Here are a couple of good article that may help you understand some of the issues. I am not for a U.S. Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. But I am happty that I live in a state where the people have enough sense not to allow it.
For thousands of years, on the basis of experience, tradition, and legal precedent, every society and every major religious faith have upheld marriage as a unique relationship by which a man and a woman are joined together for the primary purpose of forming and maintaining a family. This overwhelming consensus results from the fact that the union of man and woman is apparent and manifest in the most basic and evident truths of human nature.
Marriage is the formal recognition of this relationship by society and its laws. While individual marriages are recognized by government, the institution of marriage pre-exists and is antecedent to the institution of government, which in turn presupposes and depends on the institution of marriage. Society's interest in uniquely elevating the status of marriage among human relationships is that marriage is the necessary foundation of the family, and thus necessary for societal existence and well-being.
The basic building block of society is the family, which is the primary institution through which children are raised, nurtured, and educated, and develop into adults. Marriage is the cornerstone of the family: It produces children, provides them with mothers and fathers, and is the framework through which relationships among mothers, fathers, and children are established and maintained. Only in the context of family built on the foundation of marriage can the sometimes competing needs and interests of men, women, and children be harmonized.
Because of its characteristic relationship with the family, marriage is uniquely beneficial to society. Based on existing studies comparing two-parent and single-parent households, social science overwhelmingly demonstrates that children do far better when they are raised by two married parents in a stable family relationship and that children raised in other household structures are subject to significantly increased risk of harm.
Evidence further suggests that one reason children do better in a married household is not just the stability of having two parents, but the fact that a male and a female parent each bring distinctive strengths, perspectives, and characteristics to the family unit that benefit both children and the parents. Although we have little information concerning children raised in households with same-sex parents, what we do know is that marriage between a man and a woman provides unique social, economic, and health benefits for children, adults, and society in general.
Moreover, because of the shared obligations and generational relationships that accrue with marriage, the institution brings significant stability, continuity, and meaning to human relationships and plays an important role in transferring basic cultural knowledge and civilization to future generations.
In the end, despite all the changes that law and cultural trends have wrought concerning marriage despite the laws concerning prenuptial agreements, divorce, tax, and property that treat marriage as a contract it has never before been, nor is it now completely, the case that marriage is a mere contract. Society has changed the form, but never the substance, of marriage; and it is the substance of marriage its very nature, definition, and purpose that creates and justifies its unique position as a social institution and continues to give lawmakers strong and reasonable arguments for upholding traditional marriage and protecting it in law.
36 posted on 12/23/2004 7:58:17 AM PST by wmichgrad
("We must find a way to help the liberals!" Sean Hannity November 9, 2004)