Christian Worldview Concepts

A Case Against Gay Marriage

A Historical Argument

Many gay activists contend that marriage is principally a religious custom and that the prohibitions against same sex marriage actually impose a religious interpretation on their relationships. Thus, they argue that marriages recognized by the State should not be forced to meet overtly religious standards.

However, while marriage does arise from religious traditions, heterosexual marriage itself serves a measurable good for secular society. Therefore, there is ample justification for the State to preserve and protect the special status of heterosexual marriage. A society can do just fine without homosexual unions, but it cannot survive without heterosexual ones. Medically assisted procreation technologies notwithstanding, same sex marriages offer nothing distinctive to society.

There is no historical precedent for state sanction of homosexual marriage. While homosexual practice has arguably been present in virtually every culture, there exist no records to support the notion that any society provided legal endorsement of homosexual marriage. Furthermore, there are no historical accounts of any society or civilization thriving where homosexual practice was considered normal human behavior.

We need state recognition of marriages because people who live together become intimately dependent on one another and we need to recognize, protect and manage those dependencies. Families are a different kind of social unit than individuals, and things work best when families are granted certain rights and responsibilities, so we need to have rules about what families are. Children, in particular, thrive best when raised by families and their care needs to be managed by binding contractual arrangements to protect their interests and those of their caregivers.