Posted on 10/16/2003 1:29:37 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
President Bush issued a proclamation making this "Marriage Protection Week," stating that "marriage is a union between a man and a woman."
That is a worthy goal. However, it is impossible to protect traditional marriage while supporting "domestic partnerships" pushed by homosexual activists.
The U.S. Treasury has the responsibility for minting our coins and printing our money. What if Congress, the various federal agencies and our states suddenly decide to recognize counterfeit money as legal tender?
It would undermine the nation's monetary system and throw our economy into chaos.
That is exactly what is happening with traditional marriage. It is being undermined by domestic partnership laws created by state and local governments and has been further eroded by acts of Congress and regulations issued by various federal officials and agencies.
We need to go back and re-examine the two original reasons for marriage. The first is to have the union recognized by God. The second is to have the union recognized by the state.
Since homosexual acts are condemned by the sacred writings of all the world's major religions, the attempt to have these unions sanctioned by the church is an attempt to "feel good" at best.
Let's look at reason No. 2: Society long has recognized that a committed relationship between a man and a woman is the best environment to produce and nurture productive citizens for the future. Research has shown that children fare far better with a mother and a father who are married to each other, even if the marriage isn't perfect.
For many years, our federal, state and local governments recognized the obvious: It costs money to raise children. By legalizing unions between a man and a woman, the government was able to put a "hedge of protection" around traditional marriage and to give the partners in these unions certain rights that went along with their responsibilities to the family unit.
Homosexual-rights activists want to change the definition of marriage from a union between one man and one woman to a union between any two or more people living together in a "committed" relationship. That could apply to almost anything from a couple of roommates to a college basketball team.
Are you beginning to see the problem? If everyone is allowed inside the hedge, than the hedge, for all practical purposes, ceases to exist.
Marriage was not invented to discriminate against homosexuals or others who wish to pursue alternate lifestyles. The question is not whether homosexual couples should have the right to marry but whether we really want to remove the hedge of protection from around the traditional family unit.
Has the traditional family outlived its usefulness? It has not!
Research has shown that children in intact married families are much less likely to be poor. They attain higher levels of education and have lower rates of substance abuse, emotional and psychological problems, out-of-wedlock births and criminal behavior.
For more than a decade, politicians of all stripes have been trying to have it both ways. It must stop!
On March 7, 2000, California passed the Marriage Protection Initiative. A year and a half later, Gov. Gray Davis signed into law a domestic-partners bill – passed by his Democrat-controlled legislature – which states: "Registered domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations and duties under law ... as are granted to and imposed upon spouses."
There is an old saying: "If it quacks, swims and has webbed feet and feathers, you can call it whatever you like, but it is still a duck."
The U.S. Congress and many states have passed the Defense of Marriage Act which has been undermined in the same fashion.
In 1992, the District of Columbia – which gets its funding from Congress – passed a domestic-partners law. At that time, Congress began inserting a provision in the D.C. Appropriations Bill to keep federal money from being used to implement the law. In 2001, with some pressure from the Bush administration, that provision was dropped.
Also, the Bush administration has allowed money set aside for the families of the 9-11 victims to go to domestic partners. Had this happened under the Clinton administration, Republican leaders and pro-family groups would have been up in arms. However, with George W. Bush in the White House, the silence was deafening.
All this talk about protecting marriage between a man and a woman is wonderful, but actions speak louder than words.
You simply cannot elevate these homosexual unions without lowering the protection placed around the traditional family.
Defining it as such empties it of its meaning.
Traditional marriage has three elements:
1) It is permanent. Divorce is either forbidden, or permissible only with cause.
2) It is sexually exclusive. Adultery is a crime punishable by the state, and engenders damages to the injured party enforceable by the courts.
3) It is between a man and a woman.
By eliminating #1 and #2, society has made inevitable the elimination of #3.
After all, if you are going to allow "gay marriage" to heterosexuals, what is the reason to deny it to its inventors?
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