HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE

The conservative case against homosexual marriage is concisely and soberly put here (Link via Keith Burgess-Jackson). For the life of me, though, I cannot see that modern marriage is much influenced by the legal codes that surround it. As far as I can see, modern-day Western marriage is a totally individual thing: There as many types of marriage as there are couples and marriages will be good or bad because of the values, character, beliefs and attitudes of the couple concerned only. Marriage has ALREADY changed enormously from what it was -- not because of any legal changes but because of the advent of the contraceptive pill. Any committment and staying together between a man and a woman these days is entirely the doing of the couple concerned, not the effect of any regulatory framework. I just think that what a few homosexuals do or are allowed to do is irrelevant to heterosexual marriage. Perhaps I am missing something, however, so I reproduce below some more interesting conservative comments on the matter.

Jeff Jacoby says that the push for homosexual marriage is nothing like the civil rights movement of the 60s.

Sowell: "Gay marriage" is not a local issue but a national issue because maintaining the rule of law - or what is left of it - is a national issue of historic importance if we are not to see the United States degenerate into the world's largest banana republic, or worse. The time is long overdue to start impeaching judges who think their job is to veto laws they don't like or condone lawlessness that they agree with. The time is also long overdue to re-examine lifetime appointments of judges, which allows them to act like little tin gods, at the expense of our freedom and the country's elected government. An independent judiciary does not mean judges independent of the Constitution from which they derive their power or independent of the laws that they are sworn to uphold". There is more from Sowell here.

How homosexual marriage in Scandanavia has undermined marriage: "Today's gay activists in Scandinavia, having gotten everything they wanted, now admit that their case for homosexual marriage --particularly that allowing gays to marry will encourage a monogamous lifestyle --was only a tactical argument. The goal, says Mr. Kurtz, citing two prominent gay thinkers, "was not marriage but social approval for homosexuality." "

An Australian reader writes: "I probably would have more respect for the homosexual marriage push if it were part of a serious movement to promote monogamy amongst homosexuals, however it seems primarily aimed at increasing the social approval of homosexuality as suggested by the Scandanavian article. I think here in NSW that any live in relationship beyond about 6 months qualifies as a de facto relationship for legal reasons. I doubt whether the majority of homosexuals have considered the potential legal and financial risks for exploitation this opens up for them."

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