WASHINGTON — Same-sex marriage
opponents acknowledge they face a tough task in trying to persuade the
Supreme Court to allow states to limit marriage to a man and a woman.
But
they are urging the court to resist embracing what they see as a
radical change in society's view of what constitutes a marriage,
especially without more information about how same-sex marriage affects
children who are raised by two fathers or two mothers.
The
idea that same-sex marriage might have uncertain effects on children is
strongly contested by those who want the court to declare that same-sex
couples have a right to marry in all 50 states. Among the 31 plaintiffs
in the cases that will be argued at the court on Tuesday are parents
who have spent years seeking formal recognition on their children's
birth certificates or adoption papers.
But
opponents, in dozens of briefs asking the court to uphold state bans on
same-sex marriage, insist they are not motivated by any prejudice
toward gays and lesbians.
"This
is an issue on which people of good will may reasonably disagree,"
lawyer John Bursch wrote in his defense of Michigan's gay-marriage ban.
Bursch will argue on behalf of the states that same-sex couples can
claim no constitutional right to marriage.
Same-sex
couples now can marry in 36 states and the District of Columbia, the
product of a dizzying pace of change in state marriage laws. Just three
years ago, only six states allowed it.
In most states, courts have struck down gay marriage bans written into state laws or enshrined in state constitutions.
The
concern for children is among several threads that run through the
legal, political, social and religious arguments being advanced in
support of upholding the same-sex marriage bans.
"If
children don't do as well when they are raised by same-sex parents, why
would we want to establish or encourage that as a social norm?" asked
the Rev. D. Paul Sullins, a Catholic University sociology professor.
Sullins has analyzed data in government surveys and concluded that
children brought up by two parents of the same sex have a higher rate of
emotional problems than their peers raised by heterosexual parents.
Sullins
has been harshly criticized by sociologists who support same-sex
marriage, but he said he stands by his data. "I don't know of any
Catholic way to compute the equation," he said. "The idea that there are
no differences is emphatically mistaken. I don't know how else to say
that."
Perhaps
the most visible defender of reserving marriage only for heterosexuals
has been Ryan Anderson, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage
Foundation.
Anderson
said the push for nationwide acceptance of gay and lesbian unions is a
product of cultural degradation that has spanned more than 40 years and
includes greater sexual permissiveness, a rise in births to single
mothers and liberalized divorce laws.
"If
you think the past 40 years has been problematic for marriage,"
Anderson said, "you might think this is something we should go slow on
and leave it to the states to make marriage policy."
But
more pointedly, Anderson said states are correct in defining marriage
as the union of a man and a woman because of their interest in
encouraging couples to produce children and then stay together to raise
those children.
"Same-sex
marriage is about cutting the cord between romance and diapers," he
said. "Marriage becomes just about consenting adults."
Several
groups supporting the states stress that a biologically intact family
is the ideal environment for children. But they also are careful to
acknowledge the value of adoption, perhaps in recognition of Chief
Justice Roberts' role as the father of two adopted children. "Adoption
is an indispensable social good that provides children a home when the
ideal, a stable, two-parent biological family, is unavailable," said a
brief from groups that support biological parenting.
Another
argument opponents make is that a ruling in favor of same-sex marriage
could lead to opening marriage to three or more people.
"Expanding
the definition of marriage away from the way cultures and civilization
have always defined it can only lead to further confusion," said the
Rev. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention' Ethics
and Religious Liberty Commission. "We're always told that what we say
is slippery-slope alarmism. And yet the slope is quite slippery."
These
same arguments about cultural and societal harm didn't fare well when
they were made in the Supreme Court two years ago in a challenge to the
federal anti-gay marriage law. In an opinion written by Justice Anthony
Kennedy, the court struck down the part of that law that denied federal
benefits to legally married same-sex couples.
This
time around, same-sex marriage opponents are drawing on the parts of
Kennedy's opinion that ratified states' ability to make the rules for
who could marry. They also are relying on another Kennedy opinion from
last year in which the court upheld Michigan's voter-approved ban on the
use of race in state college admissions.
"It
is demeaning to the democratic process to presume that the voters are
not capable of deciding an issue of this sensitivity on decent and
rational grounds," Kennedy wrote of Michigan's affirmative action ban.
Voters
in roughly 30 states, including Michigan, had approved constitutional
amendments defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
This
case, Bursch wrote on behalf of Michigan, is not about the best
marriage definition, but "who decides, the people of each state or the
federal judiciary?"
Moore, the Southern Baptist official, said that he is under no illusion about the odds his side faces at the Supreme Court.
"We
have spent several years seeking to prepare our people for the fact
that the same-sex marriage seems to be coming to their communities,"
Moore said. "Many people in red states have assumed that this is an
issue for other people."
No comments:
Post a Comment