Same-sex marriage is a symptom, not a cause, of the deterioration of...

[Achronos]

...marriage.

Hmmm..

From the American Conservative August 2010 Issue

Divorced From Reality

Don’t blame the gays for the decline of marriage.

By Stephen Baskerville

DEFENDERS OF MARRIAGE must face some hard facts or they are going to lose their fight - and with it, quite possibly, their religious freedom as well. Federal judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling nullifying Proposition 8 in California illustrates that, unless we can demonstrate very specific reasons why same-sex marriage is socially destructive, it will soon be the law of the land.

With conservatives as prominent as Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter joining those “influential Americans,” in the words of the National Review, who “have been coming increasingly to regard opposition to same-sex marriage as irrational at best and bigoted at worst,” we can no longer rely on vague assertions that homosexual marriage weakens true marriage in some way - which in itself, actually, it does not.

Considerable nonsense has been written by some opponents of same-sex marriage, while some critical truths are not being heard. Confronting the facts can enable us to win not only this battle but several even more important ones involving family decline and the social anomie it produces.

First: Marriage exists primarily to cement the father to the family. This fact is politically incorrect but undeniable. The breakdown of marriage produces widespread fatherlessness, not motherlessness. As Margaret Mead pointed out long ago - yes, leftist Margaret Mead was correct about this- motherhood is a biological certainty whereas fatherhood is socially constructed. The father is the weakest link in the family bond, and without the institution of marriage he is easily discarded. The consequences of failing to link men to their offspring are apparent the world over. From our inner cities and Native American reservations to the north of England, the banlieues of Paris, and much of Africa, fatherlessness - not poverty or race - is the leading predictor of virtually every social pathology among the young. Without fathers, adolescents run wild, and society descends into chaos.

The notion that marriage exists for love or “to express and safeguard an emotional union of adults,” as one proponent puts it, is cant. Many loving and emotional human relationships do not involve marriage. Even the conservative argument that marriage exists to rear children is too imprecise: marriage creates fatherhood. No marriage, no fathers.

Once this principle is recognized, same-sex marriage makes no sense. Judge Walker’s “finding of fact” that “gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage” is rendered preposterous. Marriage between two men or two women simply mocks the purpose of the institution. Homosexual parenting only further distances biological fathers (and some mothers too) from their children, since at least some homosexual parents must acquire their children from some- one else - usually through heterosexual divorce.

Here is the second unpleasant truth: homosexuals did not destroy marriage, heterosexuals did. The demand for same - sex marriage is a symptom, not a cause, of the deterioration of marriage. By far the most direct threat to the family is heterosexual divorce. “Commentators miss the point when they oppose homosexual marriage on the grounds that it would undermine traditional understandings of marriage,” writes family scholar Bryce Christensen. “It is only because traditional understandings of marriage have already been severely undermined that homosexuals are now laying claim to it.”

Though gay activists cite their desire to marry as evidence that their lifestyle is not inherently promiscuous, they readily admit that marriage is no longer the barrier against promiscuity that it once was. If the standards of marriage have already been lowered, they ask, why shouldn’t homosexuals be admitted to the institution? “The world of no-strings heterosexual hookups and 50% divorce rates preceded gay marriage,” Andrew Sullivan points out. “All homosexuals are saying… is that, under the current definition, there’s no reason to exclude us. If you want to return straight marriage to the 1950s, go ahead. But until you do, the exclusion of gays is simply an anomaly - and a denial of basic civil equality.” Feminist Stephanie Coontz echoes the point: “Gays and lesbians simply looked at the revolution heterosexuals had wrought and noticed that, with its new norms, marriage could work for them, too.”

Thus the third inconvenient fact: divorce is a political problem. It is not a private matter, and it does not come from impersonal forces of moral and cultural decay. It is driven by complex and lucrative government machinery operating in our names and funded by our taxes. It is imposed upon unwilling people, whose children, homes, and property may be confiscated. It generates the social ills that rationalize almost all domestic government spending. And it is promoted ideologically by the same sexual radicals who now champion same-sex marriage. Homosexuals may be correct that heterosexuals destroyed marriage, but the heterosexuals were their fellow sexual ideologues.

Conservatives have completely misunderstood the significance of the divorce revolution. While they lament mass divorce, they refuse to confront its politics. Maggie Gallagher attributes this silence to “political cowardice”: “Opposing gay marriage or gays in the military is for Republicans an easy, juicy, risk-free issue,” she wrote in 1996. “The message [is] that at all costs we should keep divorce off the political agenda.”

No American politician of national stature has seriously challenged unilateral divorce. “Democrats did not want to anger their large constituency among women who saw easy divorce as a hard-won freedom and prerogative,” writes Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. “Republicans did not want to alienate their upscale constituents or their libertarian wing, both of whom tended to favor easy divorce, nor did they want to call attention to the divorces among their own leadership.”

In his famous denunciation of single parenthood, Vice President Dan Quayle was careful to make clear, “I am not talking about a situation where there is a divorce.” A lengthy article in the current Political Science Quarterly is devoted to the fact - at which the author expresses astonishment - that self-described “pro-family” Christian groups devote almost no effort to reforming divorce laws.

This failure has seriously undermined the moral credibility of the campaign against same-sex marriage. “People who won’t censure divorce carry no special weight as defenders of marriage,” writes columnist Froma Harrop. “Moral authority doesn’t come cheap.”

Just as marriage creates fatherhood, so divorce today should be understood as a system for destroying it. It is no accident that divorce court has become largely a method for plundering and criminalizing fathers. With such a regime arrayed against them, men are powerfully incentivized against marrying and starting a family. No amount of scolding by armchair moralists is going to persuade men into marriages that can mean the loss of their children, expropriation, and incarceration.

The fourth point is perhaps the most difficult to grasp: marriage is not entirely a public institution that government may legitimately define and regulate. It certainly serves important public functions. But marriage also creates a sphere of life beyond official control - what Supreme Court Justice Byron White called a “realm of family life which the state cannot enter.”

This does not mean that anything can be declared a marriage. On the contrary, it means that marriage creates a singular zone of privacy for one purpose above all: it is the bond within which parents may raise their children without government interference. Parenthood, after all, is politically unique. It is the one relationship in which people may exercise coercive authority over others. It is the one exception to state’s monopoly of force, which is why government is constantly trying to undermine and invade it. Without parental and especially paternal authority, legitimized by the bonds of marriage, government’s reach is total. This is already evident in those communities where marriage and fathers have disappeared and government has moved in to replace them with welfare, child- support enforcement, public education, and tax-subsidized healthcare.

Marriage is paradoxical in a way that is critical to our political problems - and that causes considerable confusion among conservatives and libertarians. Marriage must be recognized by the state precisely because it creates a sphere of parental authority from which the state must then withdraw. Government today can no longer be counted upon to exercise this restraint voluntarily. We must all constantly demand that it do so. Marriage - lifelong and protected by a legally enforceable contract - gives us the legal authority and the moral high ground from which to resist encroachments by the state.

Prohibitions on homosexual marriage will not save the institution. As Robert Seidenberg writes in the Washington Times, “Even if Republicans were to succeed in constitutionally defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, some judge somewhere would soon discover a novel meaning for ‘man’ or ‘woman’ or ‘between’ or ‘relationship’ or any of the other dozen words that might appear in the amendment.”

This is already happening. Britain’s Gender Recognition Act allows transsexuals to falsify their birth certificates retroactively to indicate they were born the gender of their choice. “The practical effect... will inevitably be same-sex ‘marriage’,” writes Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail. “Marriage as a union between a man and a woman will be destroyed, because ‘man’ and ‘woman’ will no longer mean anything other than whether someone feels like a man or a woman.”

So what is the solution? A measure already before Congress may show the way. Though not intended primarily to save marriage, the proposed Parental Rights Amendment is the first substantial step in the right direction. It protects “the liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children.” How does this strengthen marriage?

Reaffirming the rights of parents - married parents particularly - to raise their own children would weaken government interference in the family. Especially if worded so as to protect the bond between children and their married fathers, such a measure could undermine both the divorce regime and same-sex marriage by establishing marriage as a permanent contract conferring parental rights that must be respected by the state. Within the bonds of marriage, it would preserve the rights of fathers, parents of both sexes, and spouses generally, and it would render same-sex marriage largely pointless. Marriages producing children would be effectively indissoluble, and there would be fewer fatherless children for homosexuals to adopt. Men would come to understand that to have full rights as fathers they must marry before conceiving children, and they would thus have an interest in ensuring the institution’s permanence.

This is not a small undertaking. It would mean confronting the radical sexual establishment in its entirety - not only homosexuals but their allies among feminists, bar associations, psychotherapists, social workers, and pubic schools. It would raise the stakes significantly - or rather it would highlight how high the stakes already are. It would also focus public attention on the interconnectedness of these threats to the family and freedom. It would foster a coalition of parents with a vested personal interest in marriage and parental rights.

The alternative is to continue mouthing platitudes, in which case we will be dismissed as a chorus of scolds and moralizers - and yes, bigots. And we will lose.
______________

Stephen Baskerville is associate professor of government at Patrick Henry College and author of Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family.

[John of the North]

Countdown to when this gets moved to Politics begins now...

[GabrieltheCelt]

If I may steer this in another direction, it seems clear to me that same-sex marriage is a symptom of the Fall.  Regardless of what the DSM-IV now says, homosexuality (which is really what this topic is about) is a mental disorder.  For even if we were to take God out of the equation, biologically speaking it's quite easy to see that same-sex attraction leads to extinction.

[TryingtoConvert]

*calms boiling rage*

You're making it hard man...very, very hard....(and I don't mean sexually)

*takes a deep breath*

Alright, I read the entire article. And I can honestly say, that is one of the most...warped...deluded...and IGNORANT things I have ever read...in my entire life....ever.

There are so many things wrong with the thinking in that article that it's difficult to know where to begin. But here's where I'll start:

Same-sex marriage IS NOT a "symptom" of the deterioration of marriage. Gay marriage doesn't have ANYTHING to do with straight marriage. Gay people are not just deciding to get married because of divorce among heterosexuals or because of a promiscuous culture. Gay people are getting married for the same reasons that straight people do, which is because they meet someone they think they want to spend the rest of their life with and want to have the same rights and privileges allotted to any other committed couple under the law. Gay people may have wanted to be married before, but it is only now in American history that they don't have to worry about being thrown in prison or beaten to death for their sexual orientation by rabid religious fanatics (for the most part).

Marriage doesn't "exist primarily to cement the father to the family". It exists primarily to cement a man's "ownership" over his property. Looking back over the history and origins of marriage, women where given away by families, traded for livestock or "sold" with dowries. Any model for marriage other than that is a recent invention of modern culture.

Every year, tens of THOUSANDS of children age out of the foster care system.

I repeat...

Every year, tens of THOUSANDS of children age out of the foster care system.

SO WHY THE HECK SHOULDN'T EVERY MENTALLY SOUND PERSON NOT BE ALLOWED TO ADOPT?!

Marriage doesn't "create" fathers. If a man isn't mature enough to be a father, marriage isn't going to change that. If a man IS responsible enough to be a father, then he will be the father to his children whether he is married to their mother or not. Laws SHOULD be changed to put men on more equal footing in custody disputes, but again that has nothing to do with gay marriage. The past in which people (especially women) where basically forced to stay in unhappy marriages is no model we should try to follow. And let's remember, everything we've done before is what has led us to where we are today.

This entire article is rife with sick paranoia: Divorce is not "driven by complex and lucrative government machinery operating in our names and funded by our taxes". Divorce is driven by people having unrealistic expectations or just getting married to someone they shouldn't have married in the first place. That's it.

Saying that divorce laws should be "reformed" to be harder is ridiculous. It's just saying that the GOVERNMENT should MAKE people stay together even if they decide they no longer want to be. Which is self-contradicting to the extreme considering how much the author vilifies government as "driving" divorce.

Saying that "fatherlessness - not poverty or race - is the leading predictor of virtually every social pathology among the young" and that the government "moved in" to take the place of fathers with "welfare, child- support enforcement, public education, and tax-subsidized health care" is a PERVERSION of the complex social issues that people and society face and which ARE NOT being addresses sufficiently by social (or religious) institutions. The divorce rate tends to be higher among poor couples, so how does he put "fatherlessness" ahead of poverty as a "predictor" of social pathology among the young? How the hell does it make sense criticize the government for providing public education or health care or enforcing child support when it's providing what no one else is, things which people need to survive?

This guy's entire argument is sick: The government needs to protect marriage in order to keep the government out of people's lives? What? The role of the government should be to protect people, not "institutions".

I can see why his wife divorced him.

The bottom line: Opposition to same-sex marriage IS "irrational at best and bigoted at worst." If you don't like it, don't do it.

If people like him really want to "save" marriage, then maybe they should either try to bring back polygamy or start making arranged marriages popular. If a man can have as many wives as he wants, then that lessens his reasons to stray, and Countries where arranged marriages are common tend to have far lower divorce rates.

*spits on the floor and leaves the room*

[John of the North]

Same-sex marriage IS NOT a "symptom" of the deterioration of marriage.

Yes it is. If people had any grasp of the proper role of marriage, there would be no talk of gay marriage. The fact that people have no clue what the purpose of marriage is, shows how far it has deteriorated.

Gay marriage doesn't have ANYTHING to do with straight marriage.

Really?? If the two are not connected then why was the legal recognition of one used as justification for the other??

Marriage doesn't "exist primarily to cement the father to the family". It exists primarily to cement a man's "ownership" over his property.

Actually, the primary aim of marriage is to bear children in order to pass along the shared traditions of a culture. Also, children raised by those engaging in homosexual behaviour are several times more likely to engage in the same behaviour, relative to other children. If a culture wishes to pass down traditions and customs to the next generation, well encouraging homosexual relationships ain't the way to do it.

Saying that "fatherlessness - not poverty or race - is the leading predictor of virtually every social pathology among the young" and that the government "moved in" to take the place of fathers with "welfare, child- support enforcement, public education, and tax-subsidized health care" is a PERVERSION of the complex social issues that people and society face and which ARE NOT being addresses sufficiently by social (or religious) institutions.

It's not really that complex. Nuclear families are a pretty successful model. Hence why, even in societies where homosexual behaviour is accepted, the nuclear family is the model for a family.

The divorce rate tends to be higher among poor couples, so how does he put "fatherlessness" ahead of poverty as a "predictor" of social pathology among the young?

Fatherlessness and divorce seem to me to be somehow connected. Not to mention poor families are pretty likely to have the father missing as well. If he is still around, he will be working a lot.

How the hell does it make sense criticize the government for providing public education or health care or enforcing child support when it's providing what no one else is, things which people need to survive?

There was a time when such social needs were supported by the community, with no government involvement.

The bottom line: Opposition to same-sex marriage IS "irrational at best and bigoted at worst." If you don't like it, don't do it.

Yes but according to your very own moral relativism, that's your own opinion. I'm not required to accept it.

If people like him really want to "save" marriage, then maybe they should either try to bring back polygamy or start making arranged marriages popular. If a man can have as many wives as he wants, then that lessens his reasons to stray, and Countries where arranged marriages are common tend to have far lower divorce rates.

The divorce rate on arranged marriages is lower because they tend to be more successful. And divorce is discouraged.

[ialmisry]

*calms boiling rage*

You're making it hard man...very, very hard....(and I don't mean sexually)

fear not. They have pills for that I hear.

*takes a deep breath*

Alright, I read the entire article. And I can honestly say, that is one of the most...warped...deluded...and IGNORANT things I have ever read...in my entire life....ever.

Although you're devoted your long life to the most warped and deluded, and taken up the cause of ignorance, I'm going to have to disagree with your "expertise." As the article is true.

There are so many things wrong with the thinking in that article that it's difficult to know where to begin. But here's where I'll start:

Same-sex marriage IS NOT a "symptom" of the deterioration of marriage. Gay marriage doesn't have ANYTHING to do with straight marriage. Gay people are not just deciding to get married because of divorce among heterosexuals or because of a promiscuous culture. Gay people are getting married for the same reasons that straight people do, which is because they meet someone they think they want to spend the rest of their life with and want to have the same rights and privileges allotted to any other committed couple under the law. Gay people may have wanted to be married before, but it is only now in American history that they don't have to worry about being thrown in prison or beaten to death for their sexual orientation by rabid religious fanatics (for the most part).

Marriage doesn't "exist primarily to cement the father to the family". It exists primarily to cement a man's "ownership" over his property.

LOL. Haven't been to divorce court, have you?

Looking back over the history and origins of marriage, women where given away by families, traded for livestock or "sold" with dowries. Any model for marriage other than that is a recent invention of modern culture.

I'd argue with this, but I would need someone whose knowledge of the past and myriads of cultures wasn't limited by the dictates of modern revisionism justifying itself.

Every year, tens of THOUSANDS of children age out of the foster care system.

I repeat...

Every year, tens of THOUSANDS of children age out of the foster care system.

SO WHY THE HECK SHOULDN'T EVERY MENTALLY SOUND PERSON NOT BE ALLOWED TO ADOPT?!

The powers that be are declaring Narcissists mentally sound, as they did homosexuals.

Children aren't lab rats.

Marriage doesn't "create" fathers. If a man isn't mature enough to be a father, marriage isn't going to change that.

Haven't tried it, have you?

If a man IS responsible enough to be a father, then he will be the father to his children whether he is married to their mother or not.

That facts say otherwise.

Laws SHOULD be changed to put men on more equal footing in custody disputes, but again that has nothing to do with gay marriage.

Not familiar with how the American 'justice" system "works," are you?

The past in which people (especially women) where basically forced to stay in unhappy marriages is no model we should try to follow. And let's remember, everything we've done before is what has led us to where we are today.

Yes, in a mess.

This entire article is rife with sick paranoia: Divorce is not "driven by complex and lucrative government machinery operating in our names and funded by our taxes". Divorce is driven by people having unrealistic expectations or just getting married to someone they shouldn't have married in the first place. That's it.

The billion dollar monster that feeds off of dismembering families is like suppliers and dealers for drug adicts.

Saying that divorce laws should be "reformed" to be harder is ridiculous. It's just saying that the GOVERNMENT should MAKE people stay together even if they decide they no longer want to be. Which is self-contradicting to the extreme considering how much the author vilifies government as "driving" divorce.

I'd go into this, but you have already demonstrated that you have no idea what you are talking about (which I suspect has something to do why your girlfriend, not your wife, just had your child).

Saying that "fatherlessness - not poverty or race - is the leading predictor of virtually every social pathology among the young" and that the government "moved in" to take the place of fathers with "welfare, child- support enforcement, public education, and tax-subsidized health care" is a PERVERSION of the complex social issues that people and society face and which ARE NOT being addresses sufficiently by social (or religious) institutions. The divorce rate tends to be higher among poor couples, so how does he put "fatherlessness" ahead of poverty as a "predictor" of social pathology among the young? How the hell does it make sense criticize the government for providing public education or health care or enforcing child support when it's providing what no one else is, things which people need to survive?

You are demonstrating that you do not understand the complex social issues that people and society face with government "support."

This guy's entire argument is sick: The government needs to protect marriage in order to keep the government out of people's lives? What? The role of the government should be to protect people, not "institutions".

Divorce court is a totalitarian entity.

I can see why his wife divorced him.

Are you revealing why you haven't married your girlfriend?

The bottom line: Opposition to same-sex marriage IS "irrational at best and bigoted at worst." If you don't like it, don't do it.

LOL. I remember reading through a bunch of books written in the south during the 1850's, which said "If you don't like slavery, no one is forcing you to own slaves."

If people like him really want to "save" marriage, then maybe they should either try to bring back polygamy or start making arranged marriages popular. If a man can have as many wives as he wants, then that lessens his reasons to stray,

LOL. No, it doesn't.  I've been where polygamy is legal and accepted.

Btw, I notice you didn't bring up "if a woman can have as many husbands as she wants."

and Countries where arranged marriages are common tend to have far lower divorce rates.

They tend not toe have the equivalent of the Reno wedding with Elvis.

*spits on the floor and leaves the room*

My, aren't you in full form today.

[Aindriú]

Children aren't lab rats.

Sure they are! They just talk more and get progressively better at solving puzzles for Captain Crunch... not that anyone... does that... 

[88Devin12]

I think Frederica deals with this subject well in her podcast:
http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/frederica/gay_marriage

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