuous
heterosexuals often fail to learn fidelity; male homosexuals are far
more promiscuous than heterosexual males, and therefore far more likely
to fail. Lesbians are more promiscuous than heterosexual women. There is
little good data on the stability of lesbian relationships, but it is
reasonable to speculate that their higher rates of promiscuity and
various deep-seated psychological problems would predispose them to
long-term relational instability. Existing evidence supports this
speculation.59

The more radical homosexual activists flaunt their promiscuity, using it
as a weapon against what they call "bourgeois respectability."60 But
even more conservative advocates of gay marriage such as New Republic
editor Andrew Sullivan admit that for them, "fidelity" does not mean
complete monogamy, but just somewhat restrained promiscuity.61 In other
words, they admit that exclusiveness will not happen. And without
exclusiveness, their "marriages" will have little meaning.

Sullivan argues that marriage civilizes men, but anthropology would
counter that marriage to women civilizes men. Male humans, homosexual or
heterosexual, are more interested in random sex with strangers than
women are.62 Men need to be civilized, to be taught the joys of
committed sex, and that lesson is taught by marriage to women, not by
other men who need to learn it themselves. The apparent instability of
lesbian relationships suggests that lesbians understand that lesson less
well than heterosexual women do. Exclusivity will not happen, and
without exclusivity, marriage does not exist.

Without exclusivity, permanent and unconditional relationships will not
happen, either. By definition, a relationship that allows for "cruising"
will be shallow and mutually exploitative, just as sex with strangers is
shallow and mutually exploitative. So far, same-sex marriage is 0 for 3:
likely to be neither exclusive nor unconditional nor permanent.



Can homosexual unions be life-giving?

Homosexual sex is not procreative and thus not live-giving in the most
literal and important sense of the term. Further, the health statistics
are clear. Any sexual behaviors that cut longevity almost in half before
the AIDS virus came on the scene are death-dealing, not life-giving. The
longevity and disease numbers speak for themselves. So do the
psychiatric and drug abuse numbers. Likewise, promiscuity statistics
suggest that homosexual activity is not providing much fulfillment to
its practitioners. If it were, they would not feel the need for sex with
armies of strangers. The statistics make it very clear that homosexual
behavior is not enhancing anyone's inner well-being; in that sense, too,
it is anything but life-giving.



What about situations in which homosexuals adopt children or use
artificial insemination?

There is almost no good data to answer this question. We know that
children raised in families containing one non-biological parent are
dozens of times more likely to be abused than children raised by both
biological parents.63 In some studies, children raised by homosexual
partners seem to suffer from sex-role confusion.64 Studies by Cameron
and Cameron have shown a high incidence of incest between minor children
and homosexual parents of both sexes.65 These investigators suggest that
homosexual parents may be more likely to abuse their children sexually
than heterosexual parents, so although the point is not definitively
proven, the available evidence is worrisome.

Children raised by both biological parents are significantly healthier,
happier and better adjusted emotionally than kids raised by single
parents of either sex. They are less likely to live in poverty or engage
in violent crime or sexual promiscuity and more likely to be successful
in school, career, and marriage.66 Same-sex couples, by definition,
would have at least one non-biological parent.

There seem to be good reasons that children need both biological
parents. The sexes are different. Because gender is a real phenomenon,
it should come as no surprise that men and women parent differently. Men
and women bring different, complementary skills to childrearing. Men are
more likely to play expansively with their children than to do mundane
care taking; women tend to be more practical. Mothers tend to be more
responsive to their child's immediate needs, while fathers tend to be
more firm, more oriented to abstract standards of justice (right and
wrong).67 Kids need both.

Mothers tend to emphasize the emotional security of their children,
while fathers tend to stress competition and risk taking. Mothers tend
to seek the immediate well-being of the child, while fathers tend to
foster long-term autonomy and independence.68 Children need both
parents, because they learn different lessons from each. Neither fathers
nor mothers are expendable. The presence of a father is critical to a
male child's learning self-control and appropriate male behavior,
especially learning to respect women. Similarly, the presence of a
father is vital for a female child's self-respect and eventual
development of a healthy adult sexuality.69 Children need mothers just
as much. The presence of both parents seems to be necessary for ideally
balanced emotional and mental development.

Put in technical psychological jargon, the social science evidence
suggests that women teach children communion (in English, that means the
drive toward inclusion, connectedness, and relationship) and that men
teach children agency (the drive toward independence, individuality, and
self-fulfillment). Further, children of both sexes appear to learn
self-control and responsibility primarily from their father.70 They fail
to learn them when he's not involved in their lives. Our national
epidemic of fatherlessness has spawned an epidemic of antisocial
children.

Marriage, for all these reasons, is a major public health issue and not
just a private affair. Marriages that are exclusive, permanent,
unconditional, and life-giving contribute much to public health and
longevity; marriages that fail any of these criteria and end in divorce
create an enormous social, emotional, and health care burden for the
couple, their children, and society.



What do homosexual activists hope to gain from legalizing same-sex
marriage?

Motives probably vary, depending on the activist. Many are seeking
public approval of homosexuality. They want societal acceptance. Others
may be seeking absolution for a guilty conscience. Some probably want
society to say that what they are doing is morally right. But you don't
have to be a theologian, nor even religious, to understand that any form
of behavior that cuts a person's longevity in half and comes with a
lengthy list of venereal diseases is simply not right. You don't have to
be the pope to see that. A thoughtful atheist can discover easily a
completely secular natural morality that says: This behavior kills
people. People should live. But homosexual behavior kills homosexuals.
That's not right. Homosexuals need to live just like everyone else.

The statistics make it very clear that homosexuals are not at peace with
themselves. No one who is at peace seeks sex with hundreds of strangers.
That is bizarre behavior. Something is dreadfully wrong with the
psychology of people who seek random sex-a fact we see confirmed by
their suicide, drug, and antisocial behavior statistics.

Legalization of same-sex marriage will not bring absolution nor deliver
inner peace. Homosexuals will continue to suffer from the problems their
"lifestyle" creates, even if every state legislature and both houses of
Congress were to pass bills extolling homosexual behavior and
privileging their relationships over those of heterosexuals. Active
homosexuals will continue seeking something that they will never find
through the things they do with strangers. They will still be tragically
unhappy people. Such behavior will never offer the basis for marriage
nor satisfy their relationship needs as persons. Homosexuals need
compassion, but since they will not benefit by homosexual "marriage,"
there is no reason for society to redefine marriage to include same-sex
couples. In fact, recognition of this intrinsically disordered behavior
can have only bad effects on society.



If same-sex couples won't reap the health and emotional benefits of
marriage, why do they keep asking for legalization?

The reason probably is not economic, though many same-sex marriage
advocates appeal to the economic benefits of marriage. A clever lawyer
can create partnerships to confer most of the economic advantages of
marriage. Durable powers of attorney, surrogate decisions, wills, and
inheritance-any of these can be tailored to cover homosexual
relationships without the need for marriage. There must be other
reasons.

Stanley Kurtz of the Hudson Institute offers a possible explanation. In
the September 2000 edition of Commentary, he quotes radical homosexuals
who state that their goal is not personally to be married, nor to
achieve domestic equality with heterosexuals, nor even to attain social
respectability, but rather to empty the institution of marriage of its
meaning.71 Kurtz quotes their writings, which make clear they want to
"destroy bourgeois marriage." After all, if two men or two women can
marry, then why not more than two? If marriage is just an expression of
temporary, private emotional states, and not a social institution with
real meaning connected to biological realities, why stop with same-sex
couples? There are already more than two hundred sites on the Internet
advocating "polyamorism"-sexual relations between whole groups of men,
or groups of men and women, or groups of women.72 And if groups can
marry, then why not humans and animals? Why not a nerd and his computer?
Brother and sister? Mother and son? A boy and his dog?

Once you go beyond the demonstrable needs of human relationship, and
beyond the limits that protect the welfare of spouses, children, and
society, then there is literally no limit to the possible combinations.
Nor the possible damage to the common good.



Where do all these considerations leave the courts?

There seems to be a race between the courts and legislatures to define
marriage. Court decisions in favor of same-sex marriage have led to
campaigns to nullify those decisions by passing constitutional
amendments to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Three states-Alaska, Hawaii, and Nebraska-already have amended their
state constitutions to define marriage as requiring one man and one
woman. Numerous other challenges to the status quo have arisen in Canada
and Europe, all of which are in varying stages of litigation.

The American constitutional tradition has been described as "ordered
freedom." We have many rights, but the expression of any right is
limited when it threatens harm to others. Free speech, for example, is
almost unlimited, but no one is free to libel or slander someone else,
nor to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. There has never been an
unlimited right to marry in this country. States have provided minimum
age requirements and have insisted that both persons be unmarried, that
one be male and one female, that they not be too closely related, and
that adequate public notice and records be kept.

Marriage is not an unlimited right. It exists in a social context. Its
success or failure has public health and financial impacts. Legalization
of same-sex marriage would detach marriage from reality. It would
deprive marriage not just of "bourgeois respectability," but of any
objective meaning whatsoever. It would open the door to group marriage,
polygamy, bestiality, and whatever other permutations the imagination
can invent.

Why should we care? Because the survival and prosperity of our society
rests on the institution of marriage. As we have seen, healthy citizens
are far more likely to be produced by intact marriages than by broken
ones. Same-sex marriage would empty marriage of its meaning, make
heterosexual marriages even more disposable, and undermine the health of
our nation.



What stand should informed people take on same-sex marriage?

Our society is at a turning point. Are we going to undo the mistakes of
the past thirty years that have given us an epidemic of divorce,
fatherlessness, drugs, and violent and promiscuous children? Or are we
going to continue the legitimization of same-sex unions by giving them
the same status as heterosexual marriages?

The choice is an easy one. Marriage should be exclusive, unconditional,
permanent, and life-giving. Marriages like that lead to health,
happiness, prosperity, long life, and social peace. And the evidence is
there to prove it. Homosexuals will not be able to create marriages like
that, even if their "marriages" become legal. Statistics reveal that the
lives of homosexuals are anything but gay. A more accurate description
would paraphrase Thomas Hobbes's vision of life apart from civilization:
nasty, lonely, and short.

The loneliness and short lives are not due to the fact that same-sex
marriage is illegal. They are inherent in the nature of the homosexual
lifestyle itself. Homosexuality doesn't satisfy; sexually satisfied
people don't seek random sex with hundreds of strangers. Gay activists
who seek absolution from society will not find it, even if same-sex
marriage becomes legal. Courts and legislatures cannot create clean
consciences.

But legalization of homosexual marriage would empty marriage of its
meaning. And that will tend to weaken marriage even further, which will
further increase the divorce rate and maximize divorce-related misery.

The institution of marriage is precious. It enhances the health,
longevity, and well-being of married couples. It increases the health,
vocational success, and emotional well-being of children. In providing
all these benefits, heterosexual marriage contributes to the happiness
and prosperity of society. Marriage must, therefore, remain limited to
one man and one woman who strive to keep their marriage exclusive,
unconditional, permanent, and life-giving. Nothing less will ever meet
the needs of the human person, because nothing less satisfies.

Because it is intrinsically disordered, we must not recognize homosexual
activity as legitimate, and we must not give public approval to
homosexual marriage because of the harm that will do to the institution
of marriage and because of the social harm that will result from
emptying marriage of its meaning. Perhaps the most serious social harm
would be to children: the children of divorce and the children of
same-sex couples, who will suffer all the ills we have discussed.

Society has a lot to lose from legalizing homosexual marriage. And
homosexuals have nothing to gain.