Now that President Bush has been forced by recent events to make a statement in favor of an amendment to the Constitution to define marriage, you can see the Liberal spin already beginning. Nearly every newspaper, magazine and news program is renaming what Bush has asked for to a "ban on gay marriage". They treat gay "marriage" as though it were something already in existence that the man wants to take away, like the right to gun ownership or the free exercise of religion (both of which do exist, and neither of which seem to be defended by the media from the ongoing Liberal assault). It's a definition of marriage the President seeks -- a definition that has never been needed before now. Until the last few years, a "gay marriage" was one in which husband and wife were wildly happy.
Why should only the traditional form of marriage be officially recognised as valid? It's a question I've addressed before, in my article "Rejecting Our Biological and Cultural Heritage" published at Useless-Knowledge.com last summer, but I'll reorganise and reiterate some of my arguments here.
Every successful human society, stretching all the way back to prehistory, has been based on marriage and genetic ties, expressed as family relationships. It's the foundation of human society and civilisation. Marriage has always been the way for society to recognise and formalise those family ties and the continuity of the genetic relationships. Even childless couples, especially those who adopt, still maintain the basic form and framework of the most fundamental of relationships to pass on to the next generation by example. The idea that we should simply... throw away tens of thousands of years of a proven, successful base for human interaction because some gay people and advocates -- by no means all! -- demand that society's bedrock be shifted to fit their world view better is ridiculous. It would have the same long-term effect on society that removing one's backbone would have on a human being. The person might look more or less the same on the outside, for while... until he tries to stand.
And what's their reasoning behind wanting to change the ancient, well-understood definition of marriage in this specific way, these advocates of gay "marriage"? What justification do they offer for doing so that can't be applied to other forms of marriage, and why not? Why only two people? Why only adults? Why only those unrelated by blood? What gives them the right to force society to move the line to include one type of non-traditional relationship, but not others? It's incredibly arrogant, not to mention hypocritical.
The most common attack by proponents of gay "marriage" is, "How will two gay people getting married impact Bobby and Susie's recent marriage"? That's an incredibly short-sighted and narrowly-focused question. The truth is, it probably won't -- they're already married. It will, however, have an impact on any future relationships their children will have. Their grandchildren may think of "marriage" the way we currently think of friendships, replacing a formerly defining characteristic of one's life with something far more ephemeral and tenuous (the answer to high divorce rates is not to trivialise marriage further). Their great-grandchildren -- if such archaic designations are still used by then -- may not even recognise the word "marriage" except as something in history books. Without marriage, there is no family relationship anymore -- it becomes unnecessary. And of course, the reduction of traditional values and family relationships is precisely what Liberals generally seem to want. For decades, they've fought to replace Mom's apple pie with the Mommy State.
As Bob Dole said in 1996, in response to Hillary Clinton's book advocating intrusive governmental meddling in child-rearing, it doesn't take a village to raise a child. It takes a family. And marriage, the cornerstone of the family, is currently under assault. We have made a Constitutional amendment setting forth our rights to free speech and free assembly, which were once under assault. We have made amendments defining everyone's right to vote, when such were needed. If we need to protect the institution of marriage from assault with a Constitutional amendment defining it too, then so be it.
