homosexual marriage

What about homosexual marriage? what’s the big deal anyway? why would we want people to be unhappy? why would we try to discriminate against some kinds of lifelong relationships and not others? Why do we seem to fixate on this sin and not others?

why indeed?

here is a liberal democrat’s defense of traditional marriage. obviously, it isn’t the same as my defense would be, but it is interesting. David Blankenhorn is the author of the book, the Future of Marriage, which I have not read.

Here is some of what David has to say about marriage and why it should be protected. I had a hard time selecting excerpts, because all of it is so good. Please bookmark the article and read it.

I’m a liberal Democrat. And I do not favor same-sex marriage. Do those positions sound contradictory? To me, they fit together.

Many seem to believe that marriage is simply a private love relationship between two people. They accept this view, in part, because Americans have increasingly emphasized and come to value the intimate, emotional side of marriage, and in part because almost all opinion leaders today, from journalists to judges, strongly embrace this position. That’s certainly the idea that underpinned the California Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage.

But I spent a year studying the history and anthropology of marriage, and I’ve come to a different conclusion.

Marriage as a human institution is constantly evolving, and many of its features vary across groups and cultures. But there is one constant. In all societies, marriage shapes the rights and obligations of parenthood. Among us humans, the scholars report, marriage is not primarily a license to have sex. Nor is it primarily a license to receive benefits or social recognition. It is primarily a license to have children.

In this sense, marriage is a gift that society bestows on its next generation. Marriage (and only marriage) unites the three core dimensions of parenthood — biological, social and legal — into one pro-child form: the married couple. Marriage says to a child: The man and the woman whose sexual union made you will also be there to love and raise you. Marriage says to society as a whole: For every child born, there is a recognized mother and a father, accountable to the child and to each other.
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All our scholarly instruments seem to agree: For healthy development, what a child needs more than anything else is the mother and father who together made the child, who love the child and love each other.
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Every child being raised by gay or lesbian couples will be denied his birthright to both parents who made him. Every single one. Moreover, losing that right will not be a consequence of something that at least most of us view as tragic, such as a marriage that didn’t last, or an unexpected pregnancy where the father-to-be has no intention of sticking around. On the contrary, in the case of same-sex marriage and the children of those unions, it will be explained to everyone, including the children, that something wonderful has happened!

God’s way is for our benefit and not our harm. He is the designer and maker of us and He knows what is best for us. Take some time and read about it here.

hat tip to First Things.