Posted by
TheChair on Sunday, August 31, 2008 11:07:32 AM
"How will gay marriage hurt my marriage?"
BYU Law Professor Lynn D. Wardle, a prolific writer on family law issues, answers here. (Bookmark this pro-marriage source blog:
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/.) Effectively, Wardle argues that changing the definition of marriage so radically alters the nature of the preexisting covenants between spouses. This can only devalue and harm current marriages, not to mention the institution and the society built on it. Relying on an old allegory about the despoliation of a common pasture, Wardle writes:
Similarly, in our time, the inevitable, ultimate social consequences of letting everyone do their own thing in regard to marriage – and specifically in regard to legalizing same-sex marriage – will be at least as devastating. A weakening of the institution marriage is certain. As that institution is the foundation of social order, a weakening of social order is inevitable.
By redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, the meaning of marriage will be changed in ways that will loosen the already-impaired link between marriage and parenting; the intergenerational connections of marriage will become attenuated. The notion that marriage is a private matter will strengthen, as the public commitments and expectations of marriage erode. Sexual irresponsibility (especially infidelity and promiscuity within marriage) will grow and the moral expectations of the basic institution of society will fade as the sexual ethic of gay and lesbian lifestyles is embraced as marriage. Instability in marriages will increase as the pattern of transitory relationships of same-sex couples is included in the social understanding of what is marriage. Sexual segregation will increase and the historically gender-integrated public institution of marriage is redefined to include sexual apartheid couples. Instrumentalization of marriage partners will result from the inclusion of the gay lifestyle as an accepted form of the public institution of marriage. The transformative power of inclusion of gay and lesbian relationships in the public understanding of marriage will alter the institution of marriage as never before.