Court decision diminishes meaning of marriage

From www.sourcenewspapers.com:

I’ve heard it said by some that when the U.S. Supreme Court rules on something, it is the “final answer” to any questions surrounding an issue and, therefore, must be good. But considering the Supreme Court has historically ruled in favor of slavery and the killing of the unborn, shouldn’t we scrutinize every court decision for its broader implications?

For instance, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on same-sex marriage, supporters took to the streets and social media with the slogan, “love wins”; and in rewriting the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Justice Anthony Kennedy said same-sex marriage allows two homosexuals to “find a life they could not find alone.”

It all sounds good because everyone deserves love and respect. But truth be told, the Constitution’s purpose is not to promote or legitimize love.

What the Supreme Court did was redefine marriage as an institution that existed for thousands of years primarily to benefit children, into one that primarily benefits adults. Marriage, as between one man and one woman, has been the only institution that can most closely guarantee a child’s right to unity with both his mother and father.

It is precisely because so many children benefit from growing up with a married mother and father – and ultimately how that benefits society -- that governments started supporting marriage. This support never had anything to do with the love between the man and woman. It had everything to do with the unique, complementary nature of the man and woman -- namely the potential ability to conceive a child, and the different and important qualities each gender offers that child.

But now in the name of love, we’ve abandoned that unique trait of marriage to make it whatever anyone wants it to be. Marriage has been reduced to nothing more than helping couples feel their love is now seen as legitimate, which is not the true point of marriage. If it were, then parents would need to "marry" their children to prove their love is legitimate.

Accordingly, if marriage is now defined solely by love, not gender, how can we deny the polygamist his many wives? How can we deny the sister marriage to her brother? The boundaries have been obliterated along with the meaning of marriage itself.

In fairness, plenty of heterosexuals have diminished marriage as well. Cohabitation, out-of-wedlock births and rampant divorce have all undermined the institution. The task at hand now is to reintroduce the worth of traditional marriage’s benefits to society in terms of bringing up children in stable homes with a mom and a dad whenever possible.

Unfortunately, same-sex marriage cannot benefit society in the same way. It only impacts the adults involved. As for children, of course the only way this is possible for homosexual couples is through adoption or surrogacy. But both automatically deny the child’s right to both a mother and a father, and surrogacy reduces women to the professional pimping of their own bodies. This is tragic in itself, but worse, it makes innocent children the guinea pigs in a wild social experiment geared mostly toward the satisfaction of adults.

Ominously, same-sex marriage also seriously threatens religious liberty in America. Though the Court justices suggested that religious dissenters of same-sex marriage may continue to “advocate” and “teach” their views on marriage, they refused to acknowledge the right to “exercise” religious beliefs.

This is worrisome because now that homosexual marriage is the law of the land (as decreed by five unelected people in robes who ignored millions and millions of votes on the issue), on what grounds can someone choose his religious beliefs over demands that he participate in something that violates his beliefs?

We’re already seeing it, such as with the Christian Oregon bakers who were fined $135,000 and had a gag order placed on them for declining to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple whom they had served lovingly for years beforehand. Also, immediately following the Supreme Court's decision, activists announced they would now target religious institutions and Christian colleges that teach biblical views on homosexuality.

What remains to be seen, then, is the extent to which Christians will win their lawsuits, because that is what it will come to: The need to fight for religious freedom in the courts, rather than being able to enjoy the freedoms once guaranteed in our Constitution. And given today's increasingly liberal judges who decide base on their own political views, not the Constitution or other laws, how often do you think Christians will win their cases?

When our courts begin rejecting the Constitution to make up rights for some, while stripping others of theirs, we are no longer a nation of law. Sadly, in efforts to eradicate perceived discrimination against homosexuals, it seems the Supreme Court has succeeded only in legitimizing discrimination against Christians, while rendering meaningless an institution that exists primarily for the benefits of children and society.

As for love, we are all different and are all called to tolerate those differences and to love one another. There is no question about that. But it needs to go both ways. Undermining children and forcing people to act against their beliefs is not tolerance, it is not freedom and it certainly doesn't feel like "love wins", despite what the catchy slogan conveys.

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