The Issue Of “Gay Marriage”

The issue of “gay marriage”—that is, an attempted marriage between homosexuals (two men to each other, or two women to each other) is becoming more timely and controversial across the United States, with opinion polls suggesting that even a majority of Catholics are in favor of legalization. However, homosexual “marriage” is a moral and philosophical impossibility, in that it violates God’s law (as given in Scripture and the teaching of the Church), and contradicts or prevents one of the fundamental ends of marriage—the procreation of children.

There are also three other vitally important reasons why same-sex marriage must be legally and politically resisted: its disastrous effects on society, on children, and on religious freedom.

In regard to societal effects, every culture that actively endorsed homosexuality soon afterwards fell or collapsed. An even worse fate is reserved for societies allowing men to marry other men, and women to marry women. According to the “Babylonian Talmud” (the book of Jewish rabbis’ interpretations of Scripture, written 1000 years before Christ), there has so far been only one other age of history allowing homosexual marriage: in the days of Noah, just before the Great Flood. According to Rabbi Aryeh Spero, this sin “in and of itself is so contrary to why God created the world, so contrary to the order of God’s nature, that God said then and there ‘I have to start all over . . . to annihilate the world and start from the beginning.’” This historical event, along with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, suggests that crossing certain moral lines can have calamitous results. (The commentary on the Talmud also gives new meaning to Our Lord’s words in Mt. 24:37: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”)

Secondly, the psychological health of children requires that they have, whenever possible, one mother and one father—but, in the words of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, “To legalize marriage between two people of the same sex would enshrine in the law the principle that mothers and fathers are interchangeable or irrelevant.” Many same-sex couples either raise the biological children of one partner, or seek to legally “adopt” children (as a further legal and societal validation of their status). However, this is often harmful to the children involved. According to a recent sociological study, 12% of children brought up by same-sex couples end up considering suicide as teens or adults (compared to 5% of children with heterosexual parents); 40% eventually commit infidelity in marriage (compared to 13%); they are more likely to be unemployed (28% vs. 8%); more likely to seek help from a psychotherapist (19% vs. 8%); and more likely to catch a venereal disease (40% vs. 8%). Overall, such children become adults who are statistically less healthy, poorer, and more likely to commit criminal offenses—in addition to being much more likely to suffer depression.

Thus, in no sense is same-sex marriage beneficial to any children involved. Moreover, homosexual activists often claim their goal of introducing gay education in the public school system isn’t an attempt to indoctrinate children, but simply an effort to teach them tolerance. However, according to one candid homosexual journalist, “That’s a lie. We want educators to teach future generations of children to accept queer sexuality. In fact, our very future depends on it” (Daniel Valarreal, in a May 12, 2011 article in the online journal Queerty).

What about religious freedom? If same-sex marriage is legalized, will the rights of those who refuse to endorse it for religious reasons be respected? Not if the situation in Canada is any indication. Canadian law does allow clergy to refuse to perform gay marriages, but that’s virtually the only legal protection they have regarding this issue; if a pastor preaches a sermon, or a bishop writes a pastoral letter, defending the traditional understanding of marriage and presenting the Biblical teaching on the immorality of homosexual acts, he is subject to the scrutiny of “human rights” commissions, which frequently leads to legal penalties, with no hope of appeal. Moreover, Canadian parents objecting to gay indoctrination in public schools have been told by judges that they had no right to remove their children from such instruction.

In addition to these three vitally important considerations, statistics have shown that legalizing gay marriage has resulted in fewer heterosexual marriages in Canada; marriage rates also plummeted in Spain and the Netherlands once same-sex marriage was allowed there—in other words, redefining marriage discourages people from taking it seriously. This, in fact, is the goal of some gay activists; according to Masha Gessen, a lesbian journalist, “Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there. . . . It’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist” (emphasis added).

Scripture tells us that “God made them male and female” (Mk. 10:6). The push for gay marriage (which, in many cases, involves lying, name-calling, and intimidation) has little to do with “tolerance” or “compassion”; rather, it’s a deliberate and arrogant (but ultimately doomed) attempt to overturn God’s created order. Moreover, as the Church teaches, it’s possible to love homosexuals as persons even while opposing the political and social agenda of the gay movement—and, in fact, this is what we as Catholics are required to do. Supporting and/or voting for the legalization of same-sex marriage is a serious offense in God’s eyes; as Catholics, we must instead uphold the sanctity of marriage—for only in this way can we be true to God, true to our faith, true to society’s best interests, true to our human nature, and true to our children.