What’s Wrong with Homosexual Marriage?
Posted by Troy Eckhardt on June 27, 2013 at 9:44 pm
What’s wrong with two people of the same gender who are in love getting married to each other? It’s a good question, and I’m glad you asked. Although for many people, “The Bible says it’s wrong,” is enough to justify the sentiment, it does not really address the question in a secular way.
Homosexuals already have the liberty of living with and seeking physical pleasure from whomever they wish, in as committed or uncommitted a relationship as they desire. The question of homosexual marriage is not about tolerance, rights, liberty, or justice. Homosexuals want the courts to give them by fiat what society would not cede voluntarily: Honor and respect. They want all social stigma removed. A marriage license goes further than liberty – it is a stamp of societal approval, which is actually what is being sought here, and such approval is NOT a right. So the homosexual marriage issue is NOT about denying homosexuals the right to do as they please, but about forcing the appearance of universal societal approval on a behavior.
Most people opposed to homosexual marriage are not the hate mongers the media and popular liberal culture make them out to be. They are decent people who believe that there are moral problems with an acceptance of homosexuality that carries with it detrimental societal effects. They are people who are willing to tolerate homosexuality in the classical sense. The very idea of tolerance implies that the one tolerating something harbors a belief that that thing is immoral, abhorrent, or otherwise incorrect. We don’t tolerate people who share our views, and homosexuals are not happy with mere tolerance at all.
Furthermore, no one has the freedom to marry whomever he wishes. I cannot marry my duck, my sister, my step son, or my soccer team, for example. Homosexuals want a freedom no one else enjoys: The right to redefine “marriage.”
In our age of Orwellian Newspeak, many words no longer have clear meanings. If I think something is wrong, in today’s parlance I’m labeled “intolerant,” although I’ve already demonstrated that this isn’t what the word means – in fact, it’s such a convoluted misuse that the word becomes meaningless. Other examples of word misuse are equally problematic. I can’t be a Native American, although I was born on this continent. My white, naturalized, South African-born student was denied an African American scholarship because he is not black, Likewise, “marriage” doesn’t mean anything particular at all, or rather, it can be defined and redefined as anything a section of society deems appropriate. If “marriage” doesn’t mean anything in particular, then neither does “family.” If “family” is just a social construct we invented, and if we can alter it at will, this has enormous societal ramifications.
Could homosexual marriage lead to marriage between multiple people or people and animals? Sure. Who cares whether animals can give consent or sign a contract? Who are we to dogmatically impose our rigid moral standards on the definition of marriage? According to WHOM must it be understood as a consensual relationship? After all, marriage means whatever we want it to mean, and who are we to disallow people to do what they want to do, as long as it hurts no other person? This IS the rationale we’re using, right?
We could argue that marriage isn’t the sort of thing that’s meant to be between humans and animals, but in what way is that unlike arguing that it’s not meant for people of the same gender?
The problem is also not the so-called slippery slope argument, either. Just because the SCOTUS has killed DOMA, does not mean that we will next permit incestuous marriage, for example. Why not? Because even the homosexual marriage advocates won’t hear of it – because they have a MORAL issue with incest. Because they think it is injurious to people and to society – the very reason why others are against homosexual marriage. Why should I support this sort of preferential treatment of one subsection of society alone?
