From Frank Turek and Impactapologetics.com.
What about equal rights?
Answer: First, everyone in America has the same rights. We all have the same right to marry any qualified person from the opposite sex. What homosexuals want is special rights– the special right to marry someone of the same sex. But why stop there? If homosexuals have a right to get married, then how can they say a man has no right to marry his daughter, his dog, his father, or three women and a poodle? Should bisexuals be permitted to marry two people?
Second, the government is not taking away the “rights” of homosexuals to have relationships. Homosexuals can relate any way they want, but they have no “right” to have that relationship recognized by the state. That’s why the same-sex marriage movement has more to do with respect than rights. Greg Koukl puts this very well: “Same-sex marriage is not about civil rights. It’s about validation and social respect. It is a radical attempt at civil engineering using government muscle to strong-arm the people into accommodating a lifestyle many find deeply offensive, contrary to nature, socially destructive, and morally repugnant.” Same-sex marriage advocate Andrew Sullivan understands this. He writes, “Including homosexuals within marriage would be a means of conferring the highest form social approval imaginable.”
Indeed. Homosexuals want the courts to grant them legal and, therefore, social approval for their lifestyle because they know that they cannot win such approval by a fair vote of the people. Until the Massachusetts Supreme Court overstepped its authority, “we the people” have decided which sexual relationships are worthy of legal recognition and which are not. And “we the people” have done so not on arbitrary grounds, but in light of the natural biological design and compatibility of a man and a woman and all of the benefits that come from their union. In other words, we legally recognize and confer benefits on marriage because marriage benefits our society at large. Americans, like virtually every civilized people before us, have put marriage alone in privileged class because marriage alone is supremely beneficial.
Finally, while proponents of same-sex marriage cast this as a moral issue (that’s why they use the word “rights”), they lack any moral authority for their position. By whose standard of morality must same-sex marriage be legalized? Certainly the Constitution says nothing about same-sex marriage. Is there a standard beyond the Constitution? Yes, God– but God is the last subject homosexual activists want to bring up. If they appeal to God and His absolute Moral Law– the Moral Law the Declaration of Independence says is “self-evident”– then they have to make the case that God believes same-sex marriage is a right. That’s anything but self-evident as the entire history of religion, human civilization, and the design of the human body attests.
Opposition to same-sex marriage is a violation of the Separation of Church and State
Answer: Even if one were to accept the erroneous, court-invented claim that the constitution requires a strict separation of church and state, it would not mean that state opposition to same-sex marriage violates the constitution. Churches also teach that murder, rape and child abuse are wrong, but no one says laws prohibiting such acts comprise a violation of the “separation of church and state.” In fact, if the government could not pass laws consistent with church teachings, then all criminal laws would have to be overturned because they are all in some way consistent with at least one of the Ten Commandments.
Second, there are churches on both sides of this issue. In other words, some churches actually support same-sex marriage. So if there is a strict separation of church and state, then I suppose we can’t put the pro-same-sex marriage position into law either, right? Homosexual activists don’t want to go there.
This separation-of-church-and-state objection involves a failure to distinguish between religion and morality. Religion involves our duty to God; but morality involves our duty to one another. Our lawmakers are not telling people how, when, or if to worship—that would be legislating religion. But lawmakers cannot avoid telling people how they should treat one another— that’s legislating morality.
Contrary to popular opinion, all laws legislate morality. Morality is about right and wrong, and every law legally declares one behavior right and its opposite wrong. So the question is not whether we can legislate morality. The question is, “Whose morality should we legislate?”
For thousands of years, we’ve legislated the self-evident truth that man is meant for woman. Now suddenly homosexuals—long critical of conservatives for trying to “legislate morality”—are trying to legislate their own morality in the form of same-sex marriage. They want to ignore self-evident truths and impose their own moral position on the entire country. The only question is, should we continue to legislate the morality that nurtures the next generation (traditional marriage), or the new one that entices it to destruction (same-sex marriage)?
Don’t write Discrimination into the Constitution
Answer: Too late. It’s already there. In fact, all laws discriminate. But it’s discrimination against behavior, not persons; and it is discrimination with cause not without. For example, the First Amendment’s freedom-of-religion protections discriminate against the behavior of Muslims who want to impose Islam on the entire nation, but it does not discriminate against Muslims as persons.
And the Thirteenth Amendment discriminates against the behavior of some businessmen who might like to improve their profits through slavery, but it does not discriminate against businessmen as persons. Likewise, our marriage laws discriminate against the desired behaviors of homosexuals, polygamists, bigamists, adulterers, and the incestuous among us, but they do not discriminate against them as persons. People who have homosexual desires want to be considered a special class of people that deserves special legal rights. But if we begin to classify people according to their desires or personality traits, where does it end? Should we have a special class for shy people? After all, they’re at a social disadvantage to extroverts. No, that would be absurd. If we start to classify people by what they desire to do sexually, then we would have to give all sexual preferences and all sexual behaviors special legal status, including polygamy, incest, pedophilia, bestiality, adultery, rape, etc. “But those behaviors are harmful!” you say. Exactly, and so is homosexuality. So why is it legitimate to carve out a special case for homosexuality but not for those other behaviors? Are there any desires people ought not act on?
Perhaps we should use our common sense and classify people according to the way they were designed—male and female. In other words, we should be classified by our humanity and gender, not our feelings. We are men and women, not hetero-or-homosexuals. Therefore, limiting marriage to a man and a woman does not discriminate against people of any kind because our population consists of only two kinds of people: men and women!
Preventing Same-sex marriage is Bigotry.
Answer: Opposition to same-sex marriage is not based on bigotry, but on good reason. Consider murder, rape and incest. Our laws rightly discriminate against those behaviors because those behaviors are harmful. Imagine murderers, rapists or the incestuous calling us “bigots” for enacting those laws. Such laws are the antithesis of bigotry. Bigotry involves pre-judging something for no good reason. But laws against murder, rape, and incest are based on good reason. Namely, we reasonably conclude that the health and welfare of the public are higher values than allowing individuals to do whatever they want.
The same holds true with preserving marriage. The health and welfare of the public are higher values than allowing individuals to marry whomever they want. We don’t discriminate in favor of traditional marriage and against same-sex marriage out of “bigotry” or bias, but because we are sensible human beings who draw on thousands of years of evidence to conclude that one sexual relationship is more beneficial than any other. Some behaviors are better than others. That’s not bigotry, but wisdom!
Of course, proponents of same-sex marriage will continue to call us bigots, which may be
considered evidence that their case is flawed. Since they can’t win on the merits, their only recourse is to divert attention through name calling.
By the way, the bigotry charge is another case of selective morality on the part of homosexual activists. While resistance to same-sex marriage is clearly not bigotry as they claim, we might ask them, “Why is bigotry wrong? From what moral standard are you arguing? Why can you recognize that bigotry is absolutely wrong, but refuse to admit that homosexual behavior is wrong as well?” Indeed, homosexuals acknowledge the Moral Law when it comes to the immorality of bigotry, but they conveniently ignore it when comes to their own homosexual behavior.
Same-sex marriage is Like Interracial Marriage.
Answer: No, interracial marriage was opposed without any valid grounds. Opponents hid their prejudice with false speculation about birth defects and the like. But since all “races” interbreed, there is no such thing as interracial marriage. Actually, there is only one race– the human race. At best, there is inter-ethnic marriage which is still between men and women. Same-sex marriage is between man-man or woman-woman. That’s completely different. Interethnic couplings are benign—the man and woman are still designed for one another. But homosexual couplings are harmful because they go against the natural design. In other words, ethnicity is irrelevant to marriage—gender is essential to it.
Ironically, it’s same-sex marriage proponents who are reasoning like racists. Instead of asking the state to recognize the preexisting institution of marriage, homosexuals are asking the state to define marriage. Well, that’s exactly the line of reasoning racists used in their effort to prevent inter-racial marriage. Racists wanted the state to define marriage as only between same race couples, instead of having the state recognize what marriage already was—the procreative union of a man and a woman regardless of their racial/ethnic background. While racists and homosexuals may want to alter the legal definition of marriage, they cannot alter the laws of nature that helped produce the recognition of legal marriage in the first place.
Homosexuality is Like Race.
Answer: No, it’s not. Sexual behavior is always a choice, race never is. You will find many former homosexuals, but you will never find a former African-American.
This analogy falsely assumes a homosexual act is a condition rather than a behavior. Skin color is a condition; a sexual act is behavior. Someone could be a “homosexual’ in the sense of having gay feelings, but not act on them. The same can be said of a celibate person with heterosexual feelings. So technically speaking, there are no heterosexuals or homosexuals—there are only males and females. For convenience we call people heterosexuals or homosexuals, when it would be more accurate to refer to such people as “people who desire to engage in heterosexual acts” and “people who desire to engage in homosexual acts.” In other words, we are males and females by condition, and heterosexuals or homosexuals by behavior.
But Homosexuals Were Born that Way!
Answer: If there is a real genetic component to homosexual desires, it has not been discovered. But even if there is a genetic component to desires, that would not give license to behavior. All of us have desires that we ought not act on. There have been genetic links made to a desire for alcohol, but who would advocate alcoholism? If someone has a genetic attraction to children, does that justify pedophilia? What homosexual activist would say that a genetic predisposition to violence justifies gay-bashing? Desires do not justify behaviors. In fact, there’s a word we use to describe the disciplined restraint of destructive desires– it’s called civilization.
But homosexual activists will have none of this. Instead of restraining negative behaviors,
homosexual activists are asking us not just to tolerate, but to endorse them. If we adopt their narcissistic demands—as J.D. Unwin documented by his study of 86 civilizations– it may be just a few generations before our nation is destroyed from within.
But Same-sex marriage is About Love.
Answer: Even if that were true, so what? Our culture associates marriage with love, but love is not the central purpose the state recognizes marriage. The state recognizes marriage because it is the best way to produce children and propagate a stable society. Homosexual unions by nature cannot do that.
But even if love is seen as a reason for marriage, we must ask, “What kind of love typifies a homosexual relationship?” Are there men who really feel drawn romantically to other men? No doubt. Are there men who really have a deep sense of commitment to other men, wish to care for them, and be intimate with them? No doubt.
But the same might be said of a man and his daughter, a man and a child, or three men and a woman. Should those people act on their sexual desires? If they did, would their actions truly be seeking the ultimate good of the person or persons they were trying to “love?” No. Sometimes sexual acts can be unloving. In fact, even sexual acts inside of marriage can be unloving—when they are medically dangerous for example. This is the very case with homosexual acts. They are medically dangerous. When sex is medically dangerous, the most loving thing you can do is not have sex with that person.
Some may argue that, “When two adults consent to engage in homosexual acts they are
each seeking the good of the other. Each person wants it and chooses it.” But if you truly love someone, will you do something that will seriously hurt or kill them? Having homosexual sex with someone does just that. It’s been documented to cause disease and to shorten life spans dramatically (one study showed the median age of death in the early 40’s for gay men and women without AIDS26). With the consequences so severe, if a man really “loved” another man, he wouldn’t engage in homosexual acts with him. Besides, sex isn’t the only way you can demonstrate your love for someone. Men can demonstrate their love for one another without having sex. In fact, most of our loving relationships are non-sexual.
I Know Loving Homosexuals Couples with Children Who Have Been Together For Years
Answer: Yes, some homosexuals live long healthy lives, and some homosexuals turn out to be better parents than some heterosexuals. But the data shows that such people are the exception rather than the rule. And laws cannot be based on exceptions. For example, we don’t stop warning people about the dangers of smoking just because some smokers outlive non-smokers. Nor should we stop warning people about the dangers of homosexual behavior just because some homosexuals outlive some heterosexuals. And if we’re not going to warn them, at the very least, we ought not endorse homosexual behavior.
If laws were based on exceptions, we would have to do away with virtually every law we
have. It would require that we do away with all laws against running red lights because sometimes you can run a red light without hurting anyone. It would also require that we do away with all laws against theft because a starving man may need to steal a loaf of bread to feed his family. In fact, it would require that we do away with marriage itself because spouses in some marriages abuse one another and their children. But in doing that we’d be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Traditional marriage, as a whole, is great for society. We can’t let its exceptions prevent us from experiencing the overall benefits it produces. So, traditional marriage must remain our legal norm despite any exceptions to the rule.
Some Marriages Do Not Produce Children
Answer: Yes, but that is the exception rather than the rule. The state recognizes marriage
because marriage in general procreates and provides the most stable and nurturing environment for children. But by the facts of nature, no homosexual act can do this.
Second, sterile heterosexual marriages still affirm the connection to childbearing because
sterility is not generally known on the wedding day. And on those few instances where sterility is known (e.g. with older couples), the man-woman union still symbolizes what is generally a procreative relationship.
Furthermore, since it would not be possible or desirable for the state to attempt to determine which men and women are capable of procreation and which are not, it allows all men and woman to marry. But since no homosexual relationship produces children, no homosexual relationship deserves to be called a marriage.
Opposition to Same-sex marriage is Hate Speech
Answer: Nonsense. If that were the case, then homosexual activists would be guilty of hate speech toward heterosexuals for trying to change the definition of marriage. Political disagreement is not hate speech. And disagreement with the radical gay political agenda does not make someone an enemy of homosexuals. I am opposed to the legal endorsement of a particular behavior. I am not opposed to the people who engage in that behavior. Just because we disagree about political ends, does not mean we ought to demonize those who disagree with us.
Ironically, those of us who are reasonably pointing out the known dangers of homosexual
activity should be considered friends of homosexuals, not foes. After all, we’re the ones trying to spare homosexuals from further disease and death by telling the truth about the issue. The activists who are suppressing that truth are their real enemies.
The President is Politicizing the Constitution
Answer: President Bush didn’t create this controversy because he wanted to “energize his base.” Four members from the activist Massachusetts and New Jersey Supreme Courts have created the need for a constitutional amendment by making up rights that aren’t in their constitution. Their rulings now have the potential to become the law of every other state through the full faith and credit clause of the United States constitution. Think of that—four unelected justices can change the laws of the entire country! Talk about discrimination—that’s discrimination against the other 300 million people in this country who are entitled to govern themselves! When any court oversteps its bounds and usurps the will of the people by legislating from the bench, the only sure remedy is what the President has suggested—a constitutional amendment.
We need to set aside emotion and look at the facts. When we do, we can see clearly that a
constitutional amendment is necessary to protect our national immune system. Vote YES.
Posted by Chris 
Ken Ham
Family Action Organization 