I know I've blogged quite a bit on Proposition 8 and the issue of "gay marriage."  But as today is "Write to Marry" day, where bloggers blog against Prop 8 and in support of equal marriage rights, I'm taking the topic on again because I believe completely and whole-heartedly in the cause.

If you're living in California and have been anywhere within earshot of radio or t.v. in the last month or so, you've heard all sorts of hysteria in the ads put out by the "Yes on 8" committees.  You've heard that "it's about the children."  You've heard that it's about "what will be taught in schools."  If you've been out on the streets and seen a Yes on 8 gathering, you've even seen signs that claim Prop 8 = Less Government.

What you haven't seen is a single, substantive, reasoned argument (backed up by science) about why you should support Proposition 8.  You have not heard proponents tell you why, for the first time in history, we should codify something in our constitution that limits, rather than expands, equal rights under the law.

I submit that the reason you've not seen or heard such arguments is that they don't bear scrutiny.  Here are four of the things most touted by opponents of equal marriage rights in recent years:

1.  If homosexuals are allowed to marry, it will degrade traditional marriage.  The closest thing I've found to an argument was on the Family Research Council's one pager on "Counterfeit Marriage," where Timothy Dailey says, "like all counterfeits, it cheapens and degrades the real thing." 

As to Dailey's assertions about the cheapening effect of counterfeits, simple common sense undermines his reasoning.  If one buys a counterfeit handbag, that purchase does not affect the pleasure of owning the genuine item.  In a similar way, my friend's marriage to the woman of her dreams has nothing to do with the sanctity of my marriage to Dan.

Dailey reasons that gay marriage is a counterfeit because it "lacks the fundamental sexual complementariness of male and female."  While I would agree (to a degree) that male/female dynamics wouldn't be part of most gay marriages, I don't believe he proves such a marriage "counterfeit" by simple assertion.  Many heterosexual marriages do not contain components Dailey would find necessary to a biblically correct marriage (submission of the wife, production of children, man at work/woman at home).  Yet Dailey would not deny these folks the right to marry despite their difference from his self-defined ideal. 

The truth is that Dailey's argument is a cover for his belief that homosexuality is evil.  Homosexuals don't qualify for equal marriage rights because they are less than heterosexuals.

What religious folks often fail to mention is that there are only a handful of verses dealing with homosexuality in the Bible.  The majority of these are found in Old Testament "holiness codes," many parts of which are routinely ignored (and explained away as cultural) by the church today.  Furthermore, homosexuality is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments, the Summary of the Law nor did Jesus see fit to address it.  Poverty, on the other hand, seems to be of great concern to God and Christ.  Pity the church (and Mr. Dailey) don't expend their energies on God's true concerns.

2.  It's a slippery slope.  If we allow gays to marry, what's to prevent polygamy, adults marrying children, people marrying animals, etc.  Beyond the utterly insulting comparisons this argument makes between pedophilia and homosexuality, there's a simple answer to the question.

We are to prevent it.  If NAMBLA managed, somewhere in America, to get in a "right to marry children" initiative on a ballot, we would have our say.  Further, the courts, in examining the inevitable defeat of such a measure would not find the argument for human dignity valid in relationships (like polygamy and pedophilia) where consenting adults agree and power is equally balanced.

Honestly, this argument makes me want to say, "Really.  In America.  We'll have animal human marriages.  Really?"

3.  We have to protect the children. This is really two arguments.  First, we have to protect "our" heterosexual children from being taught that gay marriage and heterosexual marriage are equal in the eyes of the law.  For a humorous take on this argument, click here.

Seriously though, California schools teach lots of things that fundamentalists don't agree with.  They teach evolution.  They teach that women and men are equally capable of success in the workplace.  Later they teach that condoms are an effective way to protect yourself if you become sexually active.  Even IF, and it's highly unlikely, some teachers touch on gay marriage in the classroom, it won't present an insurmountable obstacle to parents who disagree.

Instead it will provide them with the opportunity to educate their children on their own beliefs and the origins of those beliefs.  A teaching moment, if you will.

The second argument is that children raised in gay marriages will be warped by the experience.  That is simply not true.  There is not a single, peer-reviewed scientific study that reveals any difference between kids raised in similar parameters by heterosexual and homosexual parents.  To quote the American Psychological Association, "there is no evidence to suggest that lesbian women or gay men are unfit to be parents or that psychosical development among children of lesbian women or gay men is compromised relative to that among offspring of heterosexual parents."

James Dobson has argued that children do better when "raised by their married mother and father."  The trouble is, the research he quotes deals with children in single parent households versus those in two-parent households.  He also twisted research by Dr. Kyle Pruett about the critical impacts of male role models on children, claiming that it showed children of gay families are at risk.

Dr. Pruett sums up the children issue for me when he says, "it is the love that surrounds children that prepares them to give to the world and to protect themselves from its difficulties."   

Arguments against the Yes on 8 proponents aside, my vote against proposition 8 is informed and illuminated by scientific research and the anecdotal evidence of beloved people, gay and straight, in my life.  I believe in human dignity for all humans.  As my friend, Erik, says--If you're human, you qualify.

I also believe in the constitution of the United States of America when it says that "all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights."  That among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  My gay friends deserve the same right to pursue the happiness of marriage as my heterosexual friends.

Please join me in voting no on H8.

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