Gay Marriage Should Be Legal

(I know what I'm doing this time) The institution of marrige has been traditionally been defined as being between a man and a woman. In upholding gay marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee on Nov. 6, 2014, 6th US District Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton wrote that "marriage has long been a social institution defined by relationships between men and women. So long defined, the tradition is measured in millennia, not centuries or decades. So widely shared, the tradition until recently had been adopted by all governments and major religions of the world." [117] In the Oct. 15, 1971 decision Baker v. Nelson, the Supreme Court of Minnesota found that "the institution of marriage as a union of man and woman, uniquely involving the procreation and rearing of children within a family, is as old as the book of Genesis." [49] John F. Harvey, MA, STL, late Catholic priest, wrote in July 2009 that "Throughout the history of the human race the institution of marriage has been understood as the complete spiritual and bodily communion of one man and one woman." [18] [109] Another reason would be that marriage is for procreation and should not be extended to same-sex couples beause they cannot produce children together. Allowing gay marriage would only further shift the purpose of marriage from producing and raising children to adult gratification. [19] A California Supreme Court ruling from 1859 stated that "the first purpose of matrimony, by the laws of nature and society, is procreation." [90] Nobel Prize-winning philosopher Bertrand Russell stated that "it is through children alone that sexual relations become important to society, and worthy to be taken cognizance of by a legal institution." [91] Court papers filed in July 2014 by attorneys defending Arizona's gay marriage ban stated that "the State regulates marriage for the primary purpose of channeling potentially procreative sexual relationships into enduring unions for the sake of joining children to both their mother and their father... Same-sex couples can never provide a child with both her biological mother and her biological father." Contrary to the pro gay marriage argument that some different-sex couples cannot have children or don't want them, even in those cases there is still the potential to produce children. Seemingly infertile heterosexual couples sometimes produce children, and medical advances may allow others to procreate in the future. Heterosexual couples who do not wish to have children are still biologically capable of having them, and may change their minds. [98] Children need both a mother and a father. Girls who are raised apart from their fathers are reportedly at higher risk for early sexual activity and teenage pregnancy. [52] Children without a mother are deprived of the emotional security and unique advice that mothers provide. A 2012 study by Mark Regnerus, PhD, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, found that children raised by parents who had same-sex relationships suffered more difficulties in life (including sexual abuse and unemployment in later life) than children raised by "intact biological famil[ies]." [133] Doug Mainwaring, the openly gay co-founder of National Capital Tea Party Patriots, stated that "it became increasingly apparent to me, even if I found somebody else exactly like me, who loved my kids as much as I do, there would still be a gaping hole in their lives because they need a mom... I don't want to see children being engineered for same-sex couples where there is either a mom missing or a dad missing." [53] CON (no) The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) said in a June 26, 2015 statement posted on its website titled "God Defined Marriage": "God designed marriage for humanity. As first described in Genesis and later affirmed by Jesus, marriage is a God-ordained, covenant relationship between a man and a woman. This lifelong, sexually exclusive relationship brings children into the world and thus sustains the stewardship of the earth. Biblical marriage """ marked by faithfulness, sacrificial love and joy " displays the relationship between God and his people... Nothing in the Supreme Court"s Obergefell v. Hodges opinion changes the truth about marriage. What has changed is the legal definition of marriage, which is now at variance with orthodox biblical faith as it has been affirmed across the centuries and as it is embraced today by nearly two billion Christians in every nation on earth. In its role as a moral teacher, the law now misleads Americans about the true nature of marriage. Evangelicals and other followers of the Bible have a heightened opportunity to demonstrate the attractiveness of loving Christian marriages and families. Evangelicals should renew their commitment to the sacrificial love and covenantal faithfulness to which Jesus calls all husbands and wives." My last example example would be that legalizing gay marriage could lead down a "slippery slope," giving people in polygamous, incestuous, bestial, and other nontraditional relationships the right to marry. Glen Lavy, JD, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, argued in a May 21, 2008 Los Angeles Times op-ed, "The movement for polygamy and polyamory is poised to use the successes of same-sex couples as a springboard for further de-institutionalizing marriage." [11] In Apr. 2013 Slate writer Jillian Keenan wrote: "Just like heterosexual marriage is no better or worse than homosexual marriage, marriage between two consenting adults is not inherently more or less 'correct' than marriage among three (or four, or six) consenting adults." [71] James C. Dobson, Founder and Chairman of Focus on the Family, predicted in 2005 that legalizing same-sex marriage will enable "group marriage," "marriage between daddies and little girls," and "marriage between a man and his donkey." [136] Sources: http://www.allaboutlove.org... http://gaymarriage.procon.org... National Association of Evangelicals (NAE)