The flaccid Senate debate on the Federal Marriage Amendment is over, with the Amendment making a surprisingly good showing (49-48). Ted Kennedy’s approach was to assure us that his home state of Massachusetts, with its historically low divorce rate, has not been adversely affected by court-imposed same-sex marriage (and divorce). The way Kennedy put it was, “The sky isn’t falling” in Massachusetts.
But the Goodridge decision, which allowed same-sex marriage (and divorce) in Massachusetts, opened its ruling with the observation that marriage is “a vital social institution … the exclusive commitment of two individuals” which brings “stability” to society through its permanence.
Contrast this with what was said by the first couple to line up for a same-sex marriage application in Massachusetts back in 2004: As reported by the Boston Herald, Jonathan Yarbrough said that the concept of forever was “overrated.” According to a study by the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service, the lifespan of a gay union averages one and a half years. Similar stats on heterosexual marriage found the average for heterosexual marriage to be about 10 years. So society and government do not reap the benefits of stability and permanence from gay marriage (and divorce) that we reap from heterosexual unions.
Do we, though, reap the benefits of exclusivity from gay marriage – such as fewer cases of sexually transmitted disease, chaos and pain from broken relationships, stable property ownership? Not if we look again to Jonathan Yarbrough and his partner. As a bisexual, the Herald quotes him saying, “I think it’s possible to love more than one person and have more than one partner, not in the polygamist sense.” [We are grateful for that crumb.] “In our case it is, we have, an open marriage.” So much for the “exclusive commitment” that the judges in Massachusetts claimed to further, the one that “provides a stable setting for child rearing.” The Amsterdam study found that after five years, none of the male homosexual unions were monogamous.
That brings up the third benefit that the state reaps when it rewards marriage: the engendering of more people.
So, broadly speaking (sociology knows exceptions), none of the three basic societal interests for extending the privileges of marriage to gay people are served by the vast majority of gay marriages. The foundational principles of permanence, exclusivity and childrearing are cut out from under us, sometimes even explicitly, when gay marriage (and divorce) is recognized.
It’s not the sky that’s falling, Sen. Kennedy; it’s the floor.
Related special offer:
“The Gay Agenda: It’s Dividing the Family, the Church, and a Nation”
Leah Farish is a practicing civil rights attorney. She is an allied attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund and teaches law at the university level.
WATCH Tucker Carlson: ‘The most shocking story we’ve heard in a long time’
Tucker Carlson