News Flash: Legalized Gay Marriage Harms Society

One common argument made by proponets of gay marriage is the emotional appeal that no one will be hurt by legalized same-sex marriage and that those heterosexuals who wish to honor their marriages can still do so.  Apparently, in the UK, the argument has even been made that by opening up an official status of "married" to gay couples, marriage as an institution will be strengthened.   

That kind of argument has been forcefully answered by Dr. Patricia Morgan in her testimony before the House of Commons.  She argues, and support her view with statistics, that gay marriage will further erode the cultural commitment to the institution of marriage, and in fact, by decoupling marriage from the procreation and nurture of children, it will in fact harm society.

Her testimony is summarized at the Telegraph.
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The gist of her argument is this:

Marriage is already in decline in many countries.  Gay marriage did not initially cause that decline but it is both an effect and a cause of the continued decline, because it further separates marriage from parenthood.  
 

She argues that gay marriage has only been proposed in countries where marriage was already in chaos.  Where there is already rampant cohabitation and out of wedlock birth, there is a wedge between parenthood and the institution of marriage.  That redefinition of marriage makes gay marriage palatable to a population.  

She is quoted as asking “If marriage is only about couple relationships, and is not intrinsically connected to parenthood, why not give the leavings to homosexuals?" and "As marriage is redefined to accommodate same-sex couples, this reinforces the irrelevance of marriage to parenthood”.

That is precisely the point more gay marriage opponents need to be making and they need to stay on point.  The debate has been framed as one of fairness and justice for gay couples.  It has not been discussed often enough as an issue of parenthood.  
 

Her statistics are a bit stunning.  In Spain, for example, in the first three years after same-sex marriage was legalized by a socialist government, the number of marriages declined by 15,000 per year.  Over the next three years, that rate of decline rose to 34,000 fewer marriages per year.  In addition, heterosexual marriages became less stable.  

Meanwhile the oft-cited "monogamous gay relationship" seemed once again elusive as gay couples were 12 times more likely to break apart than destabilized heterosexual couples.

One might think a rational response would be that a society should slow down on the redefinition of the most basic social unit.  Instead, gay marriage advocates have dug in, stepping up ridicule and persecution of defenders of traditional marriage.
  
Dr. Morgan notes:   “Undermined and stigmatized for their unreasonableness and prejudice, the moral authority of religious institutions will further retreat in favour of a narrow secular ideology, particularly as sexual behaviour at odds with traditional norms is further encouraged and advanced.” 

“Some clearly hope that compulsion to perform same sex weddings will sever Church and state and further push Christianity out of the public arena and, therefore, consciousness.”

 

So, while increasingly, professed Christian leaders embrace the progressive ideal of same-sex marriage or civil unions and support their contention with strained interpretations of biblical passages, real analysis of real life data show that the traditional view has served society well for 3400 years for a reason, and a British sociologist has to do the work progressive Christian leaders often will not - making a rational defense of the relationship between marriage and parenthood.  

Progressive Christians will wax poetic about needing to have a "conversation" about the gay marriage issue.  A conversation is what they want only if they sense the uninformed can be swayed.   Once one shows signs of being committed to a traditional view, one will quickly be labeled a hater or bigot. I fully expect this issue will be advanced with brutal force in the days ahead.   And I doubt that any amount of analysis, no matter how compelling, will matter.  

Update:  The Catholic Herald reports that a man has now been legally married to two women in Brazil.

So the "slippery slope"  not only exists, it has been vindicated.  Gay marriage can and will lead to even stranger definitions of marriage.  And the simple right of children to have a lifelong relationship with their biological parents in a stable home will be eviscerated in the name of fairness to adults who wish to enter into any of a variety of sexual unions.