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The Real Deal on the Gay Marriage Issue
By Kevin Fobbs
March 29, 2004

American voters oppose 53 - 40 percent allowing same sex couples to form civil unions, with voters 18 to 34 years old supporting civil unions 48 - 46 percent and voters 65 and older opposing civil unions 63 - 27 percent.

Opposition is even stronger to gay marriage: 63 - 31 percent among all voters. Even younger voters oppose gay marriage 52 - 44 percent, while seniors are opposed 77 - 15 percent.

But American voters oppose 51 - 41 percent amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Opposition ranges from 59 - 35 percent among 18 to 34-year-old voters to 50 - 42 percent among 50 to 64-year-olds, while senior citizens support a constitutional amendment 47 - 40 percent. - Quinnipiac University poll - March 25, 2004

What these polls numbers suggest to us is that the question concerning amending the Constitution has not been properly explained to the participants and to the nation as a whole.

It's an easy assumption to make considering what the pundits, democrats, liberals and Gay activists who oppose the amendment think are the reasons the president proposed this amendment at this time. They claim President Bush seeks to discriminate against homosexuals, and use this as a wedge issue to divide us a nation and it going to use the Constitution to do it. Hogwash. It's also hogwash to suggest that the timing of his announcement was intended to shore up his support with conservatives going into an election year. But they say it anyway.

The real deal is this: Because of the decision of some activist judges in Massachusetts, and some renegade mayors across this country who refuse to abide by the Constitution and the laws of their states, the drastic step of adding an amendment to our constitution defining marriage, now is a necessity.

When the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled on this issue, the president didn't act, but was watching carefully to see what action the state legislature would take. It wasn't until an activist mayor in San Francisco, not willing to wait until the Massachusetts situation resolved itself, one way or another, led the way for other mayors across this nation to begin issuing marriage licenses to Gay couples, against their own state laws. On Valentine's Day, Gay and Lesbian couples started lining up to get married in such haste as to make Las Vegas look like a long term, thoughtful wedding process.

It was under these circumstances, and with the clear understanding that the current Federal statute, The Defense of Marriage Act, (DOMA), would very likely not stand up to judicial

scrutiny, that President Bush decided he had no other choice but to recommend an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

It's been 30 years since the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental illness. It's been about 6 six years since "Ellen" came out on her national television show. Three years or so later, Rosie O'Donnell made her sexual orientation public. Will and Grace has been on the air for 5 years, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is this year's new phenomenon in some circles.

Yes, Gays are in the mainstream both in the media and in our neighborhoods. They work in our offices, live next door; serve in our state legislatures, in the United States Congress and in the Bush Administration.

Gays and Lesbians deserve, rightfully so, every individual right as a citizen of this country as any other citizen. No one should be discriminated against in employment or housing.

But, herein lies the rub. Gays activists in this country have moved the debate with warp speed from acceptance and individual rights straight to the altar to create a new right to marry. They've skipped over many fights being waged in local communities as to domestic registries, benefits, or civil unions. The renegade mayors of San Francisco, New Paltz, NY, New Mexico, and Oregon have committed anarchy in the name of civil rights and have set back the cause of civil unions, domestic registries, and rights of survivorship a decade.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court has aided and abetted this effort in an act of hubris unbelievable in its chutzpah. We won't bore you with all the details, but in a careful reading of the entire Court's decision, the majority of the court maintains that their actions:

• will have NO effect on other states

• that they are cognizant that they are in fact, redefining marriage for an entire nation

• that they are within their rights to do so

• that marriage was never anything but a civil contract between two willing participants to the exclusion of all others and

• to deny that "right" to Gays and lesbians violates the Massachusetts constitution.

In the dissenting opinion, however, the minority correctly maintains that the majority opinion:

• has transformed its role as protector of individual rights into the role of "creator of rights."

• they also correctly point out that historically when a law has been declared unconstitutional and rights have been expanded it was due to a blatantly discriminatory practice that needed to be reversed. You've heard activists make the claim that the constitution has never been amended to deny a person rights, for example.

• here the Massachusetts court has created a new right for "couples."

• No individual has ever been denied a right to marriage in Massachusetts.

The Civil Rights Acts of the 20th Century, the Supreme Court decision that stuck down remaining miscegenation laws that prevented Caucasians from marrying non-Caucasians and other advances in civil rights correctly sought to correct laws that intentionally discriminated against individual persons. Our marriage laws do not and have never previously been construed, to, intentionally discriminate against Gays and Lesbians.

Gay activists have compared their plight to the Civil Rights movement. They proclaim they are being denied equal protection under the law, much as African-Americans were for much of the 20th Century. African-American leaders across the country, including Jesse Jackson are outraged by such comparisons, as well they should be. As Jesse Jackson stated, "Gays were never considered 2/3 of a person". And while it took this country much longer than necessary to right the wrongs of our own history, two wrongs, certainly don't make a right. And to make the point once more, amendments to our constitution have been necessary to correct previous individual discrimination, not to create a new right and designation for any couple.

In fact, the framers of the Constitution would never have imagined that a specific protection for an historic institution such as our families and marriage would have been necessary.

But the mess that the Massachusetts court, the renegade mayors, and the activists have enjoined the country in, now forces us to define what marriage has historically meant and what it means for the future.

Gay activists over the course of years were making headway in achieving benefits from employers, domestic registries in some cities, civil unions in Vermont and the like. As it should be, individual states were deciding through their legislatures, what, if any benefits to confer on Gay couples or conversely, to amend their constitutions to define marriage as one man, one woman.

Now the illegal rush to "marry" is causing the systems of justice and lawmaking in this country to be turned on its head and set back the progress that had been making its way through the state process for Gays and Lesbians everywhere. Whether or not you agree that any benefits should be conferred to Gay and Lesbian couples, the proper course to address these fundamental changes is through the state legislature process, as they are our representatives. It's a very complicated issue that we're sure is causing legal issues and problems in the one state that has civil unions, Vermont. The mechanisms to deal with the ramifications of a Vermont civil union in other states, has not been addressed nor has the "divorce or separation" issues of these unions.

The more fundamental issue for us as a country is to be able to articulate our belief system as a nation, in terms of what the institution of marriage has always meant to us, and what we want it to continue to be without being labeled as haters. The poll mentioned above confirms that as a nation, we believe that marriage is the coming together of a man and a woman uniting in matrimony, more times than not, before God, to create a union of one for the purposes of creating a family and the procreation of children.

Whether or not those ideals have degraded over time because of divorce, out of wedlock childbearing and designer children by single mothers, is beside the point. Because the stability of the institution of marriage has eroded so horribly is no excuse not to keep trying to improve the viability of it for our children. They are our future and we owe them more than a 50% divorce rate in this country and bringing them into this world without the benefit of two loving married parents, dedicated to giving them every opportunity for security and success. There are numerous studies showing that children thrive best in an intact, married family unit.

The people of America are compassionate, tolerant, and loving. They believe that Gays and Lesbians should have the same individual rights as citizens of this country to work and live and be. They can live together, create legal protections, and lobby for benefits to their employers, or further lobby to their states to be legally recognized in some fashion. Where the people of America overwhelmingly draw the line, is the institution of marriage. That's our sacred institution upon which this country was founded for the betterment of society, our children, and our future.

So much that has made our country great and unique, is falling by the wayside. Progress can be a wonderful thing. However, over the course of the last 40 years, this recent issue as well as many others have denigrated marriage and family as our most vital social institution, and have made us forget from whence we came, when the family was our core, the center of our existence, our reason for being. Beyond the furor of the Gay marriage issue, we also need to look in the mirror at our own failings with regard to marriage and family. This has to be remedied now, for us, for the children, for our country.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.