The unity of the human experience through all time is now encapsulated by the four-letter concept called "love." What is love? No amount of Beatles songs, haiku poetry or monumental constructions can fully describe love. If anything, people from all over can agree that love means different things to different people and has universal value that transcends religion and law. The dictionary can attempt to define love, but love is indefinite. I would argue that the current debate regarding a national ban on same-sex marriage is about love, actually.
Most recently, President Bush has urged that an exceptional step be taken and for a constitutional amendment to be passed banning same-sex marriages. This measure has come to bear the anodyne name of "Federal Marriage Amendment." The amendment should really be called the "National Love Abridgement Act;" after all, there are extralegal and discriminatory motivations for passing this amendment. Robert Benne and Gerald McDermott argue in Christianity Today that, "We believe there are compelling reasons why the institutionalization of gay marriage would be 1) bad for marriage, 2) bad for children and 3) bad for society."
Bad for marriage? Bioevolutionary scientists argue that monogamy developed because polygamous proto-humans couldn't adequately provide for their offspring, and marriage became the codification of this. But legal marriage and reasons for getting married have shifted and changed throughout human history. Marriage has become much more than such a strict structural sexual definition would suggest it to be, a definition that essentially equates legal marriage with procreation. What about other reasons such as money, pleasure, status and love?
Bad for children? Benne and McDermott argue on the assumption that, because homosexuality is "bad," "research has also shown that children raised by homosexuals were more dissatisfied with their own gender, suffer a greater rate of molestation within the family, and have homosexual experiences more often." Could it be that in certain places in America where there exists a society that discriminates against homosexuality and that is intolerant of views other than their own would cause some homosexual children or children raised by homosexuals to be unhappy with the way they are treated? Counterfactually how would a marriage amendment help children of gay couples?
Bad for society? This assertion, again, is wrong. This argument is not falsifiable and circular. It is dependent on one's opinion on the morality of homosexuality, which some evangelical Christians equate with sin. Also, a 2001 Barna Research poll suggests that born-again Christians are just as likely to divorce as all other heterosexual groups.
In one of his latest addresses to reporters, President Bush expressed his decision to pursue a same-sex ban as attempting to uphold heterosexual marriage as the ideal. But constitutionally, people have the First Amendment right to beliefs and also the right to be free from being imposed upon by other's beliefs. Not only is one protected from another's beliefs, but our system protects the rights of the minority from the domination of the majority, a principal tenet of Madisonian democracy. And how exactly does it hurt one person if another person is extended the inalienable right of expressing love? It would be bad, from a constitutional and humanist standpoint, for the concept of marriage to be confined to heterosexual relationships.
Why do some American Christian evangelists see it as their "crusade" to stop gay marriage? Evangelical Christians often point to passages in the Bible (Deuteronomy 23:18, the story of Lot in Sodom, Leviticus 18:22) as proof that homosexuality is morally "wrong," yet translations of the original text, especially of the Leviticus verse have changed over the years and the text now reflects contemporary bias. The word "homosexual" (which appears in some translations of the verse and many Bible commentaries) didn't even come into common usage until somewhere between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Most of Leviticus is about practices that are no longer observed. Deuteronomy states that one should marry your brother's wife if she is widowed.
American history has progressed along a path of not just tolerance but inclusiveness. Let us not take a major step backwards. Let us embrace our founding Enlightenment ideals as a starting point to move towards a better future. After all, a little document written at the birth of this nation proclaims, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Love is essential to happiness and for many people marriage is essential to love.
