The Danger of Gay Marriage

A posting at Powerlineblog.com on "The Logic of Gay Marriage" has an insightful comment from Professor Hadley Arkes of Amherst College (the Edward N. Ney Professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions) quoted from the July 21 Wall Street Journal. Among other points, he notes that making gay marriage a legally established "right" will lead to even further squelching of all opposition to homosexuality:

Once same-sex marriage is established as a "right," even a "constitutional right," all words and measures against it will be stamped -- as they are being stamped already -- as wrongful. From what we've already seen, there is no hesitation about demanding that churches in opposition to homosexual marriage should be deprived of their tax exemptions; that the Boy Scouts be barred from public parks; that private employers and private renters should no longer be respected in their reluctance to extend a moral acceptance of same-sex couples.

He also notes that redefining marriage to accommodate gay marriage will also make it difficult to stop the legitimization of incest such as father-daughter or father-son marriage. Proponents of gay marriage may argue that we don't need to worry about such things because they would be very rare, but gay marriage was once thought to be so rare that it was off the legal radar screen.

Speaking of rarity, an important P.R. tool for gay activists is the claim that 10% of the population a gay - a number that helps make homosexuality seem common enough to be normal. The reality is that the 10% number is a myth, derived from the outrageously improper work of Kinsey who surveyed male prisoner populations to get his 10% estimate, and even then used loose definitions to paint people as homosexual. While I'm sure that the 10% myth will be an important tool for gay marriage advocates in coming debates (to the extent that debate is allowed!), I find it interesting that major pro-homosexual groups have acknowledge in a legal brief that less than 3% of the population is gay. This admission is documented by Peter Sprigg in his article, "Homosexual Groups Back Off From '10 Percent' Myth" for the Family Research Council. The legal brief was filed as an amicus curiae brief in the Lawrence v. Texas case before the Supreme Court.

Another interesting resource is "Gay Priests and Gay Marriage" by anthropologist Stanley N. Kurtz. Also see "Homosexuality: Seeing Past the Propaganda."

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