A Gay [Male] Couple Says Daughter Needs a Mother…and a single mother says her son needs a father. Dennis Prager talks to the Left’s “romantic” (unrealistic) view of life. Gender roles are not important, facts, dialogue… all are unimportant — derision of the right is all that matters! Love isn’t the only deal, gender roles are important as well.
For more clear thinking like this from Dennis Prager… I invite you to visit: http://www.dennisprager.com/
Via National Review (see this also):
…So what is the result? It seems to me that the gay couple still wins, but that Judge Vaughn Walker’s opinion is also wiped away. The gay couple wins because the government never shows up to defend the statute; the plaintiffs win, in essence, a default judgment. But without an opinion, there is no precedent to apply on Proposition 8 throughout the state of California. That leaves the winner, oddly, as Jerry Brown. As governor, Brown could order state and local officers not to enforce Proposition 8 based on the judgment in Perry or even on the reasoning of Windsor. In fact, it appears Brown may have already done so.
So Brown comes out the big winner. He can delay or even nullify an initiative enacted by the people of California simply by refusing to defend it in court — despite the fact that the whole point of an initiative is to pull an end-run around recalcitrant state officials. And if a court strikes down the initiative, Jerry Brown gets to decide whether and how to enforce it in this case. Brown has effectively defied the will of a majority of the people of California.
So, in the future, when this Democratically controlled state has its hands tied by the voters, like Prop 13 did for property taxes in the late 70’s, all the state has to do is have someone bring it to court and then not defend it. Sick.
Via The Blaze:
Krauthammer via The Washington Post:
Under the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriages even in states that have legalized it. This week, the Supreme Court ruled DOMA unconstitutional.
There are two possible grounds, distinct and in some ways contradictory, for doing so. The curious thing about the court’s DOMA decision is that it contains both rationales.
The first is federalism. Marriage is the province of the states. Each state decides who is married and who is not. The federal government may not intrude. It must therefore recognize gay marriage where it has been legalized.
If that were the essence of the argument, the court’s 5-4 decision would have been constitutionally conservative, neither nationalizing nor delegitimizing gay marriage. It would allow the issue to evolve over time as the people decide state by state.
It would thus be the antithesis of Roe v. Wade. That judicial fiat swept away every state abortion law that did not conform to the court’s idea of what abortion law should be. Even many liberal supporters of abortion rights have admitted that Roe was an unfortunate way to change the law. It prevented a stable social settlement of an issue, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said, that at the time was headed in the reform direction. The Roe ruling removed abortion from the political arena, thus disenfranchising the citizenry, tainting the resolution of the question and leaving us with 40 years of social strife….
BAM!
…As a gay conservative, I’ve always been conflicted about the issue of gay marriage. I guess it is because my political and moral philosophies are not dictated by the desire to be loved by the president or the federal government. I believe that my rights as an American citizen come from my Creator, not Barack Obama, John Roberts or Nancy Pelosi. But the reaction from most gay liberals today to theoverturning of the Defense of Marriage Act and reversing the California voters’ decision in Proposition 8 has been the opposite. The gay political class is celebrating Big Government waving its haughty approval like King George III waving his hand over his colonies.
So for those of my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who needed the federal government’s emotional approval of their relationship: Congratulations. I just hope all gay and lesbian Americans take a moment to stop and thank Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush for nominating Justices Kennedy and Roberts so the Clinton era of discrimination could come to an end Wednesday…
(Bruce Carroll, via Gay Patriot and USA Today)
What Bruce got wrong in the above [excellent] article is that the will of the people has not been overturned… and as a gay man who loves our Constitution, he should fight for the will of the people and allow this change to come legally… as he has in the past.
Via Breitbart:
…But that means Prop 8 is still the law in California. Section 3.5 of the California Constitution specifically commands:
An administrative agency … has no power:
(a) To declare a statute unenforceable, or refuse to enforce a statute, on the basis of it being unconstitutional unless an appellate court has made a determination that such statute is unconstitutional;
(b) To declare a statute unconstitutional;
(c) To declare a statute unenforceable, or to refuse to enforce a statute on the basis that federal law or federal regulations prohibit the enforcement of such statute unless an appellate court has made a determination that the enforcement of such statute is prohibited by federal law or federal regulations.
As of today, there is no appellate opinion (meaning an opinion issued by a court of appeals) against Prop 8. The Supreme Court refused to issue one, and threw out the only other one (the Ninth Circuit’s). There is only a trial court opinion. So every agency in California is legally bound to regard Prop 8 as binding law….
Liberals, apparently, are happy with 9th Circuit acting unConstitutionally? You see, a healthy court — and the 9th Circuit is NOT healthy — should not have gotten involved, at least according to SCOTUS. But judicial activism is the 9th Circuits game, and the Supe’s (SCOTUS) rightly stayed out of it.
Erwin Chemerinsky ~ is the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science.
Dr. John C. Eastman ~ is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service at Chapman University School of Law, and also served as the School’s Dean from June 2007 to January 2010, when he stepped down to pursue a bid for California Attorney General. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute.
The decision is really the best possible outcome we could of hoped for in regards to Proposition eight. Why? Because Prop 8 is still law and it will properly ascend back up the chain of legal ladder rungs when an attorney general refuses to marry same-sex couples according to state law.
The DOMA strengthened state-power in deciding what marriage is — as the constitution says. So the states that have defined marriage as between man-and-woman have less to fear. Mind you, the DOMA ruling will hit some snags, I explain;
But there are major inconsistencies that will need to head back to court to be smoothed out. For instance, if a couple is married in New York, and then moves to a state that doesn’t recognize SSM… Federal benefits do or do not apply? The state is not required to provide be benefits, and DOMA does not change this. A point mentioned in passing by doc Eastman is will the Feds have to confer benefits to all persons in a polygamous marriage if a state plays this? [Also, religious freedom will be front and center… more on this below]
So it is a win on the SCOTUS level… a loss [strike that earlier statement] win to voters rights on the lower level. Because, as the Breitbart article showed above, as well as the audio of Constitutional professor/Dean, John Eastman, explained — state powers were increased. Which brings us back to prop 8 and what the court[s] said/did:
(AP) ….The high court itself said nothing about the validity of gay marriage bans in California and roughly three dozen other states.
The outcome was not along ideological lines.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia.
“We have no authority to decide this case on the merits, and neither did the 9th Circuit,” Roberts said, referring to the federal appeals court that also struck down Proposition 8….
As I pointed out, Prop 8 does not go by-by. There are nuances that will not be felt for a few days… but I will quickly explain what I understand:
In the California’s constitution, the government *HAS TO* uphold a proposition (again, by law) until the prop is said to be unconstitutional by an upper court. The Supe’s said they had no jurisdiction, and neither did the 9th circuit. The 9th vacated their position, and the ruling falls back down to the local judges ruling.
Which means — I believe — that the judges ruling is only effective for the two couples suing, or that particular district?
So what will happen?
…continued below
…Con’t
Jerry Brown has ordered — unlawfully mind you, because prop 8 is still legal (Camilla Harris also misunderstands California’s Constitution) — all 58 districts to start performing SSM. All it will take is one conservative county/attorney general to say no… and the case will again rise up to the echelons of SCOTUS (which has been making some good choices as of late). Except this time it will be in the Courts Jurisdiction because you will have a defense and a prosecution on its rise, which the original case did not.
In-other-words, as Dr. Eastman points out, seeing if Jerry brown and the Attorney General, Camilla Harris, follow state law is really more important than the Same-Sex Marriage debate!
Another aspect of this is the affect DOMA will have on religion, freedom of choice, and the like. Already, even in the Supreme Court, there are ad-hominem attacks and rhetoric that is itself bigoted and intolerant.
(National Journal) …In a ripping dissent, Scalia says that Justice Anthony Kennedy and his colleagues in the majority have resorted to calling opponents of gay marriage “enemies of the human race.” Despite this being the first time in human history, gender and marriage (as being between man and woman) being challenged… we are[!?] enemies of the human race? Sick!
But to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution. In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to “disparage,” “injure,” “degrade,” “demean,” and “humiliate” our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homo- sexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence— indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.
(See “Deck O Race-Cards“)
The new regulations will surely thrust more cases into SCOTUS and we will finally tilt one-way or the other — by this I mean will the American people understand the clear enumerated protection of religious practice, belief in the 1st Amendment? or a hitherto unknown “right-to-marry” for same-sex couples hiding between the lines in the Constitution. The two cannot co-exist in the end.
As DOMA is implemented in the Military, we will see a clash of the above enumerated right and the special rights applied to a minority (Breitbart):
…In the Washington Post, Timothy Broglio, archbishop for the Military Services, USA, wrote:
“Defenders of marriage may find that their rights to voice their beliefs and live according to them are quickly eroding after this court decision.” ~ Michelle Bauman
I remain confident that people of this great country, no matter the consequences, will continue to promote and defend the good and the truth of marriage as the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife for life. Marriage remains what it has always been, regardless of what any government might say.
I likewise remain confident that the First Amendment constitutional guarantee of the “free exercise of religion” will forever ensure that no restrictions or limitations on the teaching of the Catholic faith will be placed on any Catholic priest or deacon in the armed forces. Furthermore, the Constitution guarantees that no endorsed minister will ever be compelled to perform a religious ceremony contrary to the dictates of his/her faith nor will today’s decision have any effect on the role and teaching ability of a priest or deacon in the pulpit, the classroom, the barracks or in the office.
This archdiocese remains resolved in the belief that no Catholic priest will ever be compelled to condone – even silently – same-sex “marriages.”
Michelle Bauman, assistant editor for Catholic News Agency and EWTN News, wrote Wednesday that while the Supreme Court did not claim “to have discovered a fundamental ‘right’ to marry,” or a point-blank “redefinition of marriage” that would be imposed on the entire country, overturning DOMA “will affect more than 1,000 regulations and legal provisions, and could have a sweeping impact on both the legal and cultural understanding of what marriage is.”
“In addition,” wrote Bauman, “since the federal government must acknowledge all state-recognized marriages, there will be increased pressure on the states to redefine marriage.”…
No Religious Person In History Ever Supported Same-Sex Marriage from Papa Giorgio on Vimeo.
One of the failings in our current generation is the understanding behind the ethos of the founding documents of our nation. What the writers of these pieces of foundational guidelines said themselves, here is one example:
“…we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams, first (1789–1797) Vice President of the United States, and the second (1797–1801) President of the United States. Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798, in Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull (New York, 1848), pp 265-6.
And we know what the Founder’s meant by the word “religion” from the debates about the First Amendment. We also know what a proper definition of a Republic means, which is what we live in… not a Democracy:
So, to conclude, while there is a lot to be optimistic about, one shouldn’t give up the fight for the ideological mind. Ours is a cause worthy of the best thinking on the matter. And a side note… debating issues. I was recently challenged with polygamy and the Bible. Christians contort for no reason over the topic. A topic meant to take your eye off the ball:
Mountain Man said
The issue of polygamy is tangentially related because the same-sex marriage debate is nothing more than an open declaration of war on the traditional and historical institution of marriage.
I agree…. however, people miss the larger issue in talking to non-believers, as well as showing believers how to make an impact on culture.
Please allow me to explain.
The Judeo-Christian understanding (as well as some of the big thinkers via Greece, like Plato and Aeschines) teaches/taught that marriage should be between one-man and one woman — or in the least between male and female. But polygamy proves the point that relationships — even in their accepted form by pagan or fallen society — have always been “male/female.” no major world religious founder, great moral thinker, or political theorist of old ever advocated this union.
So, when I debate a non-Christian on the matter, I use the idea of polygamy to make the point that this current movement is radical in its core, or, extreme. While the other side paints us as extreme for defending the idea of even male-female conventions in relationships, you can show that they are the first to reject the thinking of wise men and all culture before this generation, and that [in fact] they are the ones acting extreme. Even to the point of trying to rid society of gender differences [male/female].
But as I see it, in the marriage debate, polygamy is evidence from history that the norm a) accepted gender differences, and b) relationships have always been male-female. It is an arrow in my quiver, not someone saying the Bible approves polygamy. While the Bible does not divinely inspire polygamy and slavery, etc, it shows as a history text AND as a Divinely inspired text that relationships are male/female. I do not need to explain verse-by-verse the issue…
…the other side is making my point.
(National Journal) …In a ripping dissent, Scalia says that Justice Anthony Kennedy and his colleagues in the majority have resorted to calling opponents of gay marriage “enemies of the human race.” Despite this being the first time in human history, gender and marriage (as being between man and woman) being challenged… we are[!?] enemies of the human race? Sick!
But to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to con- demn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution. In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to “dis- parage,” “injure,” “degrade,” “demean,” and “humiliate” our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homo- sexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence— indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.
(See “Deck O Race-Cards“)
The gist of the above:
“Section 2 of DOMA unconstitutional. ~ SCOTUS” What this really does is strengthen states rights (better said as states-power). So the states that define marriage as hetero, are embedded with more rights, less interference from government. There will be future issues with DOMA… but that bridge must be crossed then. Also, here are some insights:
——————————————
Prop 8 does not go by-by. There are nuances that will not be felt for a few days… but I will quickly explain what I understand.
In the California’s constitution, the government *HAS TO* uphold a proposition (again, by law) until the prop is said to be unconstitutional by an upper court. The Supe’s said they had no jurisdiction, and neither did the 9th circuit. The 9th vacated their position, and the ruling falls back down to the local judges ruling.
Which means — I believe — that the judges ruling is only effective for the two couples suing, or that particular district?
So what will happen?
Jerry Brown has ordered — unlawfully mind you, because prop 8 is still legal — all 58 districts to start performing SSM. All it will take is one conservative county/attorney general to say no… and the case will again rise up to the echelons of SCOTUS (which has been making some good choices as of late). Except this time it will be in the Courts Jurisdiction because you will have a defense and a prosecution on its rise, which the original case did not.
Via Moonbattery:
Department of Injustice Employees Asked to Verbally Affirm Homosexuality
Here’s an idea for a truly twisted exploitation movie. For unknown reasons, the US population goes totally insane, and elects a government consisting of leftist freaks so morally warped that workers at the Department of Justice are required to swear an oath of fealty to sexual perversion. Never mind, that’s too outrageous even for low-budget trash when it comes to movies. But not when it comes to our Hopey Changey reality:
The Department of Justice has been accused of religious intolerance and viewpoint discrimination after workers were sent an email directing them to verbally affirm homosexuality, according to a law firm specializing in religious liberty and now representing a DOJ whistleblower.
Liberty Counsel said DOJ employees were emailed a brochure called “LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers.” The brochure was created as a resource from DOJ Pride, an association of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees of the DOJ. …
“Silence will be interpreted as disapproval.” Did you get that? The Department of Justice interprets SILENCE as disagreement.
Among the directives in the brochure is an order for workers to vocally affirm homosexuality.
“Don’t judge or remain silent,” the brochure read. “Silence will be interpreted as disapproval.”
It’s not enough not to say anything against depravity, which is our new state religion. You must affirm it, thereby explicitly rejecting Christian morality. Otherwise, your career is going nowhere; you will be lucky to keep your job.
Matt Barber (@CNS-News) displays some “DOs” from the DOJ brochure:
Here are some more DOs:
✶ DO “Attend LGBT events sponsored by DOJ Pride and/or the Department, and invite (but don’t require) others to join you.”
✶ DO “Display a symbol in your office (DOJ Pride sticker, copy of this brochure, etc.) indicating that it is a ‘safe space.'”
Are you kidding? Does this administration really think it’s legal to induce managers to “attend LGBT events,” or to “display pride stickers” against their will? That’s compulsory expression. That’s viewpoint discrimination.
Here’s a question. Can a manager at the DOJ display a cross so other employees know this is a Christian friendly cubicle/office? I doubt it.
No Different Than Westborough Baptist
Just what Savage feels he is accomplishing by using obscenity about the Bible at a journalism conference for high school students is beyond me. But what I do know is that the answers to homosexuality and faith do not lie either with religious haters like Fred Phelps who insult God by hating gays, nor with secular fanatics like Dan Savage who insult homosexuals by falsely portraying them as angry bigots. ~ RABBI SHMULEY BOTEACH
I wasn’t going to post on this, but, since the refutation of WaPo spread to the very leftist magazine, the New Republic, I will post NewsBusters pices on the topic.
One wonders — before posting the stories below — the outrage level WaPo would show if in the fictitious conversation taken from Savage’s book, were Jesus cussing about gays and the gay lifestyle WHILE putting Peter in his place, how “healing” the book would be considered. Will they ever use the term of books like What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense, or, Clash Of Orthodoxies: Law Religion & Morality In Crisis? Somehow I doubt it. It is only “healing” when you expressly attack Christianity, I guess “salvation” in WaPo terms would be the gas chambers? But of course the Obama Admin supports this stuff with tax-payer funds.
First is the original post by by Tim Graham, followed by his follow up article noting the editorial from the left:
Preposterous: WashPost Claims Dan Savage Is All About ‘Healing’ and ‘Reconciliation’
The Washington Post occasionally must enjoy sounding completely preposterous. In a Tuesday book review, we’re told in the headlines that gay activist and sex columnist Dan Savage is “on a healing mission” and underneath his “wit,” he only “wants reconciliation.”
The Post doesn’t apparently require its book reviewers to read the book in question — or at least acknowledge what’s in it. You don’t have to go too far in the publisher’s online excerpt to find him condemning the Family Research Council as an “anti-gay hate group” and its leader Tony Perkins as “full of shit.” He laments the religious right this way:
Whenever someone asks me why the United States is such a mess about sex and everything that touches on sex—why the United States, out of all Western industrialized nations, will never stop fighting about abortion, sex education, birth control, the sex lives of politicians, the existence of gay people—I shrug and say, “Canada got the French, Australia got the convicts, the United States got the Puritans.” [Thank God!]
Can’t you feel the healing and reconciliation?
Here is the updated story:
The New Republic has easily demonstrated just how ridiculous The Washington Post’s book review of the new Dan Savage is to claim that “reconciliation is at the heart of everything Savage writes and says.”
In “The Waning Power of Dan Savage,” Daniel D’Addario dismisses the new book as “a very public act of self-love.” Later, he explained “The nadir of American Savage comes when Savage prints a one-act play called ‘Jesus and the Huge A–hole,’ about religious objectors to Obamacare.”
[….]
This sounds like a rerun of last October’s column attacking conservative Christian blogger and activist Peter LaBarbera, who had tweeted about the founder of Jimmy John’s sandwich shops saying Obamacare would cost him 50 cents a sandwich:
JESUS: “You are an asshole.”
PETER: “Excuse me, Jesus?”
JESUS: “Are you deaf? I said, ‘YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.’ You’re seriously standing there bitching about having to pay a little bit more for a sandwich?”
PETER: “You don’t understand, Jesus, why should I have to pay for—”
JESUS: “Shut the fuck up. I was crucified for your sins and all I asked in return was for you people to be nice to each other—”
PETER: “But—”
JESUS: “Shut the fuck up, Peter. All I asked was for your people to be nice to each other. And you’re telling me that you’re not willing to pay fifty cents more for a fucking sandwich so that the guy who made it for you—and his kids—can go see a doctor? You’re not a Christian.”
PETER: “But I go to church, Jesus, and I hate gay people so hard!”
JESUS: “Not good enough, Peter, not nearly good enough. Stop bothering me and go worship Thor or Mars or Zeus instead, okay? I don’t want you calling yourself a Christian. You’re a dick.”
PETER: “I can’t believe Jesus just called me a dick.”
JESUS: “Yeah, well, you are a dick. I sacrificed my life for you and you can’t sacrifice a bag of chips for the sandwich guy? Or scrounge up the extra fifty fucking cents? Dick.”
PETER: “But Jesus!”
JESUS: “Love one another as I have loved you, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, take care of the poor, take care of the sick, give away all that you have and follow me—does any of this shit ring a bell, you stupid asshole?”
PETER: “Okay! Okay! I’m sorry! I’ll go worship Thor!”
In fact, the above shows that it is sooo “politically-correct” in the rooms at the Washington Post that one couldn’t even mention in the review that this (the above) was not healing. Freedom of press? Yeah right!
Here is more “Dan Savage ‘healing'”
This is an important set of excerpts from the book, What is Marriage?, and is linked to my Cumulative Case. I highly recommend getting the book and reading chapters three and four, you can also follow up on the many references to the quotes I did not include below:
Against this, some on the libertarian Right say that marriage has no public value, and call for the state to get out of the marriage business altogether. Voices on the Left say that marriage has no distinctive public value; they say the state may work it like clay, remaking marriage to fit our preferences. Here we show where both go wrong.
[….]
First, as we have seen by reflection that procreation uniquely extends and perfects marriage (see chapter 2), so the best available social science suggests that children tend to do best when reared by their married mother and father. Studies that control for other factors, including poverty and even genetics, suggest that children reared in intact homes do best on the following indices:
Educational achievement: literacy and graduation rates
Emotional health: rates of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and suicide
Familial and sexual development: strong sense of identity, timing of onset of puberty, rates of teen and
out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and rates of sexual abuse
Child and adult behavior: rates of aggression, attention deficit disorder, delinquency, and incarceration
Consider the conclusions of the left-leaning research institution Child Trends:
[R]esearch clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage. Children in single-parent families, children born to unmarried mothers, and children in stepfamilies or cohabiting relationships face higher risks of poor outcomes. . . . There is thus value for children in promoting strong, stable marriages between biological parents. . . . [Fit is not simply the presence of two parents, . . . but the presence of two biological parents that seems to support children’s development.
According to another study, in the Journal of Marriage and Family, “[t]he advantage of marriage appears to exist primarily when the child is the biological offspring of both parents.” Recent literature reviews conducted by the Brookings Institution, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, the Center for Law and Social Policy, and the Institute for American Values corroborate the importance of intact households for children.♦
Single-motherhood, cohabitation, joint custody after divorce, and stepparenting have all been reliably studied, and the result is clear: Children tend to fare worse under every one of these alternatives to married biological parenting. To make marriages more stable is to give more children the best chance to become upright and productive members of society. Note the importance of the link between marriage and children in both stages of our argument: just as it provides a powerful reason to hold the conjugal view of marriage, so it provides the central reason to make marriage a matter of public concern.
But this link is no idiosyncrasy of our view. It is amply confirmed in our law. Long before same-sex civil marriages were envisioned, courts declared that marriage “is the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress.” They recalled that “virtually every Supreme court case recognizing as fundamental the right to marry indicates as the basis for the conclusion the institution’s inextricable link to procreation.” In their account, not just ours, “the first purpose of matrimony, by the laws of nature and society, is procreation”; “the procreation of children under the shield and sanction of the law” is one of the “two principal ends of marriage.” In fact, “marriage exists as a protected legal institution primarily because of societal values associated with the propagation of the human race.” Examples can be multiplied ad nauseam.
A second public benefit of marriage is that it tends to help spouses financially, emotionally, physically, and socially. As the late University of Virginia sociologist Steven Nock showed, it is not that people who are better off are most likely to marry, but that marriage makes people better off. More than signal maturity, marriage can promote it. Thus men, after their wedding, tend to spend more time at work, less time at bars, more time at religious gatherings, less time in jail, and more time with family.
The shape of marriage as a permanent and exclusive union ordered to family life helps explain these benefits. Permanently committed to a relationship whose norms are shaped by its aptness for family life, husbands and wives gain emotional insurance against life’s temporary setbacks. Exclusively committed, they leave the sexual marketplace and thus escape its heightened risks. Dedicated to their children and each other, they enjoy the benefits of a sharpened sense of purpose. More vigorously sowing in work, they reap more abundantly its fruits. So the state’s interest in productivity and social order creates an interest in marriage.
[….]
MAKING MOTHER OR FATHER SUPERFLUOUS
Conjugal marriage laws reinforce the idea that the union of husband and wife is, on the whole, the most appropriate environment for rearing children—an ideal supported by the best available social science.† Recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages would legally abolish that ideal. No civil institution would reinforce the notion that men and women typically have different strengths as parents; that boys and girls tend to benefit from fathers and mothers in different ways.
To the extent that some continued to see marriage as apt for family life, they would come to think—indeed, our law, public schools, and media would teach them, and variously penalize them for denying—that it matters not, even as a rule, whether children are reared by both their mother and their father, or by a parent of each sex at all. But as the connection between marriage and parenting is obscured, as we think it would be eventually, no arrangement would be proposed as ideal.
And here is the central problem with either result: it would diminish the social pressures and incentives for husbands to remain with their wives and children, or for men and women having children to marry first. Yet the resulting arrangements—parenting by divorced or single parents, or cohabiting couples —are demonstrably worse for children, as we have seen in chapter 3. So even if it turned out that studies showed no differences between same- and opposite-sex parenting, redefining marriage would undermine marital stability in ways that we know do hurt children.
That said, in addition to the data on child outcomes summarized in chapter 3, there is significant evidence that mothers and fathers have different parenting strengths—that their respective absences impede child development in different ways. Girls, for example, are likelier to suffer sexual abuse and to have children as teenagers and out of wedlock if they do not grow up with their father. For their part, boys reared without their father tend to have much higher rates of aggression, delinquency, and incarceration. As Rutgers University sociologist David Popenoe concludes, “The burden of social science evidence supports the idea that gender-differentiated parenting is important for human development and that the contribution of fathers to childrearing is unique and irreplaceable.” He continues: “[W]e should disavow the notion that ‘mommies can make good daddies,’ just as we should disavow the popular notion . . . that ‘daddies can make good mommies.’ . . . The two sexes are different to the core, and each is necessary—culturally and biologically—for the optimal development of a human being.” In a summary of the relevant science, University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox finds much the same:
Let me now conclude our review of the social scientific literature on sex and parenting by spelling out what should be obvious to all. The best psychological, sociological, and biological research to date now suggests that—on average—men and women bring different gifts to the parenting enterprise, that children benefit from having parents with distinct parenting styles, and that family breakdown poses a serious threat to children and to the societies in which they live.
Of course, the question of which arrangements our policies should privilege is normative [should be based on natures/natural conditions]….
♦ Note that for a relationship to be ordered to procreation in this principled and empirically manifested way, sexual orientation is not a disqualifier. The union of a husband and wife hears this connection to children even if, say, the husband is also attracted to men. What is necessary is rather sexual complementarity—which two men lack even if they are attracted only to women. It is not individuals who are singled out—as being less capable of affectionate and responsible parenting, or anything else. What are instead favored as bearing a special and valuable link to childrearing are certain arrangements and the acts that complete or embody them—to which, to be sure, individuals are more or less inclined.
† The need for adoption (and its immense value) where the ideal is practically impossible is no argument for redefining civil marriage, a unified structure of incentives meant precisely to reinforce the ideal—to minimize the need for alternative, case-by-case provisions.
Sheif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George, What Is Marriage: Man and Woman: A Defense (New York, NY: Encounter Books, 2012), 37, 42-45, 58-60.