Jeff Jacoby: Down the slippery slope [Same Sex Marriage]

Jewish World Review ^ | Nov. 21, 2003

[SJackson]

"Certainly our decision today marks a significant change in the definition of marriage as it has been inherited from the common law and understood by many societies for centuries," wrote Chief Justice Margaret Marshall in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court opinion finding a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. "But it does not disturb the fundamental value of marriage in our society."

That is either the most dishonest assertion in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health or the most naive. Either way, it is false.

Of course the most radical redefinition of marriage in centuries is going to have deeply disturbing consequences. It may be a decade or two before the full impact is evident, but some of the coming changes we can anticipate right now.

In the SJC's brave new world of gender-neutral marriage, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will no longer communicate to its citizens that the central purpose of marriage is to bind men and women exclusively to each other and to the children that their sexual behavior is apt to produce. It will communicate instead that marriage was created to gratify grown-ups by reinforcing their committed romantic relationships. To be sure, a loving relationship is ideal in any marriage. But that isn't why every society in recorded history has defined marriage as an institution for linking the sexes.

Sooner than you think, it will become improper to speak of unique sex roles in family life. The meanings and status associated with words like "husband" and "wife" will be erased from the law; most likely, the words themselves will be replaced in statutes with the unisex "spouse," just as "father" and "mother" will give way to "parent." Two years ago, a private school in New York caused a stir when it banned celebrations of Mother's Day out of concern for the sensibilities of children being raised by gay parents. That was a tiny foretaste of what is now in store for Massachusetts — and perhaps the rest of the country too, if the Constitution's Full Faith and Credit Clause means what many experts say it means.

The redefinition of marriage will not end with same-sex weddings. In explaining its decision, the court says: "Without the right to marry — or more properly, the right to choose to marry — one is excluded from the full range of human experience and denied full protection of the laws for one's avowed commitment to an intimate and lasting human relationship."

But if that is true for committed gay and lesbian unions, it is just as true for every other committed but nontraditional union. Why shouldn't a man and two women, deeply in love and yearning to live as one, be permitted to marry? Or two family members — of the same sex or not — whose romantic love for each other is deep and lasting? If the opposite-sex limitation must yield to "the right to choose to marry," by what rational argument can the only-two-spouses or no-close-relatives limitations be sustained?

[longtermmemmory]

PC will mandate by law the ban of the use mother and father. Talkshows already use "co-parent".

Homosexuality need to be taught as morally wrong beyond just religious reasons. Marriage is a public institution that needs protection from these deviants.

[arthurus]

But it does not disturb the fundamental value of marriage in our society

For these peole this is true because, to them, there is no fundamental value to marriage. Marx didn't believe in it so there is none.

[livius]

I think this is just the beginning. Marriage as a concept is now worthless, or at any rate, without content. Listening to the court, in any case, you'd think that marriage from the very start had been about nothing except creating units to receive state benefits.

A Freeper on another thread asked what was to stop him from marrying his burro, and would the state then please pay his vet bills if he did?

BTW, the rest of Jacoby's article is very interesting and worth clicking the link to read. He discusses the slippery slope argument, and points out that this turned out exactly the way people who were opposed to the Equal Rights Act predicted it would - that is, sliding all the way down that slippery slope.

[thiscouldbemoreconfusing]

So, when two lesbains or two homosexuals get married, how do the guest know who is the husband and who is the wife? Better yet, how do they decide?

[longtermmemmory]

The article is also interesting because it exactly forwarns about the fact that pC is now full blown Doublespeak.

Marriage is about children and reinforceing the model that has children.

Marriage is not about love or even orgasm. Homosexuality is only about orgasm.

[familyofman]

"So, when two lesbains or two homosexuals get married, how do the guest know who is the husband and who is the wife?"
Does it really matter which partner has which label? Not a very significant point IMHO.
If and when we reach the bottom of the slippery slope - will the state/government require us all to marry someone of the same sex? Is that what we should all be concerned about?

[longtermmemmory]

GLSEN would like homosexual experiences to be mandatory for your children.


In the future: homosexuality not just a legitimate lifestyle, its the law.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - The family is the foundational unit of our society. Destroy, or radically change, the family and you have radically changed our society!

[Grig]

Here is another slippery slope to consider. By making gay marriages legal, any attempt to differentiate between a gay or traditional marriage is opened up to a legal challenge.

This means not just adoption, but also the performing of wedding ceremonies by priests, and the membership requirements of churches too. I think you will see the courts ruling that churches may not refuse to perform gay weddings or refuse membership to anyone in a gay marriage long before you see some polygamy case. Churches that won't knuckle under to the courts could lose their tax-free status or worse.

Far fetched? In 1887 Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act. This statute disincorporated a large church and seized nearly all its property because they disagreed with the state over the definition of marriage. The issue then was polygamy, but ironically the act give a precedent that can easily be turned against churches that hold to the traditional definition of marriage.

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

Marriage is not about love or even orgasm. Homosexuality is only about orgasm.

So True!!!! The deviant society is trying to force ALL of society to make having sex with whatever one wants, whenever they want, the most important thing in life. The country will go down the tubes if we all become as self loving and self serving as the way the homosexual extremists.

Homosexual extremists are only one part of the equation. This country and the demoncRATs thrive on lawyer-scum sucking innocent companies (see the now bankrupt breast implant company as an example) dry, for their own personal gain.

[ArGee]

Homosexuality is only about orgasm.

Homosexuality is certainly not about love (it's not homoloveuality) nor is it really about sex, since it can not reproduce by design. It's really homoeroticism.

Shalom.

[Alberta's Child]

The history of this nation's response to polygamy is particularly ironic. If you think the Massachusetts court's ruling was bizarre, just imagine the legal contortions they will go through to explain how restricting marriage to heterosexual couples is somehow "arbitrary" but restricting marriage to two people is not.

I look forward to the first polygamist challenge to a state's marriage laws, and the Massachusetts court ruling has virtually ensured that they will be the ones hearing the case.

The ultimate scenario is this: Tony Soprano challenges the Massachusetts statute restricting marriage to two people of any gender, because he wants to have multiple spouses. About a dozen of them in fact -- all of them close "business associates" of his. You see, he wants to make sure that any attempt on the part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute him or any of his "business associates" will be hampered by the fact that all of the potential targets of any investigation are protected by spousal immunity and therefore cannot be compelled to testify against each other.

In the end, the whole notion of criminal prosecution will end up being thrown into chaos unless the Massachusetts court ends up engaging in the kind of invasion of privacy that any person today (heterosexual or homosexual) would find unfathomable . . .

"The court finds, Mr. Soprano, that your claim of spousal privilege regarding Associates A and B cannot stand up under legal scrutiny unless you can prove that you've been 'smoking their salamis,' so to speak, on at least a weekly basis."

[AmishDude]

You are quite right about the slippery slope here in forcing churches to perform gay marriages. It will happen very soon. Eventually, the solution will come from the religious community to simply end state recognition of marriage altogether. Civil libertarians will endorse this view as well.

In some ways, it will free the church, but it will shatter society.

[Grig]

"Eventually, the solution will come from the religious community to simply end state recognition of marriage altogether. Civil libertarians will endorse this view as well."

I don't see how that would fix anything at all. You would still have churches discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, and liable to court-imposed penalties for it.

[kdmhcdcfld]

Don't forget...as a result of this, the terms "husband" and "wife" are essentially thrown out in favor of the term "spouse". So we can't ask of a gay marriage, "Who's the husband and who's the wife?" They're both the spouse.

[kdmhcdcfld]

Since the Sexual Revolution of the '60s, the free-love crowd has set out to redefine the primary roll of sexual intercourse. Up until then, the pleasure derived from sex was secondary to the fact that sex was primarily for bringing children into this world. With the rise of birth control, abortion, and now gay marriage, the free-love crowd seems to have finally succeeded in shifting reproduction into a secondary position.