Gay Marriage should not be legal

The discussion over whether the state ought to recognize gay marriage has thus far focused on the issue as one of civil rights. This argument is erroneous because the state recognition of marriage is not a universal right. States regulate marriage in many ways besides denying couples of the same sex from marrying. Many states prohibit first cousins from marrying, and all prohibit marriage of closer blood relatives, even if the individuals being married are sterile. In all states, it is illegal to attempt to marry more than one person. and some states restrict the marriage of people suffering from syphilis or other diseases. Homosexuals, therefore, are not the only people to be denied the right to marry the person of their choosing. Many groups and types of people are denied this union. I bring these people up to illustrate that marriage is heavily regulated, and for good reason. When a state recognizes a marriage, it bestows upon the wedded couple select benefits which are costly to the state. Married couples can collect their dead spouse's social security entitlements, be covered under their spouse's health insurance plan, and claim an additional tax exempt status for a spouse. Basically, a married couple receives a subsidy. Why? Because a marriage between two unrelated heterosexuals is more likely to result in a family with children than that marriage between two unrelated homosexuals. The propagation of society is a compelling state interest and it is for that reason that states have kept marriage from couples unlikely to produce children. Does this mean that we should exclude all people who cannot propagate society? Simply put: no. A small minority of married couples are infertile but excluding them from marriage would be too bothersome. Of the few sterile couples who are married, few of the spouses know they are sterile. Furthermore, with fertility tests being way too expensive and burdensome to mandate and force upon all potentially sterile couples, states choose to let them marry. On blood relatives: Some argue that the exclusion of blood relatives from marriage is only necessary to prevent the conception of genetically defective children but blood relatives still cannot marry even if they undergo a sterilization process. There are even some couples who marry plan not to have children, but since the State does not know whether or not John and Jill will have kids, excluding them is impossible. Some still point to the elderly and the fact that they cannot help propagate society and while that is true, such cases are so rare that it is simply not worth the effort by the State to restrict them. The marriage laws help to insure, though not without flaw, that the vast majority of couples that receive the benefits from being legally married are those same couples who will bear children. Homosexual relationships do absolutely nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society. Unless these marriages serve some other "state" interest, there is no reason for the state to bestow upon them the costly benefits of marriage. The burden of proof is currently on the advocates of gay marriage to show what state interest these marriages serve. So far, this burden has not been met as all we hear from the gay activists is that this is about "gay rights". Show me where it says on the law books that marriage is a right to be bestowed upon on all couples who "feel the love." You cannot, as no such law exists. On the issue of homosexual couples and propagation, one may argue that lesbians are capable of procreating via artificial insemination, so the state does have an interest in recognizing lesbian marriages. Ok, that sounds good until you recognize the fact that a lesbian's sexual relationship, committed in a marriage or not, has no bearing on her ability to reproduce. A lesbian can propagate society without needing marriage so again, there is no reason to bestow costly unions there. Perhaps it may serve a state interest to recognize gay marriages to make it easier for gay couples to adopt. However there is research being done that suggests children need both a male and female parent for proper development. Statistics become flawed as small sample sizes and other methodological problems make it impossible to draw conclusions from studies that directly examine the effects of gay parenting. There are just too many variables to accurately come to a definitive conclusion on the positives and negatives from gay parenting. However, the common wisdom about the importance of a mother and father in a child's development should at least bring advocates of gay adoption to a pause. The differences between men and women extend beyond anatomical structure and can be found in societal roles. Society has been founded upon a heterosexual family culture and unit and that practice has extended into every aspect of life. It therefore becomes essential for a child to be nurtured by parents of both sexes if a child is to learn to function in a society made up of both sexes. Let us be clear: I would never say that gays are bad parents or that they would necessarily make their children gay, but they cannot provide a set of parents that includes both a male and a female. Some have compared the prohibition of homosexual marriage to the prohibition of interracial marriage. This analogy fails because fertility does not depend on race, making race irrelevant to the state's interest in marriage. By contrast, homosexuality is highly relevant because it precludes procreation. Some argue that homosexual marriages serve a state interest because they enable gays to live in committed relationships. However, there is nothing stopping homosexuals from living in such relationships. Advocates of gay marriage claim gay couples need marriage in order to have hospital visitation and inheritance rights, but they can easily obtain these rights by writing a living will and having each partner designate the other as trustee and heir. There is nothing stopping gay couples from signing a joint lease or owning a house jointly, as many single straight people do with roommates. The only benefits of marriage from which homosexual couples are restricted are those that are costly to taxpayers. Some argue that the link between marriage and procreation is not as strong as it once was, and they are correct. Until recently, the primary purpose of marriage in every society around the world has been procreation. Recently, Western societies have downplayed the procreative aspect of marriage, much to our detriment. As a result, the happiness of the parties to the marriage, rather than the good of the children or the social order, has become its primary end, with disastrous consequences. When married persons care more about themselves than their responsibilities to their children and society, they become more willing to abandon these responsibilities, leading to broken homes, a plummeting birthrate, and countless other social pathologies that have become rampant over the last 40 years. Homosexual marriage is not the cause for any of these pathologies, but it will exacerbate them, as the granting of marital benefits to a category of sexual relationships that are not reproducing can only widen the separation between marriage and procreation. The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage. If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis can it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos and financial burdens on all taxpaye