An inarticulation against gay marriage (and abortion): A framework for discussion

So we don't come to our positions arbitrarily, and we often decide things without fully understanding what specific factors have influenced our decisions though we may point to various sources, good or bad, in support of our view. What I want to get at is the behind the brain process.

Why? Well, because I was thinking about this conversation I participated in last week and realizing that what this one person said is a large part of why I don't agree with gay marriage. Though I don't really understand why the topic was introduced, I know it was in the context of Croatia's recent referendum on gay marriage which was denied - a position I support.

This isn't about what I personally feel about so-called gay people. I've been upfront that I think homosexuality is abnormal since we're hard wired toward heterosexuality - unless you can show me that procreation isn't a defining characteristic of our species; after all, we're not like the animals that change sexes throughout their lives or can self-procreate. Before you start jumping in with hermaphrodites, I don't know if they're actually able to self-reproduce; in their case only, however - and I do support the position that they are unfairly pressured to decide their sex, often resulting in surgeries to remove their other sexual attributes - do I accept their confusion about their sexuality. (In all other cases, it's about people choosing to be deviant but in a way that makes other people think they're not.) Yes, the way I see it, homosexuality is a choice which is contrary to the normal impulses of heterosexuality; also, I think being gay has been too much politicized today that there's actually a benefit to claiming that position, financially and socially. So, however you look at it, there's no changing the fact that homosexuality isn't a natural design in our evolution - because if you accept homosexuality as normal, you also have to do it for pedophiles and those into bestiality, etc.

That, however, is my ideological position. Ask me personally what I think of gay people, and I honestly don't care (but I absolutely want nothing to do with pedophiles or people who rape animals, etc.). What I'm trying to explain is why I'm against gay marriage.

First, you have to recognize that marriage is an economic activity. Single people, for example, generally pay more in taxes than married people which means that marriage presents a financial gain. Additionally, married people often get tax breaks if they have children whether or not those children are biologically related to them. I remember, too, reading about the policies of some countries which introduced bonuses to encourage marital unions, this in response to concerns over low birth rates.

Secondly, the issue isn't about whether or not people can physically procreate. We know that problems can result from either sex: infertility, low sperm counts, etc. Similarly, many options exist to answer that need: surrogate pregnancies, adoption, etc.

What people are ignoring, however, is that marriage is partly sociological. Psychologically, though, we know that the influence of both sexes matters a great deal in the upbringing of children regardless of how actively involved the parents are. Obviously, the more interested the parents are in their children, in an environment that supports and encourages them while also defining boundaries of behavior, etc., the higher the success rates of the children. And, yes, it actually doesn't matter who raises them as long as there is at least one male and one female.

As for those from single parent households, children's chances of succeeding increase when, at some point during their development, they interact with an influential member of the opposite sex, whether it's a friend, teacher, pastor, etc. However, they have a harder time with it than someone who is raised in a household that has both a man and a woman. Obviously, a good home environment makes a big difference, too; psychopaths manage it because they're used to masking reality, I think as a direct result of modeling on what they actually experienced from their parents. There really are, in my opinion, too many people who are good at putting on acts as parents, so that we can never be sure what the actual situation is when the masks are set aside in the privacy of their homes.

At the same time, I would also argue that the codification of abortion - the legal murdering of people before we're willing to define them as people - is maybe a root cause for the increasing breakdown of the institution of marriage and the proliferation of homosexuality around the world. Homosexuals, I think, come from home environments where they weren't loved, raised (with boundaries, nurturing, etc.), etc. Some of them, of course, just want attention, to shock, etc. Today, it's about publicity.

Abortion, however, told the world that the value of human life is worthless. This isn't to say murders didn't occur before; but, by allowing the murder of babies, we created an ideological position that is now rooted in the mass violence in which people keep asking: How can people be this evil? Because when we nurture cultures where people can be exonerated for killing people at their most vulnerable - sorry, but excepting for a miscarriage which can't be controlled for, an actual person exists in its most unstable period of growth which we call pregnancy (you will not hear it or physically feel it without it surviving the birth process which goes from conception to birth) - we give permission for anyone else to die as callously. Yes, we're capable of it because we have convinced people that no life matters.

Take the idea even further, and then you understand why people accept homosexuality: As a response to the guilt they feel about killing unborn people. Yes, I've said it before: Abortion was turned into a women's rights issues when it never has been. And because of that positioning, people refuse to recognize that the unborn person is a person. Some are so extreme as to deny that a person exists at all until it's actually born. More, this refusal to recognize the unborn person as a person has resulted in the applauding of and/or commiseration for the psychopaths who kill their children.

Of course, we know that heterosexual marriages aren't perfect. We know many situations where children are raised in the worst environments. There are too many stories of abusive and horrible parents. Fewer people talk about the realities of homosexual relationships or the negative impacts of their parenting which, like heterosexual relationships, is true in some but not all instances. But homosexuality, like abortion, is a mask that's hiding the real situation: In the first case, that heterosexuality (not homosexuality) is the biological instinct toward survival (otherwise there'd only be men or women); in the other case, that a pregnancy introduces a second person whose life the first person (and others) shouldn't get to decide in terms of life or death (and many of you, of course, would deny the evidence that suggests unborn people feel their murders).

Ideally, things never stand up to reality since we tend to demand more of ourselves than others. But here are my views, anyway:

- The influence of a male and a female on a child is relevant in defining a marriage;

- Rules should be put in place to reward the raising of children in this environment, where there is a female and male regardless of relationship (in terms of whether or not the parents and/or children are biologically related to each other);

- Financial incentives should be conditioned on the following, with the presupposition that children (biologically or otherwise) are part of the package: (1) the length of marriage (with higher rewards based on the standard landmarks that celebrate a marriage); (2) pre-marriage counseling that includes education on parenting and parenting readiness; (3) successful integration of children in the marriage relationship (tax breaks dependent on their well-being, literacy, etc.); etc.

In other words, what I'm suggesting is: A marriage is an institution designed for families that requires a male and female which creates the necessary balance, when directed toward parenting, to raise children who will later lead. The quality of their leadership, however, is a direct reflection on the values, limits and support they received in their formative years. This requires informed and interested parents, a social structure that insists on their governance, and the desire for a world that is, in all respects, equitable. Clearly, this world will never exist, hence, the inarticulation.



P.S. So, that's what the other conversation participant was talking about: The need for a man and a woman in raising children.