Gay marriage violates the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, David Blankenhorn announced in the face of general audience disapproval in a lecture and discussion sponsored by the Vermont Marriage Advisory Council on Sunday evening. Blankenhorn told the approximately 30 students, College staff and community members gathered in Dartmouth Hall that same-sex marriage infringes on every child's fundamental right to know and be with his or her biological parents.
Blankenhorn is the founder and president of the Institute of American Values. The institute is a public policy organization which, like VMAC, is devoted to "the renewal of marriage." Blankenhorn has written eight books on the subject.
Blankenhorn described himself as "pro-gay and liberal," but opposed to gay marriage. In his work, he has extensively questioned the current role of marriage in society.
"For two years, I went on a journey and tried to answer this short question: What is marriage?" he said. "I was left curious, puzzled and dissatisfied by the way that we as a society are answering it."
The common definition of marriage as an exclusive, private commitment of two individuals to each other is too abstract, according to Blankenhorn.
"If I asked you what an automobile is, and you replied that it is something that takes you from one place to another, that is not wrong," Blankenhorn argued. "But that means a car is the same as skis, an elevator, a helicopter."
Blankenhorn also identified the use of the word "private" as problematic.
"It is argued that a marriage is 'private,' and yet we don't get married in private," he said. "It is almost by nature a public thing. You don't sneak up to your lover and say 'I'm marrying you.'"
One audience member, who acknowledged she was raised by her biological mother and her mother's same sex partner, brought up that she was ineligible to receive reduced tuition and other benefits from her mother's partner's employer because the pair could not be legally married. Blankenhorn agreed that was one among many valid reasons to support gay marriage, but said the fundamental rights of a child outlined by the Declaration of Human Rights and Declaration of the Rights of the Child outweigh these considerations.
"The most important reason in my mind to be in favor of same-sex marriage is for those children already in such a family structure," he said. "If children were dropped down in bags by storks, I'd be for same sex marriages, but marriage is not a baby producing machine -- it exists so that every child can have a male and a female parent."
He added that the United States' refusal to sign the Declaration of Rights of a Child is "tragic."
"Beyond physical survival, the single most important thing for a child is to have its mother and its father there," he said. "If we adopt same- sex marriage, this will take us significantly down the road towards revoking this gift for our children."
Blankenhorn side-stepped one audience member's accusation that he had "grossly lied" about the Declaration of Human Rights. The audience member's claim that the document does not mention the right to have a male and female parent or to live with one's natural parents garnered applause from the audience.
"I am against [gay marriage], against it strongly, but I am against it because of the depth of conviction I feel about marriage being a gift to children," Blankenhorn said in response.
Blankenhorn agreed with audience members that most marital problems, such as the high divorce rate, pertain largely to heterosexual relationships and argued that questions about the state of marriage must go beyond the debate surrounding gay marriage.
"I believe in the equal dignity of homosexual love," Blankenhorn said. "For me, as a marriage nut, saying gay marriage does not work is not enough. There has to be a broader effort to strengthen the institution of marriage."
Blankenhorn lectures frequently about marriage and has written articles for The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.
This event was the second in a series of Marriage Matters Forums sponsored by VMAC. The council seeks to "educate Vermont on the facts about genderless marriage" through public lectures and discussions to help citizens decide whether gay marriage should be legalized.
