ERRORS IN REASONING:

IS GAY MARRIAGE A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE?

There are two main reasons that “gay marriage” advocates advance to support the same-sex marriage argument.:

1. Homosexual couples, being similar to heterosexual couples, should be granted the same rights and privileges as heterosexual couples under the constitutional principle of equal treatment.

2. Marriage laws unfairly discriminate according to sexual orientation and should be amended.

Oh, You Have A Penis? Just Go On In, The Ladies Won't Mind

The gay marriage advocates phrase the issue in terms of couples: heterosexual couples enjoy the benefits of marriage, whereas homosexual couples are denied them.

The short and easy answer is that constitutional protections are extended to individuals, not to the relations of individuals.

More profoundly, this argument assumes that because homosexual couples may form relationships for ostensibly the same reasons that heterosexual couples do and live together like a husband and wife; and because they may engage in intimate activities somewhat like a husband and wife; and because they may have a sentimental relationship like a husband and wife might, then their relationship is no different from that of a husband and wife. All that is missing are the blessings of society.

This is called the “emotional intimacy, sharing, love, partnering and emotional interdependency” argument, and the underlying fallacy of it supposes that there are no real differences between men and women, as though a man is just another sort of woman, and vice versa, and that the relationship between two men or two women is the same as that between a man and woman by the simple fact that they might engage in intimate acts together or share emotional bonds and living quarters.

This reasoning, however, ignores the very dynamics of the relationship between men and women and its wholly distinct and fundamentally sexual nature, and though such an appreciation may have to invoke philosophy and faith, nevertheless, if technical criteria were demanded, then objective differences do, indeed, exist. Men and women are, with respect to physique and function, not the same, and the relationships they form are fundamentally different from the friendships that characterize homosexual ones.

Because the nature of the homosexual relationship defies current labels, the closest word describing such a relationship would be ”friendship”. But whatever the word that one could invent for describing the homosexual relationship and its nature, it would not be the same word describing the heterosexual one. The partners of these types of relationships could never be qualified as husbands and wives.

Though “friends” of this sort may form their relationships for the same subjective reasons that heterosexual couples do, and may express their affection or satisfy their physical urges towards each other by means of those acts that mimic heterosexual sexual acts, this by no means makes theirs a true sexual relationship because there is never any possibility of that which objectively defines sexuality; namely, procreation. These acts of homosexuals can be thought of just as easily as affective or stress reducing. The inability of these types of relationships to procreate only qualifies their nature as superficially sexual.

This analysis reveals two separate types of relationships with their own unique natures that may bear a resemblance in motives and behavior to each other, but which are objectively and fundamentally different.

Homosexual and heterosexual relationships are subjectively similar to each other, but objectively different from each other.

It is the heterosexual relationship that is the only objectively true sexual relationship, and because it has defined the model for the human mating relationship, homosexual relationships can only mimic it.

The first argument, then, implies that mimicry would be as valid as authenticity; that mere resemblance is as genuine as the real thing. This would be like saying that counterfeit bank notes, even if badly done, are as valid as genuine ones; that one should accept anything as genuine simply because of a resemblance, so that men who dress up like women, for example, should be granted the same rights and privileges as women, the same right to use women’s toilets and locker rooms because of a mere resemblance. Such an argument is pathetically weak and without any substance.

This argument is, thus, refuted for these two reasons: the relationships are not comparable in an objectively significant way; and constitutional protections are extended only to individuals, not to the relations of individuals.

Is Gender A New Race?

Same-sex marriage advocates often phrase the issue in terms of racial civil rights, especially the anti-miscegenation laws of another epoch.

“At one time, a white could marry a white, but a black could not. A black could marry a black, but a white could not. Each race was being denied a right permitted to the other, just as today a woman is denied the right to marry a woman, and a man the right to marry a man.”

The analysis, while convoluted, almost seems persuasive on first reading, and one is supposed conclude from this that it is just as wrong to use gender as a basis to determine allowable marriage partners, as it is to use race. However, there are the flawed presumptions here that gender is no more pertinent to marriage than skin color; that the distinction between men and women is not important in any meaningful way that should concern the law; and that we are only concerned with people in general. If these were true, then, yes, a right is being denied to men and women.

The relationships between light-skinned and dark-skinned people, however, are not comparable to the relationships between men and women. Men and women engage in specific behavior and activities relative to each other, and it is upon this basis that the marriage relationship is realistically defined.

No specific behavior and activities, however, define the relationships between light-skinned and dark-skinned people — or any other physical classifications of people in general — that can be comparable to the relationship between men and women. To define marriage as “a legal union between one person and another” is to refer to no specific relationship. It would not be realistic or even meaningful, then, for marriage to be defined as a union between a black person and a white person, or a fair-haired person and a short person, or any other combination of physical characteristics or lack of them, because none of those criteria can ever serve as a basis for marriage and still make sense. Nor should they; skin color, hair color, weight and other characteristics of people, are not pertinent to any specific relationship.

Gender is! Equating race and gender is erroneous precisely because it treats gender as just as unimportant to the marriage relationship as race would be. It would be equivalent to saying that the shape of a triangle is no more important to the triangle than its color. Gender defines the marriage relationship, while other physical characteristics really have not much to do with it at all.

But even if we did accept the black/white, man/woman analogy, what exactly is this right — if, indeed, it even should be a right — and is it really being denied to some and permitted to others? Is it simply the right to marry?

Or might it be the right to equal treatment under the law?

Let's Get Rid Of Men And Women

The reasoning of “gay” rights activists has invented a distinct class characterized by an avowed sexual preference in opposition to another class with supposedly different sexual preferences, and enjoying privileges denied to the former on this basis alone, purportedly creating a situation of unequal treatment before the law. The argument, in essence, is that heterosexuals benefit from the legal establishment of a domestic partnership called “marriage”, while homosexuals are denied this, the implication being that the marriage law was made by heterosexuals for heterosexuals to maintain the social and legal supremacy of heterosexuality over homosexuality. Therefore, the legal requirement that men marry only single, unrelated women denies a right to men who are "oriented" to marry other men, their mother or the family pet.

Because sexual orientation would strongly influence the composition of a couple, the reproach brought by same-sex marriage advocates — that the marriage laws favor those individuals who are naturally disposed towards heterosexuality, and unfairly burden those individuals who are naturally disposed towards homosexuality — calls into question the opposite gender requirement that renders this situation inevitable. Eliminating the gender requirement, then, would rectify this situation. But let us examine the assumptions more closely.

The 14th Amendment

The gay rights activists point out the unfair and unequal treatment of homosexuals with respect to heterosexuals, in particular as it concerns marriage, and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14 Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is invoked to support their claim.

The "rational basis" of laws of the Equal Protection Clause acknowledges in a legal or constitutional manner the fact that individuals are not really the same or equal in real life, and permits classifications in order to take into account the differences, should these pose problems for an orderly society. This is why there are separate toilets and changing rooms for men and women, why minors are treated by other legal standards, why insanity pleas work and why affirmative action legislation could be enacted.

The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment is categorical, then, which is why individuals within different groups may be treated differently from the general population under a set of laws particular to their category. It guarantees that similar individuals will receive similar government treatment, and prevents people of different circumstances from being treated as though they were the same.

As it currently concerns marriage, then, all male individuals would receive equal governmental treatment with respect to marrying any legally available woman, and all female individuals would receive equal governmental treatment with respect to marrying any legally available man.

The categories are MEN AS ONE CATEGORY, and WOMEN AS ANOTHER CATEGORY, and the equal protection of laws as it concerns marriage apply only to individuals of these two categories and NOT the single category of men and women together. The marriage laws, therefore, show no favor to this particular category over the ones relating to the relationships of two men together or two women together.

The categories, then, are NOT homosexuals and heterosexuals! Therefore, as it concerns marriage, there is NO equality issue here between those two classifications anymore than there would be between the class of people who like chocolate ice cream and those who like vanilla ice cream.

The claim for equal treatment under the 14th Amendment for homosexual couples the same as heterosexual couples is utterly without foundation.

It's Not The Couples, Stupid!

Another of their assumptions is that marriage laws exist for the purpose of legalizing the status and governing the relationship of couples. If all couples are equal before the law, then this governance should be irrespective of sexual orientation. Therefore, homosexual couples should benefit from the same legal status and benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy. However, these laws have been turned from this ideal objective by an unjust and unnecessarily imposed gender requirement by a heterosexual majority such that they favor individuals of heterosexual orientation over ones of homosexual orientation. This makes homosexuals a victimized minority.

What is so thoroughly ignored in this argument is that marriage laws exist to govern not the relationship of couples, whatever their sexual orientations may be, but the relationship between men and women as it pertains to mating. Marriage laws exist to regulate a true sexual relationship and not merely any relationship of individuals who happen to like each other, be they of the same sex or otherwise. Other types of relationships are simply not the concern of marriage laws!

If marriage laws are discriminatory in this respect, they are rightly so. The current marriage laws, then, only prevent women from marrying women, and men from marrying men precisely because their concern is only with true sexual relationships.

It is this fundamental error of assumption — that marriage laws apply to more than one type of relationship — upon which much of the argument of the advocates of same-sex marriage is based, and which dooms it to irrelevancy. Homosexuals could just as well demand the same legal status and benefits as business partnerships or non-profit organizations, for that matter, to legalize their relationships and these would be just as relevant!

Weak-Minded Reasoning

The arguments of the advocates of gay marriage do not appeal really to any fundamental principle of fairness, then, but rely on confusion and weak-minded reasoning. These advocates merely state a legal preference for the suppression of the gender requirement because this hinders homosexuals from taking advantage of a legal situation that does not even concern them, and which would confer upon them the moral status and social acceptance they so desperately seek.

In summary, constitutional protections as it concerns civil rights are extended only to individuals, not to the relations of individuals; constitutional protections are extended only to individuals whose situations are substantially similar to others, and not to those that merely bear a superficial resemblance to others; that decisions as it pertains to equal treatment must consider classifications not merely of subjective factors but classifications of objective ones as well; that there must exist legitimate and important state interests; and that the marriage laws’ concern is not with multiple types of relationships, but uniquely with that one type of relationship concerning men and women.

Where it concerns marriage, individuals and the relationships they form with others of the same sex meet none of these criteria.

Civil rights issue? What civil rights issue?