So the current fight in California and elsewhere to get marriage redefined to include homosexual relationships begs a real question in my mind. If you remove the true foundation of marriage, that is its institution by God himself, and his moral commandments about it, and replace it with some concept of human “love,” where does that take us?
Using the same reasoning that opens the door to gay marriage, why doesn’t it also open the door to these other relationships:
- Polygamy. What consenting adults do in private is their own business, right? And the marital structures they choose to participate in are defined only by “commitment” and “love,” so what reason is there to stop at only 2 people? Why not 3, 4, or 10? Monogamy is clearly an outflow of Judeo-Christian biblical morality, so how can we justify the illegality of polygamy in this new world?
- Incest. Again, two consenting adults. If we remove biblical injunctions, what legitimate basis do we have to prevent or discourage all kinds of incestuous relationships? Sure, you might argue the possible deleterious genetic effects on offspring, but doesn’t that delve in the privacy realm of the woman and the man? It is claimed that the state can’t dictate nor prohibit reproductive sexuality, so why would that stop incest?
From the Wikipedia article on incest:
In Slate Magazine, William Saletan drew a legal connection between gay sex and incest between consenting adults. As he described in his article, in 2003, U.S. Senator Rick Santorum publicly derided the theory of the Supreme Court ruling to allow private consensual sex in the home (primarily as a gay rights move). He stated: “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery.” However, David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign professed outrage that Santorum placed being gay on the same moral and legal level as someone engaging in incest. Saletan argued that, legally and morally, there is essentially no difference between the two, and went on to support incest between consenting adults being covered by a legal right to privacy.
In a world where there is no normal, no standard, everything (at least between “consenting adults”) becomes permissible. If I were a judge in a place where gay marriage was legal, there’s no way that I could in good conscience unfairly apply the law to all kinds of other situations. Just my thinking.
