This has been a fairly hot topic around campus over the last couple of weeks and I’ve kept my mouth shut due to the incredibly vocal and vicious attacks on the LGBT community that have come spewing out of some mouths. I decided to take this time to explain why I, as a professing evangelical, will not be signing the Coalition for Marriage Petition; in order to do that I am going to go through the four statements that the signatories have agreed to and give my response to each in turn.
Throughout history and in virtually all human societies marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman. Marriage reflects the complementary natures of men and women. Although death and divorce may prevent it, the evidence shows that children do best with a married mother and father.
It is worth pointing out that this is not an argument against the redefinition of marriage but rather an argument against homosexuality. It has nothing to do with the concept of marriage but against any relationship between two people of the same sex. It is highly flawed to suggest that just because history and tradition has understood the semantics of marriage as male-female (primarily through ignorance, supression and persecution) that we need to continue in that vein. Quoting no sources whatsover for the assertion that children do best with a married mother and father here are some stats I found from reputed, scholarly studies:
The American Psychological Association, representing more than 155,000 psychologists, states that children of gay and lesbian parents are at no disadvantage psychologically or socially compared to children of heterosexual parents.
Evidence shows that children’s optimal development is influenced more by the nature of the relationships and interactions within the family unit than by its particular structural form (Perrin, 2002)
No studies have found risks to or disadvantages for children growing up in families with one or more gay parents, compared to children growing up with heterosexual parents (Perrin, 2002).
The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) affirms that lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents are as well suited to raise children as their heterosexual counterparts.
(I include the following statistic only because a significant number of people I have come into contact with tend to assume that children raised by gay or lesbian parents are more likely to be gay)
Sexual Orientation. A number of investigators have also studied a third component of sexual identity, sexual orientation (Bailey, Bobrow, Wolfe, & Mickach, 1995; Bozett, 1980, 1987, 1989; Gottman, 1990; Golombok & Tasker, 1996; Green, 1978; Huggins, 1989; Miller, 1979; Paul, 1986; Rees, 1979; Tasker & Golombok, 1997). In all studies, the great majority of offspring of both lesbian mothers and gay fathers described themselves as heterosexual. Taken together, the data do not suggest elevated rates of homosexuality among the offspring of lesbian or gay parents. For instance, Huggins (1989) interviewed 36 adolescents, half of whom had lesbian mothers and half of whom had heterosexual mothers. No children of lesbian mothers identified themselves as lesbian or gay, but one child of a heterosexual mother did; this difference was not statistically significant. In another study, Bailey and his colleagues (1995) studied adult sons of gay fathers and found more than 90% of the sons to be heterosexual.
That’s that one, now on to number two…
Civil partnerships already provide all the legal benefits of marriage so there’s no need to redefine marriage. It’s not discriminatory to support traditional marriage. Same-sex couples may choose to have a civil partnership but noone has the right to redefine marriage for the rest of us.
Oh, what a zinger of an argument! This argument basically says: ‘Please don’t take our word away!’, the only thing this opposes is a legal definition of terms and the defintion of ‘marriage’ in the dictionary. Christians do not have a monopoly on either monogamy or semantics, so on this point I care even less and think it is finding issues where there really are none. Why can’t gay people say, ‘we’re married!’ when it is only a semantic issue? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong and I’ll readdress this point.
If marriage is redefined, those who believe in traditional marriage will be sidelined. People’s careers could be harmed, couples seeking to adopt or foster could be excluded, and schools would inevitably have to teach the new definition to children. If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined to allow polygamy?
No, those who believe in ‘traditional marriage’ will not be sidelined, you will be perfectly entitled to your views. Remember friends, this ‘destruction of your human rights’ will not mean your church leaders are forced to marry gay couples but simply that they have the legal right to the same marital status as heterosexual couples. You can still refuse to marry gay and lesbian couples if your conscience so dictates.
I ask, how would careers be harmed and how on EARTH are straight couples looking to adopt or foster going to be excluded? This seems to be the most absurd argument to me; from what I know, adoption agencies don’t look for the gayest couple but they look for suitable family homes for children. Your argument makes no sense. I would support schools teaching the new definition, it will only reduce the bullying, teasing and bigotry that will hurt and damage children growing up who identify themselves as LGBT (my support reaches out to education surrounding the whole LGBT issue, I don’t even think there should be an issue, especially where bullying and bigotry is concerned).
Your final point is mute as the discussion around polygamy would have to consider the same issues from a different perspective. It is not the same and the redefinition in this case does not logically lead to another redefinition including polygamy.
People should not feel pressurised to go along with same-sex marriage just because of political correctness. They should be free to express their views. The Government will be launching a public consultation on proposals to redefine marriage. This will provide an opportunity for members of the public to make their views known.
No, people should not feel pressured. However it has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with equality for monogamous couples willing to commit to each other. Oppose it if you like, noone is denying you that right. If you believe something, you are willing to reap the consequences so don’t get frustrated and defensive when people who disagree with you speak up about it.
My final point is this: Christians have been very good, especially in the Western tradition, at oppressing people and removing civil liberties because they weren’t living according to Christian morals. Since the fall of Christendom and the rise of ‘secularism’ the balance has shifted, but not against Christians. What has happened is that the civil injustices are being addressed and fixed but not according to what some Christians consider to be Biblical morality. Why are Christians so happy to remove the rights of others, specifically in this case gay and lesbian couples, in order to secure their own yet when their rights are not even threatened (remember that church leaders will still be able to legitimately refuse to marry gay and lesbian couples) they are up in arms crying ‘Persecution! Persecution!’?
In conclusion, why do you care?
Yours in Christ,
Glen Leach
@Confess_Life (follow me on Twitter!)
Please feel free to comment and discuss in the comment section below, while I am all for free speech and all views will be permitted I will not allow for bullying and name calling.
Confessions of a Skeptical Evangelical 