Why the Fuss Over Same-sex Marriage

by Renee Hawkley

In the gay-marriage debate, Americans would be wise to focus less on who's right or wrong and more on stated agendas and relevant sociological data.
For example, in July, 2006, the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community published Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision for all our Families and Relationships, often referred to as the Gay Manifesto.

http://www.beyondmarriage.org/full_statement.html and
http://www.beyondmarriage.org

This document's Strategic Vision includes:

"Legal recognition for a wide range of relationships, households and families—regardless of kinship or conjugal status"
"Committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal partner"
"Queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with another queer person or couple, in two households"
" . . . to fight to make same-sex marriage just one option on a menu of choices that people have about the way they construct their lives."
Hosts of scientific studies done over the past four decades affirm that the needs of children are best served in families that are founded upon intact, monogamous, heterosexual marriage relationships.

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/healthymarriage/resources/research.html#reaearch
http://center.americanvalues.org/?p=7

This research demonstrates that further breakdown of the traditional family unit as the fundamental cornerstone of our society will likely increase current disturbing social and economic trends. The fact that many marriages fail or are not ideal does not justify expansive social experimentation or an "anything goes" approach.

According to the Manifesto, costs incurred as a result of choosing from the "menu of choices" would be solved by " . . . the expansion of existing legal statuses, social services and benefits to support the needs of all our households." Since research associates high economic and sociological costs with choices made from the Manifesto's "menu of choices," the astronomical price tags resulting from such "social services and benefits" can only be imagined.

Tolerance for adult sexual partners to live as they wish is one thing. Facilitating hazardous and naive strategic visions is quite another. A truly visionary society will initiate and protect laws that best correlate with the healthy upbringing of its children. Voters in AZ, CO, ID, SC, SD, TN and WI will be able to establish such laws on November 7th by voting "yes" to the Marriage Protection Amendments in their respective States.