If you have been watching the news lately, you know that the Supreme Court has taken up the issue of legalizing gay marriage, not just on the state level, but the national level.
In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), became a federal law. The act restricted federal marriage benefits and inter-state marriage recognition to heterosexual couples only.
The law passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Since then, gay advocates have been lobbying to remove those restrictions and redefine marriage to include same sex and bi-sexual adults arguing that accepting gay marriage would not harm heterosexual marriage and that religious restrictions on marriage are biased and discriminate against minorities (gays and bisexuals are estimated to make up less than 4% or close to 9 million Americans).
Most people, including Bill Clinton, now feel that DOMA was too restrictive and that it puts an undue burden on gay families, but many religious leaders say that giving equal rights to gays on the financial front (allowing them the same tax and insurance benefits as heterosexual couples), would legitimize their cause and weaken the institute of marriage and the moral character the country was founded upon.
They already point out the devastating effects that looser sexual morals have had on the decline of societies, with single parent households, mixed/blended households (multiple children from multiple parents in the same household), leading to increases in criminal activity (the vast majority of criminals are males who grew up without fathers), increases in sexual abuse (non-biological children tend to have higher incidents of abuse from non-related parents) increased sexual promiscuity (leading to increases in suicide, depression and sexually transmitted disease and thus tax payers money to pay for treatment and medications) and decreased marriages with more people choosing to live in a non-committed relationship and/or having children outside of wedlock.
Heterosexual changes in increased divorce rates, cheating on spouses, spousal abuse and child abuse, have already done irreparable damage to the institute of marriage, so would homosexual marriage add to that burden or have no greater impact than any existing legal group?
Arguments on either side are passionate and if you have an open heart and open ears, it is hard to deny spousal benefits to committed couples or parental rights to same sex partners, but religion aside, what would be the consequences of allowing gays to marry?
There is no doubt that the Bible strongly states that homosexuality is a sin and while the focus tends to me more on males than females, it is clear that any kind of union outside of one man and one woman leads to long lasting problems. Kings David and Solomon both were undone by their lust for women. Abraham slept with his wife’s handmaiden and founded a race of people who so hated the Jews, that the battle between them goes on today.
While the Bible mentions multiple wives, divorce, fornication and adultery, it does not condone them and lists homosexuality as one of the worst of the sexual sins, most likely because it led men away from the role of father of children and protector of women, which was a highly valued character of a man and still is today in most cultures, even though the women’s liberation movement has removed some of that responsibility away from men.
Those who believe that God would not prevent gays from marrying one another point out that the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah deals with those gays who were so wicked and sexually depraved that they attacked others to have sex with them and worshiped sexual gods and goddesses so were not a true representative of monogamous homosexuality between two loving adults.
In today’s culture, homosexuals are largely accepted as long as they behave low keyed, but when they become ‘flaming gays’ and march in parades with make-up and bare chests, with feather boas and shout out phrases, like, “hey, hey, we’re gay, we’re here to stay…”, acceptance levels not only drop, but a certain fear factor takes over and heterosexuals often feel their own rights are being violated and that such displays only demonstrate the depravity of homosexuals as a fringe group that should not be encouraged through legal protections.
The argument becomes, if gays are born that way and cannot help their behavior so should not be discriminated against, then if heterosexuals are born with a natural aversion to gay behavior should they also not be discriminated against and expected to change their behaviors? Yet, often society only takes the view that if you disapprove of the behaviors of a minority then you are at fault even if you do have a natural inborn inclination against accepting homosexual behaviors.
So then, if it is wrong to try to change the overt gay behavior of homosexuals, is it right to try to change the overt aversion of heterosexuals to gays? There is evidence to suggest that aversion to gays is a natural response in children as well as adults, though to be honest, most children have a natural aversion to heterosexual public displays of affection as well!
You may even recall a time when you were younger and saw two people kissing and thought it was gross and looked away feeling almost nauseous. Why? Was it just because you did not understand sex and saw swapping spit and putting your hands down someone’s pants as disgusting and gross, not exciting and entertaining?
Whether learned or innate, most of us are uncomfortable with open sexuality and find it intimidating and often threatening and this is natural. If you are working with someone of the opposite sex or same sex, you need to know that they can work with you as a work partner, and not think of you as a sexual partner, otherwise, you may stop cooperating with them and start putting up barriers to protect yourself from them.
This does not mean it is okay to physically harm someone who flirts with you, but there is a strong natural tendency of both human and non-human animals to protect themselves against undesired sexual advances and to overcome this natural desire is as difficult as we imagine it might be for gays to overcome the desire for those of the same sex, yet we as a society are being told we must overcome our aversions to homosexuals and that these aversions are learned not natural.
It gets confusing and it accepts the claims of one group that they were born that way and can’t help it and refutes the claims of another group that claims they were born that way and can’t help it either! So who is right and wrong and can the two coexist?
In countries where being gay is still seen as publically unacceptable or punishable by law, there is less outward notice of gay behavior, but in countries where homosexuality is widely accepted, it becomes more overt.
Many feel that by allowing gays to marry it will lead to wider acceptance of gay behaviors, such as two men holding hands and kissing in jewelry commercials, or two moms raising children together on the cover of a family magazine for Mother's Day.
While some think there is nothing wrong with this, others feel their rights are being violated and that such displays are not moral and make it more difficult to explain adult relationships to their children who are already confused enough about life.
There is also the fear that if gay marriage is accepted nationally, then so too, should transsexuals be accepted and if a man desires to dress as a woman in full makeup, wig, jewelry and long nails, then anyone feeling this is inappropriate is accused of discrimination and if such a person desires to work with children and has no criminal background, it would be against the law not to hire them… again making many fear that such influence would be confusing to children.
There is actually some research that shows that children who are raised in gay and bisexual homes where parents encourage the children to follow their own sexual identity rather than a set path, tend to show a greater tendency toward non-heterosexual relationships themselves and many teens now feel there is nothing wrong with trying out different types of sex to determine which one best suits their needs with a striking majority feeling that sex is nothing more than an enjoyable experience and that there is no such thing as love, just following a biological drive and that children do not need a mommy and a daddy and are resilient enough to survive no matter who parents them.
Research on the children of gay parents does show a greater level of depression and suicide, but researchers have not been able to assess whether this is because they feel they do not belong and are unhappy with their family situation or because they are teased and harassed and ostracized by their peers who have not been taught to accept them as they are.
Many people fear that if sexual taboos are dropped, then sexual immorality will increase, while others argue, that if living together and having sex without being married is sinful, then allowing gays to marry would prevent them from sinning outside of marriage.
Few homosexuals or heterosexuals abstain from sex or stay with one partner for life these days and promiscuity and homosexuality have been around for as long as history has been recorded.
We know from research that homosexuals tend to be more promiscuous and use less protection when having sex. The increase in AIDs, anal cancer and sexually transmitted disease among male homosexuals is well documented and research shows that the anus, which has a much thinner lining than the vagina, is more prone to tears and infection from fecal matter. It is not the healthiest lifestyle choice and condoning it could lead to greater spread of disease and higher cost of treatment of those diseases.
Lesbians are also known to have higher incidents of breast, ovarian and uterine cancers as well as higher STD rates and cervical cancers over celibate women who do not have sex. Promiscuity increases the spread of disease even though the chance of pregnancy is non-existent and protection is still necessary but rarely used, especially in lesbians.
The real issue comes in raising children. Since traditional marriage is usually embarked upon when someone wishes to start a family with the one they love, gay marriage is as much about the children as the two humans entering into a long term relationship.
Early studies showed that children of lesbians and gays were fairly well adjusted, with most of their issues coming from depression and lack of acceptance by others, but most of these studies were done on affluent families, not on low income families where studies show that children of lesbians, gays and bisexuals faired much worse and tended to have greater confusion over their own sexuality, experimenting more and putting themselves at risk for depression and disease.
For every piece of research on the negative influences of homosexuality on children, you will find a neutral or positive piece which refutes the findings, but it is fairly clear that homosexual and bisexual behaviors can be influenced through external factors and that acceptance of these behaviors tends to increase them and bring them out in the open, whereas, not accepting these behaviors tends to limit their expression.
If in doubt, watch how easily young people especially, mimic the behaviors of those they admire and how frequently children living in abusive households, become abusers themselves, even though abusing someone is not a desired character we wish to encourage. There are many factors influencing our behaviors and just because we have a natural inclination to eat too much, exercise too little or to day dream instead of focus on a task, this does not mean the behaviors should be accepted as good for us if the results of the behavior yield negative or harmful results.
This leads us to the revisit the debate over whether homosexuality is innate or formed at birth rather than formed by experience and whether being gay is an evolutionary adaptation that should be encouraged, or a behavioral maladaption that should be "treated" or discouraged. One could argue that sexual promiscuity is innate to some degree as well and there is some evidence to support that promiscuity is selected as a survival trait, but mostly for those animals/humans that would not be able to compete with other males to copulate (think stallions in a herd where the main stallion viciously attacks and drives the younger horses away and where gaining mares means having to fight other stallions to get and keep them).
Promiscuity allows males to get sex where they can get it, as often as they can get it with the evolutionary goal of ensuring they will produce offspring that may survive to adulthood to continue spreading their genetic material to future generations, but from a natural standpoint with no God involved, homosexuality and promiscuity are not ideal.
The ideal situation for humans is one man and one woman raising children. Why one might ask? First of all two men cannot produce offspring anymore than two women can (which is why the Bible calls it unnatural sex) and without a surrogate mom or artificial insemination, no children will be produced from such a union so from an evolutionary standpoint, homosexuality is quite literally, non-productive.
Research has shown that the ideal situation for rearing children is to have one spouse stay home and care for the children while the other secures resources and provides a safe environment for the children so that they will survive into adulthood with the skills they need to raise a family and provide for them as well, though this does not mean that those raised by a grandmother or by two fathers will necessarily be disadvantaged over someone raised by two heterosexual parents.
If you are the father, you will want to provide for your offspring so that your genetic material will survive to the next generation and while spreading your genetic material to multiple partners may seem like a better plan, without providing resources for ones offspring, they will unlikely reach maturity or be able to compete for resources on their own.
With the rise of single parents we have seen an increase in the inability to care for children without outside help (welfare and food stamps). We have also seen that children in blended families where there are several different biological producers of children are more likely to be abused by the parent with whom they have no biological ties, though this does not mean that all adopted children will be abused by their adopted parents and we all know of success stories in which a child was raised in adverse conditions and still thrived in adulthood.
While few think it is okay to discriminate against someone on any basis, many still fear that accepting homosexual behavior as natural and good will clear the path to accepting other sexual deviance from the norm, like allowing multiple marriage partners within the same time period (four wives or three husbands), or incestuous relationships between a stepfather and a stepdaughter or stepson or between a full brother and sister.
After all, if morality has nothing to do with sexuality, then why have limits on any type of sex as long as those having sex consent to it and why not be allowed to marry your brother or your mother if you are in truly in love with them? Where do we draw the line or do we just discover our own boundaries and go with what feels good for us no matter what society or God says?
If we lift the ban on any limitations of what defines marriage, we open up a huge set of questionable boundaries which have been closed until now.
There is also the matter of how we define privacy in public areas and what behaviors are acceptable in public. If sex is good and healthy, then why do it in private, why no allow people to have sex in public? If there is no harm in having sex, why keep it hidden from view?
There are more practical applications that will effect the rights of business owners as well, like is it right to have separate bathrooms for women and men? Will we be discriminating against gays if we do not add a gay restroom or are we now discriminating against transsexuals by not having a separate bathroom for women who identify themselves as men and men who identify themselves as women or bisexuals who may identify themselves as both?
How do we define family friendly if gays are now to be included in families and are we willing to rewrite Sleeping Beauty to include Prince Charming kissing his prince to wake him up? If we fail to offer such movies to our children in school, will be accused of discriminating and being unfair to one group in favor of another and on the larger, religious scale, if a pastor of a traditional church refuses to marry or give same sex relational counseling to gays, lesbians and bisexuals, would that pastor be fired for sexual discrimination and be in danger of being placed in jail or fined and prevented from preaching God’s word if it countered the freedom of gays? Could such a pastor even be accused of hate crimes for preaching the words written in the Bible and would the Bible be banned in public because of its stance against promiscuous and unnatural sex?
If parents teach their children that homosexuality is wrong, will they also be criminally charged and forced to teach their children that being gay is good and normal and that they can choose to have sex with whomever they want without any consequences?
Will the courts prevent parents from having a say in how their children are raised and what they are taught about sex and relationships? This is one of the main concerns of heterosexual parents when they say that gay marriage threatens traditional marriage and traditional families.
It is not so much opposing gays getting the same benefits as heterosexuals so much that if gays are legally accepted as having the same rights as heterosexuals to marriage, then God’s laws will be pitted against man’s laws and those choosing God’s laws will be punished and either have to recant their belief in God, go through rehabilitational training to correct their errant attitudes, or be persecuted for their beliefs in a form of reverse discrimination which protects gays, but removes the freedoms of religious worship.
We are introducing children to sexuality earlier and earlier in life and forcing them to accept two daddies, two mommies, one mommy or any other combination as the norm, when they are confused enough about life and their place in it.
We are in essence dumping our adult problems on our children hoping to normalize our perverted behaviors by getting the kids to accept it and shaming the moral adults into doing the same.
If the truth is told though, such immoral behaviors do have negative consequences and huge social impact on the nation as a whole and we need to address the causes of the problems, not urge acceptance of the problems by changing society to accept them.
We have seen the negative impact of divorce and free sex. Few would admit that single parenthood and divorce has been a good thing for society. Few would argue that sexual freedoms and private talk turned public has made us better as a nation.
Not all forms of sex are good and healthy and there is ample research to back up this statement.
While persecuting gays and lesbians is not the answer, removing all restrictions from any type of sexual activity and encouraging our children to accept these activities as good for us, is not the answer either.
We know that when ancient cities in the Bible began to turn their focus away from God and onto sex and promiscuity, those cities ended up being destroyed by their own behaviors.
While two gays marrying may not threaten the marriage of two heterosexuals, it does pose problems with moral and religious beliefs and again makes family friendly TV viewing even more of a misnomer than it currently is.
If you recoil from seeing two men embracing in a kiss, does it make you homophobic or are you following an innate repulsion to such behaviors and what are the evolutionary forces driving such behaviors in us?
Do we as a nation accept effeminate men and masculine women or do we find them unnerving and why?
Do we feel threatened by those of the same sex who show a sexual interest in us? If you are a woman taking a shower with other heterosexual women, would you feel less secure showering next to a lesbian or to a homosexual male and would this be your problem or theirs?
If gender identification is indeed set at birth and cannot be changed through environment and learning, then is it right to ask heterosexuals to be accepting of the homosexual lifestyle displayed publically?
Would one have to necessarily give up their own rights to how they felt in order to accommodate the rights of the other and how they felt and if we are forced to accept adult displays of sexuality in public, on the airwaves, in advertising and in education, how will this affect us as a nation and will it be a good step forward in the right direction or a bad misstep that will lead to our decline and a decline in moral values from which we might never recover?
Do we listen to the wisdom or God or the words of men. If we see that God’s wisdom is indeed wiser than the ways of man, can we go back to following God or must we follow man or face persecution by our government for refusing to follow what God says is not good for us?
Let us hope that our chief justices have the courage to look at all aspects of the debate and that perhaps both groups are allowed some protection without preventing the other group from giving up their rights to accommodate someone else’s rights.
Below is a list of sites that are worth pursuing if you have a further interest in some of the studies listed in this article:
"The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, a sexual orientation law and public policy think tank, estimates that 9 million (about 3.8%) of Americans identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (2011)." (gaylife.about.com/od/comingout/a/population.htm)
http://www.unh.edu/sociology/media/pdfs-journal2010/ShelbyChamberlin.pdf
http://www.home60515.com/4.html
M. Frisch and others, "Sexually transmitted infection as a cause of anal cancer," N Engl J Med, Nov. 6, 1997, p. 1350.
http://www.frc.org/issuebrief/new-study-on-homosexual-parents-tops-all-p...
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