Homophobia and Protection of Marriage

The call has gone out; arise oh righteous ones and come to the aid of Proposition 8 in order to stamp out the threat to marriage and halt the moral decline of our country, or at least the state of California. Proposition 8 is an effort to amend the California Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Much of the support for it is based on religious arguments that appeal to the Bible and God’s divine plan.

Supporters of Proposition 8 who rely on religious arguments create an interesting conundrum. If the government is required to ban same sex marriages because God and the Bible mandates it, then any such legislation or constitutional amendment will constitute an establishment of religion contrary to the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The only reason that government should be involved in the issue of marriage at all is in the event of dissolution to ensure the orderly disposition of property and money and to make sure that the rights of children are protected. The gender of the married couple is irrelevant to these considerations. For a government to define who can be married or create separate but equal classifications called marriage and domestic partnership requires some rational basis for doing so beyond tradition or religious concerns.

That’s the legal argument. After all, I’m still a lawyer. However, the larger issues go beyond legalities. Supporters of Proposition 8 ultimately resort to the language of morality which suggests that they want this to function as a referendum on the issue of homosexuality in general. Is it ok, sinful, immoral or just plain icky? You decide. Most of the arguments in support of sinful and immoral are based on the Bible.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment. Try formulating a non-Biblical argument against homosexuality that doesn’t apply equally to heterosexual conduct. If you say that homosexuality is unnatural because it doesn’t lead to pro-creation, then heterosexuals who are childless are unnatural as well. Better root them out too while we are at it or at least pass a law to make sure they return to doing only what comes “naturally” or at least adopting a child to keep up appearances.

Ok, but what about the immorality in those gay pride parades, all the leather and butt cheeks… shocking! Watch any cable TV lately? Heterosexual pop-culture is doing more to sexualize our society than anything a neighborhood parade could hope to do, if indeed that is the agenda. By the way, I have several gay and lesbian friends and I asked them to show me the homosexual agenda that I hear so many folks worried about. If there is such a thing, I haven’t seen it yet. Must be one of them there stealth agendas, you know… a secret conspiracy!! And as for those who object to homosexuality because its “icky”, all I can say is curb your imagination and grow up.

They say hindsight is 20/20, especially when it comes to moral outrage. When we look backwards in time we have no problem identifying customs and practices that were given the stamp of moral approval that would be considered immoral and outrageous today. Slavery, Native American genocide, denying women voting and property rights and child labor are the obvious ones, all justified by the prevailing religious authorities of the day.

One hundred years from now, what will that same hindsight reveal? Discrimination and hatred based on a person’s sexual orientation will certainly leave our descendants shaking their heads and saying “what were they thinking?” But even worse would be the perception that we were lacking any kind of a moral compass as we focused on the sexuality of consenting adults and ignored the very real moral evils of poverty, ignorance, disease, government corruption, environmental degradation and ethnic genocide.

There are many expressions of family life and no one form is stronger than another. The key ingredients are unconditional love and a commitment to selfless service. Government and churches cannot protect marriage by legislation or constitutional amendments. The best way to protect marriage is to provide support and encouragement to couples, regardless of gender, who are ready to express such a high level of commitment to each other.