Last Sunday’s gospel was about
the wedding feast at Cana, and the first reading from Isaiah cited God’s
reference to his people as, “My Delight” and “Espoused.” “For the Lord delights in you and makes your
land his spouse. As a young man marries
a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his
bride, so shall your God rejoice in you.”
(Isaiah 62:5) And in Monday’s
gospel Jesus refers to Himself as a bridegroom: “Can the wedding guests fast
while the bridegroom is with them?” (Mark 2:19)
All these references to
marriage, and God treating us as His spouse, got me thinking about the nature
and truth of marriage, which seems to have been lost in the current debate about
gay marriage. Professor Robert George
who teaches at Princeton and Harvard is an expert on marital law and a strong
advocate of traditional marriage. He believes that this whole debate about gay
marriage hinges on answering the question: “What is marriage?” Advocates of gay marriage believe it is an intense
emotional relationship, a romantic-sexual relationship, and/or domestic
partnership. However, throughout
history, even before there were civil laws concerning marriage, it has been
understood to be much more. For
thousands of years, the traditional understanding of marriage has been that it
is a conjugal union of two people who
share a life in which the sexual-reproductive complementarity of a man and
woman produces children. It is the only
means by which the human race can continue.
Moreover, the marriage of one man and one woman has long been understood
to be the natural and best setting for rearing children and propagating life. These facts are readily understood by human
reason, since it is only a man and a woman who can conceive a child, a fact of
nature revealed in our very bodies.
In his inaugural speech,
president Obama cited his determination to achieve “marital equity.” But if everyone who wants to get married
should be equally eligible to do so, why put any limits at all on marriage? Is it “inequitable” to deny anyone a marriage
license? If marriage were merely the
acknowledgement of intense emotional relationships, why limit it to two people?
Why not allow fathers to marry
daughters, or siblings to marry each other?
For millennia, society has recognized the importance of promoting and
protecting the special relationship of a man and women who raise a family
because this is in the best interest of society to do so. The purpose of government and civil law is to
promote the common good. Laws put restrictions
on human activity that that are adverse to the common good. For years, the American Psychological
Association has maintained that “not a single study has found children of gay
parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of
heterosexual couples.” Numerous judges have cited
these studies when finding in favor of gay marriage, citing a “no difference
theory.” However, two new, very broad
and well-documented studies, have demonstrated that the previous studies were
biased, many not including control groups, some as small as only five subjects,
or relying solely on interviews with parents.
An extensive, scientifically sound study, done at the University of
Texas, now demonstrates without a doubt that children raised by gay couples
fare much worse in a host of different outcomes, when compared to children
raised in traditional families. It
turns out that 80% of the 59 studies referred to by the APA sampled fewer than
100 people. One study consisted of only
5 participants, and many others sampled only the children of affluent families. However, the new study screened 15,000
Americans and surveyed 3000 participants, and reports quite different
findings. With a high degree of
statistical confidence, this new study reveals that Americans ages 18-39 who
grew up with same sex parents fared much worse on 25 of 40 measures
evaluated. They were three and a half
times more likely to be unemployed, four times likelier to be on public
assistance, more likely to have been arrested and pled guilty of criminal
offenses, to smoke marijuana, and to have thought about suicide during the
preceding year. Perhaps most startling
of all, children of gay couples were 11 times more likely to report that they had
been touched sexually in an inappropriate way by an adult.
Of course, no one seems to know
about this study, because the media won’t report on it. In the months ahead, when the Supreme Court
hears a group of marriage cases, it will be interesting to see if they will
uphold the “no difference theory” or change their view, based on the principle that
it is in the best interest of the common good for children to be raised in a
wholesome environment. Or will they put the
notion of “marriage equality” ahead of the common good, similar to Roe v. Wade
which asserted that privacy superseded a child’s right to life? During the 40 years since the Supreme Court
withdrew the States’ right to regulate abortion, 55 million babies have been
murdered in their mothers’ womb. Our
country has so devalued human life that, four decades later, we’re seeing unprecedented
homicide and suicide rates. Our economy
is languishing for lack of growth, but how can we expect to grow our economy
with birth rates plummeting? Consumer
spending cannot increase forever without an increase in consumers. Burgeoning entitlement programs cannot be
funded with a shrinking taxpayer base.
It all gets back to what’s good for society, and neither killing babies nor
destroying marriage is good for our nation.
Marriage and family are at the heart of any healthy society and economy,
but the more we do to undermine the principles of marriage and child-rearing,
the less hope we have for the future.
During this year of faith, let’s
all pray for an increase in faith to offset the faithlessness that makes individual
autonomy the be-all and end-all principle behind our current government
regime.
