Gay Marriage: A Civil Right?

California's ruling on Thursday has brought the subject of gay marriage back into the headlines. Other states are wondering if they will be next. So I thought I would use this little platform to share the facts about gay marriage that I learned while preparing for a debate on the topic during college.

First, let me clarify the debate. We are not talking about whether or not to legislate morality. No one is suggesting laws about what you can or cannot do in your bedroom. What is in question here is extending special privileges to a group of people based on their behavior.

Our society is multicultural and in many ways post-Christian. But there is still (at least at this point) a legal arrangement called marriage that brings special rights and privileges. The reason for that is not just tradition. Marriage benefits society. It brings better health and consequently less sick leave from work, fewer health care costs, financial stability, and more emotionally-stable children. It makes sense for society to promote individuals' behavior that benefits the society as a whole.

The same cannot be said of gay marriage. In fact, the opposite is true. So it is not a fair comparison to say the gay marriage issue today is like bi-racial marriage a generation ago. This is where the media has really done a disservice to our nation in hiding the huge health risks of the gay lifestyle. Homosexual behavior shortens one's life expectancy by 20 years. People associate AIDS and other STDs with multiple sexual partners, and most don't realize that there are many health problems that even monogamous homosexuals experience. For my college debate, I received an excellent book from the Medical Institute for Sexual Health detailing all the health issues. I cannot find that booklet online at this time, but I'm guessing you could probably get a copy by contacting them if you're interested. I think I paid $15.

So, all that is to say that just as you wouldn't think it discrimination to not give special privileges to people who smoke or drink excessively, it is not discrimination to not give the special privileges of marriage to people who engage in homosexual behavior, monogamous or not. Society does not benefit from their behavior, so it has no obligation to grant them special treatment.

(Let me insert here that certain privileges like hospital visitation and such are not what I have in view here. But that's not a marriage issue. Single people are also being discriminated against by family-only policies in those cases. It's the policies that need to change, not the marriage laws, and in my experience, hospitals are now allowing any one person the patient specifies.)

In fact, if you know someone who's practicing homosexual behavior, and you really want to be their friend, you'll encourage them to change their behavior, just as you would a friend who smoked or drank excessively. It's not a matter or prejudice or bigotry. You want what's best for them, and they're hurting themselves.

Which brings me to another well-hidden fact: that many people who engage in homosexual behavior were sexually abused or exposed to sexual content at a very young age. I'm amazed at the ignorance of this fact, even among the gay people I know. They know it's true for them personally, but they've never correlated the two, or seen the trend in general. Instead people encourage them to accept this as who they are and stop trying to change. How sad! We would never say the same thing about someone who was abused as a child and now struggles with codependency or alcoholism. The loving thing is to be their friend, share with them the hope of Christ, and offer to do anything we can to help them change if they're interested. And that's the wonderful truth, that by God's grace, change is possible.