Saturday, March 04, 2006
Uphold traditional marriage for a healthy nation
From the RoundTable blog
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Misty Mealey
Mealey, of Roanoke, is a wife and full-time mother of three and a member of The Public Theology Group.
With Gov. Tim Kaine poised to sign off on a bill putting a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot that would define marriage as the union between one man and one woman, Virginians will have their chance to weigh in on the gay marriage issue in November.
If passed, the amendment would disallow homosexual couples to procure the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage.
Same-sex marriage proponents often claim that laws defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman are discriminatory and violate the civil rights of homosexuals. This sounds reasonable -- until you understand the nature of marriage and its relationship to the state.
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson espoused the idea that human beings have some rights simply because we are human. These inalienable rights are intrinsic to us and as such, the government cannot bestow or take them away.
The government is not the source of our rights, but the protector of them. This principle applies to marriage, too.
Some in our culture believe that the state defines marriage, in addition to controlling the rights of access to it. But just as is the case with our human rights, the institution of marriage precedes and transcends the state.
This is why traditional marriage proponents do not call upon legislatures so much to define marriage, but to uphold the traditional definition of what makes a marriage in the first place.
In essence, marriage is a permanent, exclusive covenant of love and life between a man and a woman. This basic understanding of what constitutes a marriage is rooted in what philosophers call natural law and what I call common sense.
It's easy to see that man and woman are so made for one another that their call to exclusive communion is stamped into their very bodies. Sexual complementarity, far from being an incidental component of the marital union, is the heart of it.
Unfortunately, the current battle to redefine marriage is not the first.
The adoption of no-fault divorce laws in the 1970s crippled the permanence of marriage. By 1985, every state's divorce laws reflected the no-fault philosophy: divorce is simply an inevitable consequence of "irreconcilable differences."
It's estimated that no-fault divorce laws accelerated the pace of divorce by about 17 percent between 1968 and 1988, according to Leora Friedberg at the University of Virginia.
In addition, bonding and babies were rightly understood as the proper ends of marriage from time immemorial.
But decades of widespread contraception use and abortion has shifted the focus of marriage away from having and nurturing the next generation to personal self-fulfillment.
The diminished importance of children, along with easy divorce laws, has no doubt contributed significantly to our epidemic of broken families.
Those who wish to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples are demanding yet another revision of this foundational institution.
If they succeed, two of the perennial marks of marriage -- complimentarity and procreation -- will have fallen by the wayside.
Far from being the sacred, enduring union upon which our future rests, marriage will be reduced to little more than a contract between consenting adults.
And as is usually the case, children will suffer the most if marriage is further eroded.
In fact, there is no more important reason to uphold traditional marriage than to preserve its positive influence on children.
Research by the U.S. Department of Justice and the University of Chicago, among others, shows that exposure to both sexes is critical for the developmental needs of children.
Psychologists and social scientists have found that having a mother and father not only helps children properly form their sexual identities, but the inherent differences between men and women provide children the most comprehensive education in what it means to be human.
The biological complementarity may bring a child into existence, but the emotional and psychological balance of his parents is just as important for his wellbeing.
In fact, researchers have found that even newborns can readily distinguish between hundreds of nuances about men and women.
The state has a vested interest in upholding marriage as the union between a man and a woman because only a traditional marriage will enable children to have ongoing access to both sexes.
This access is absolutely necessary for them to properly develop cognitively, emotionally and socially.
Tinkering with the definition of marriage has had devastating effects on our society over the past four decades. We must defend traditional marriage at the polls in November.
By reserving this sacred institution for those who can authentically live out its call, we will help ensure healthy families and a healthy future for our nation.
