While I'm On the Subject...

Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.

Yesterday’s post had to do with the reaction of many gay activists to the passage of California’s Proposition 8. As long as I’m dealing with the subject, I may as well go way out on a limb and state my own view of the issue.

Here is the central question as I see it, all moral and religious arguments aside: Does a society have the right to grant special status to social structures that are in that society’s best interests? I believe that it does, and it appears that a majority of Americans agree with me.

What does that have to do with gay marriage? Simply this: Many studies have concluded that the best of all possible environments for raising a child is a traditional family, with both a father and a mother who actively participate in loving and raising the child. Are there obvious exceptions? Of course there are. Some heterosexual couples are terrible parents, and it wouldn’t be difficult to come up with an example of a same-sex couple and a heterosexual couple where the same-sex couple would be the better parents. In addition, some marriages break up (as do some civil unions), and children are harmed in the process and/or end up in a single-parent household. But in general, the best environment for raising a child is a traditional family.

Clearly, there are few (if any) things more vital to the future of any society than the well-being of that society’s children. So it follows that it is in society’s best interests to encourage the family structure that has proven to be the best environment for healthy child-development. Hence the special status granted to traditional marriage.

Gay activists want society’s blessing on the concept that same-sex relationships are in every way equivalent to heterosexual relationships. But they aren't. There is one thing that a same-sex relationship cannot do, and that is provide a mother/father bonded pair for the raising of children. And that is why, personally, while I support the concept that same-sex couples – or any “civil union” partnership, for that matter, including, say, one between elderly siblings – should have the same rights in regard to dependent coverage on health insurance policies, hospital visitation rights, inheritance rights, etc., I also believe that there is something special about a traditional marriage that sets it apart from any other kind of partnership and makes it worthy of special recognition.

So far, the majority of our society appears to agree with this position, judging from the fact that every time the issue has ever been subjected to a vote of the people, traditional marriage has won. If society as a whole changes its mind on the issue, and expresses that change at the ballot box, so be it. In the meantime, society should continue to have the right to encourage the social structures it believes to be in its best interests.

Thanks for listening.