Why We Will Lose the "Gay Marriage" Debate

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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this one, it would seem, is over.  Not immediately, and maybe not even with the eventual first decision of the Supreme Court (right now, I think that the loony judge’s decision overturning Prop 8 would be overturned at the level of the Supremes; new Justice Elena Kagan has written—correctly, in this case—that the Constitution does not contain a “federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage).  But eventually, we’re going to lose this one.  An upcoming post will detail my intended response to such a development, but I won’t get into that here.

Here, though, is why we are going to lose:

  • We’re not arguing the point correctly. I watched O’Reilly and two ladies spar over the subject; O’Reilly and one of the ladies were correct, but neither challenged the ridiculous notion that marriage discriminates unfairly against gay individuals.  It patently does not; every individual in America has always had the exact same rights to marry, but it occurs to seemingly nobody to bring up what ought to be an obvious truth.  If you want to call it “discrimination” that two people of the same sex cannot marry, then you have to in the next breath call it “discrimination” that I cannot marry an already-married person, three women at the same time, my sister, or a combination of six men and nine women.  All of those items are equally “discriminatory” to the “discrimination” that occurs under current law.  This thing, I will reiterate, has exactly nothing to do with “equal rights”, and everything to do with the very definition of marriage itself (at least in the eyes of the state).  Nobody argues the point this way, though, and as long as our arguments come down to (as they did on O’Reilly) the “will of the people” versus the courts, we’re going to lose.
  • Our justice system is increasingly becoming a joke. The Constitution has been so consistently abused by judicial activists that we can hardly say that we are a constitutional republic anymore; it really comes down, not to what the Constitution says, but to what nine people say it says, and as things currently stand, four of those nine people want it to say whatever comes to their minds, and a fifth seems schizophrenic.
  • Liberalism (which spawns such aberrations as “gay marriage”) is a progressive disease. One of my final posts will talk about how easy it is to be a liberal—and it certainly is.  Without giving too much away, it’s easy to be liberal because liberalism plays to several of our worst traits as humans: intellectual laziness, the elevation of emotions over intellect, an obsession with warped versions of such character traits as tolerance and fairness, and the like.  Our media is in the tank for liberalism, and as young generations come down the pike, these factors will likely combine to create a climate in which we go beyond “live and let live” to “live and demand the state sanction”, “gay marriage” being a precursor of such a sorry turn of events.

So sorry to break the truth to you, but it seems to me that we’re whistling in the wind if we think otherwise.  More later on what Christians ought to do about it…

4 Comments

  1. Derlin on August 8, 2010 at 5:19 pm

    Here’s a well written criticism of the current decision by Judge Walker.

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/08/06/same-sex_marriage_and_the_assault_on_moral_reasoning_106652.html

    If this was an argument solely about marital rights, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I’d be quite happy if such rights were redefined so that any financial, medical, or other benefit currently restricted to a spouse was generalized to any one person so designated, must like insurance beneficiaries work today. Redefining generation upon generation of traditional marriage to now include anything but one man and one woman seems ludicrous, be it’s just like trying to define “church” as a meeting place for Muslims or “mosque” as a meeting place for Christians. It just doesn’t work that way, nor should it. Yes, a church is like a mosque, and vice-versa, but they are absolutely not the same thing.

    That said, if gays want some sort of legal marriage like institution defined as two men or two women, I don’t have a problem with that, but it should be a unique term, something that specially defines that relationship. Setting up a new institution would also prevent three people, or two people and a goat from getting married, at least until they formed a new legal term. If “marriage” as a term was reserved for one-man, one-woman, would allowing some institution for six men and nine women as suggested be a problem? From a Christian perspective I don’t see it any worse than any other non single or one-man, one-woman marriage, and from a legal perspective, I don’t see why it matters.

    I can support the local governments setting up rules for who can be “joined”, by specifying age or other fitness requirements, but beyond that, I’m not sure what role they or local pastors, ship captains, or others with the privilege of wedding two people should be.

  2. Laurie on August 9, 2010 at 6:56 pm

    Personally, I think the reason we’re not going to win is not so much about how we’re arguing it, but because more and more people are joining that side of the debate and they’ve made up their mind they will settle for nothing less than forcing us to allow gays to marry.

    We’re not on the same page, and we never will be – they’ve decided a person’s sexual identity is determined by their “orientation”; they’ve decided someone else’s “morals” shouldn’t be forced on them; they’ve decided gay marriage is a civil right. No matter what we say they will never change their minds, and vice versa.

    I agree that those who argue against gay marriage never seem to do a very good job, but I really believe that no matter how well it is argued it will never be accepted by those who support the gay agenda. They simply can’t be reasoned with because they have a different worldview and it will forever color the way they see this issue.

    • Byron on August 10, 2010 at 1:35 pm

      Only reason I might argue with you is that right now, the numbers are still on our side; in every state in which it’s been voted on, it’s lost. More of the populace is against it than is for it, BUT if we don’t marshal better arguments, those numbers will change.

  3. Laurie on August 10, 2010 at 1:44 pm

    True – and we also have these federal judges to contend with – no matter how many states are against it, if some gay couple decides to sue, some judge can choose to overturn what was already decided by the majority of people in that state.

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