In my following of Jesus and encounter with him in the Gospels, I discover that he established a Church, which holds the treasure he gives in earthen vessels.  Though being imperfect she holds it, and this is what I love, this is why I follow her as I follow Jesus.  I follow her not simply as an earthen vessel but as she holds the treasure of Christ today and until the end of time. When her voice points out the way, I struggle to follow, and I struggle to follow precisely because I know that in that voice is the voice of my savior, the one who loves me enough to die for me.  He invites me to do the same, to die to myself that I may live, to say, “Thy will be done,” in the garden of my own temptation.

For the one with same-sex attraction this means refraining from acting on desires for sexual fulfillment with a person of the same-sex.  For me, a single male with opposite-sex attraction, this means refraining from acting on my desires with a person of the opposite-sex.  But I want to say that you are not alone.  What the Church asks of you she asks of me.  My following of Christ challenges me amidst a culture saturated with pornography, approval of masturbation, one-night stands, and the list goes on, and on, and on so much so that a young boy in England, 13 years old, became addicted to sexual pleasure and is now on the nation’s sex offender list.

I feel, in a very real and un-superficial way, that I stand with many, many people who struggle with same-sex attraction and strive for purity of heart.  Like you, I try not to filter the Gospel to fit my desires, despite their sometimes strong pull and the affirming encouragement of our culture.  Like you, I don’t want to change the Gospel to align with my desires; I want the Gospel to change me and my desires.  I don’t take them as the truth about me, I try to take God’s word as the truth about me and it is that truth and only that truth that can set me free; not the free fulfillment of my desires, whatever they may be.

This is my offer to stand in solidarity with all those, regardless of sexual orientation, who seek purity of heart amidst a culture ever so eager to discourage us in our commitment. I want to follow Christ, I will follow him by living in his Church, no matter what our culture and its laws tell me is truth.  Their voice is an echo of Pontius Pilate’s, “Truth? What is truth?” and my Lord’s is a voice that says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…come, follow me.”

In an address to Catholic bishops from England and Wales, he echoed the recent comments of Pope Benedict who said the Church faced “powerful political and cultural currents” in favour of redefining marriage, the Telegraph reported:

His comments come after a series of high-level interventions by some Muslim and Jewish leaders last month after the Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, launched a national consultation on how same-sex marriage might be introduced.

Last month the Muslim Council of Britain voiced opposition to the plans, describing it as “unnecessary and unhelpful”. In Scotland, the Council of Glasgow Imams recently agreed a joint resolution describing same-sex marriage as an “attack” on their faith and fundamental beliefs.

Opinion in the Jewish community has been more sharply divided. The Liberal and Reform synagogues have given their support to same-sex marriage but rabbis within the main United Synagogues have expressed opposition.

The Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, who is retiring, has so far resisted pressure to voice opposition to the proposal.

But Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet of Mill Hill United Synagogue in north London, who advises him on family issues, recently accused the Coalition of launching an “assault” on religious values.

Meanwhile Lord Singh, head of the Network of Sikh Organisations, recently said the proposed reforms represented “a sideways assault on religion”.

Addressing English and Welsh bishops at their plenary meeting in Leeds, Archbishop Mennini, warned them they faced a “lengthy and probably difficult campaign”.

“I wonder if we shouldn’t ask for and look for more support among other Christian confessions and indeed, persons of other faiths,” he said.

“It seems to me that, concerning the institution of marriage, and indeed the sanctity of human life, we have much in common with the position of the Jewish community, the Chief Rabbi and many of the more significant representatives of Islam.”

Morgan promptly volunteered his own response.  “I would say, ‘That’s great son. Just so long as you are happy.”

Cameron did better than most in defending his view that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman.  He did not, though, address what was uppermost in Piers Morgan’s mind: the question of the individual’s happiness.

As Catholics and Christians we undermine the faith when we fail to address the legitimate concern for the individual that has motivated so many to accept gay marriage.  “What would you say to your son?”  We hardly ever answer that question directly, but begin sputtering.

Then we usually speak in abstract terms about the created order—men and women were made for each other; next, the historical reality of marriage as a bulwark of civilization; and finally we cite the teaching of the Church that homosexuality is “an inherently disordered condition.”  That’s all true, but it sounds like an excuse for  denying a young man or woman sexual pleasure and comfort.  Food. water, sleep, and sex are the four things all humans naturally crave.

Think about being a boy or girl in early adolescence  realizing that he or she is attracted to the same sex.  Life just became much more difficult than it might have been.  Whether this came about through a genetic disposition, a skewed process of character formation, trauma, or for reasons unknown, that hardly matters.  That young person is now faced with having to deal with sexuality in ways that are more difficult than his heterosexual peers.

Gay activists want us to believe that the only reason a gay person experiences awakening to same sex attraction as difficult is because of societal prejudice.  If we can create a culture in which homosexuality is seen as just another way of seeking and finding love, then the challenges associated with homosexuality will disappear.

Unfortunately, if what the Scriptures and the great tradition of our faith reveals is true, the utopian future envision by the homosexual community’s agenda can never come into being.  Even if we all close our eyes, cover our ears, and like the Seinfeld characters shout at the top of our lungs, “There’s nothing wrong with it!” it’s not going to happen.  The witness of the image of God in which every person is made will declare to those with same sex attraction that they do suffer from “an inherently disordered condition,” just as we all know when something about us isn’t right.  Homosexual relationships declare, “We were made for each other!” but that, in the nature of the case, is untrue.

The voice of conscience can be silenced, of course, through repeated betrayals.  It’s possible to establish a “new normal,” at least in the sense of no longer experiencing guilt.  This doesn’t mean we have triumphed over conscience; it means we are living in despair.

Because of this, we have to begin the conversation with a person awakening to same sex attraction by saying, “Jesus wants you to be happy.  He knows that you are already elated as well as bewildered by what you are feeling.  That you are wondering what, if anything, is wrong with you.  That you may well be angry about having these feelings, and their consequences, whether you choose to act on them or not.  Christianity asks that you renounce the sexual pleasure to which you are attracted.  This is a harsh discipline, and it may mean living without the pleasures and comforts of marital love.  That’s the bad news; and it really is bad news.”

“With God’s grace, however, you can find the life God wants you to live and has, indeed, prepared for you.  Because what God reveals to us about how to live is always in each person’s best interest.  It is a prescription for happiness, not misery.  It is a pathway to the fulfillment of your humanity, not its negation.  That is the good news of Christianity and it is as much for you as anyone else.  Whatever renunciation you are called upon to practice, you will be repaid with joy.”   (As testimony to this, see the great article, “The Truth about Same Sex Attraction,” by Steve Gershom.)

It is an account of what the city of Oakland, CA, might look like, thirty years from now, if the trends toward redefining marriage, redefining parenthood and expanding anti-discrimination law continue. As a side note, the current Roman Catholic bishop of Oakland, Salvatore Cordileone, is known to his friends and enemies alike as the Father of Proposition 8, which sought to maintain the traditional definition of marriage in California.

You and your grandson are going to a private prayer meeting at an apartment building in Oakland. You’ve been there often enough that you know a lot of the people sitting on the steps or out in the yard.

There is old Mrs. Garcia. She is raising her grandchildren. Her daughter got caught up in drugs and men and went off the deep end. Her three grandchildren have different fathers. She hopes she can keep the kids, but you never know what the courts will decide.

There is Ms. Marisol. Her little girl lives with her some of the time. But when she broke up with her boyfriend, he went to court to claim he was the “de facto” parent, and should have shared custody. He was doing it to be mean to her and because he wanted to have access to the little girl, if you know what I mean. Under the de facto parenting law, he counted as a parent, because he spent enough time with the child and she used to call him “daddy.” So Marisol’s daughter is with her old boyfriend part-time and she can’t do anything to stop it.1

She didn’t fight too hard because of her friend Lisa who used to live in the same complex. Lisa got her daughter taken away from her completely. Lisa went into hiding with her daughter when the court ordered her to turn the little girl over to her former girlfriend part time. Somebody saw her, told on her, and she got found. Her little girl was taken away, and Lisa did jail time. So Marisol figured she was better off not fighting with her ex.2

Then there is Sherry and Rebecca. They are married to each other. They don’t have sex with each other. They have sex with men, but nobody cares about that. They each have two kids with different guys. So there are four kids there, with four different dads, which actually means no dads. They each raise their own kids under the same roof. They share health insurance, but that’s about it.3

Of course, there are a few guys around. Billy Jo Bob just hangs around his mom’s apartment. He has a couple kids by a couple different women. He doesn’t feel any obligation to support any of them, because he doesn’t love any of those women or their brats. The courts have decided that after all, “love makes a family.” Besides Billy Jo Bob makes sure he doesn’t earn very much money anyhow, so he doesn’t pay any more. His mom yells at him a lot, but he just laughs at her and does as he pleases.4

There is Luke. He got married to Sam when they were in the military. They thought it would be cool to get off-base housing. They figured when their tour of duty was up, they’d get divorced and it would all be cool. But Sam got greedy and decided to sue Luke for his pension. Luke ended up broke and living in this broken down joint.

Then there is little Ned. He has two mommies and two daddies. I should say he started off with 2 mommies and 2 daddies.5 They quarreled amongst themselves. They went to court over his custody, and worked out an elaborate plan for sharing parenting among the 4 of them.6 Most of them got tired of being on the cutting edge of social change and lost interest in Ned. He used to cry at school every day because he never knew who was coming to pick him up from school. Now Ned lives here with his natural mom, Janet. Sometimes one of the fathers or the other mother will come over and demand to see him and take him on an outing. But his story ended pretty well, because most of those people pretty much just leave him alone now.

Then there is Emily. Emily was bought and paid for by a guy who wanted a little girl. Of course, no one would marry this creeper. So he bought an egg, hired a surrogate and used his own sperm to have this little girl. The law now says that artificial reproduction is a service and children are a commodity. Anyone who can pay gets to do anything they want.7 Anyhow Emily’s teacher figured out that something weird was going on. She called Child Protective Services. So now Emily lives here with her teacher, Miss Lydia. But she had lived with her dad, or should I say, her manufacturer, for 7 years before anybody stepped in to help her.

Then there is Tom. You can’t look at Tom without thinking of the old saying, “nice guys finish last.” He married some guy from Latin America who wanted a green card.8 They both agreed that they’d get divorced as soon as the immigration deal was sealed. But while that was going on, his “husband” Alejandro acquired a live-in girlfriend. She got pregnant. They used to ask Tom to look after the baby while they partied. He didn’t think too much of it. He was trying to help out and be a nice guy. When the time came for Tom and Alejandro to get divorced, he found himself sucked into a child support suit.9 Unbeknownst to him, the law of marriage says that any child born to one partner during the life of their union is automatically the child of both. So, when the girlfriend established his husband as the father of her child, Tom became the parent also. They stuck him for child support. They had it planned out from the beginning. He used to have a pretty nice car and live in a nice house. He still has a good job, but now he’s stuck in this wreck of a place. Like I said, nice guys finish last.

So you go up the steps to the prayer meeting at Miss Lila’s apartment. Not too many people are coming these days. Today it is just Miss Lila, Mrs. Garcia and old Mr. and Mrs. Villanueva. They used to be very active in Couples for Christ, a worldwide Pilipino organization for married couples. But some same sex couples wanted to join. The organization tried to accommodate them, Christian charity and all that. But those couples didn’t feel at home because so many of the Couples for Christ programs talked about how men and women should treat each other, and how they could understand one another and talk to one another better. So the same sex couples sued.10 The judge made Couples for Christ take out everything that had to do with sex differences. There was not much point to the organization after that. Old Mr. and Mrs. Villanueva didn’t quite know what to do with themselves after the organization closed. They had lived and breathed Couples for Christ.

So Miss Lila brought out the old plaster statue from its hiding place and everybody brought out their prayer beads. They said their prayers for a while and drank coffee and you and your grandson left.

As you got on the train, you told your grandson, “Back in the day, these BART trains used to go all over the place. There aren’t too many left now.” You remember hearing back at the turn of the 21st century how much the government was spending on taking care of kids without their own parents. Back then, it cost the US government the equivalent of the GDP of New Zealand, $112 Billion per year. You don’t want to think about what it costs today. 11

As you’re riding along, your grandson asks you, “why is Miss Lila so sad?”

“Her brother used to be the bishop of Oakland. He has been in jail for the last ten years. She’s praying for him all the time.”

“Why did he go to jail?”

“You know that high school over on Fruitvale Ave?”

“Sure, Vaughn Walker High School.”

“That used to belong to the Catholic Church.” Your grandson’s eyes get wide.

“The Church used to have schools?”

“That school used to be called St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School.” You couldn’t bear to tell him that she had been a great pioneer of Catholic education in America. He wouldn’t have understood such a thing. “The City tried to tell the Bishop that the Catholic schools had to teach stuff that he didn’t want to teach.” 12

“What kind of stuff?”

“God knew what he was doing when he created men and women as different but equal; marriage is between a man and a woman; kids need a mom and a dad. Stuff like that.” His eyes get really wide now: he hasn’t seen either of his parents in a long time.

“A lot of people started coming to the Catholic schools because they wanted their kids to learn that stuff and nobody else was teaching it. One day, the police came to force them to get rid of some books. All the parents came to the school to guard their kids and their books. The Bishop blocked the doorway of the school. The police took him away. Some of the parents tried to fight back, but when the police started taking kids away to put them in foster care, most of the parents gave up.13 The Bishop is still in jail. He was one tough guy. He never backed down. Secretly, a lot of people admire him but are afraid to say anything.”

“You aren’t afraid are you? That’s why we go over to Miss Lila’s isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Grandpappy, you fought for the bishop, didn’t you?” Long silent pause. The BART train rattles on.

“Grandpappy, you didn’t do nothing to help the bishop, did you?”

“No, I didn’t do nothing. Here is our stop. Let’s go watch the Raiders play ball.”

So, you and your grandson get out of the BART at the end of the line, at the crumbling Coliseum, the last remnant of what was once a great civilization.

This is what our future could be, if current trends continue. But this does not have to be our future. Many, many people believe in man woman marriage, traditional marriage, or I should say, just marriage without adjectives. If all of us get off the bench, and onto the playing field, we can prevent this story from coming true. We can preserve marriage for our children and grandchildren, so that one man, one woman for life, can be a possibility for us all.

Revised and fully footnoted, October 15, 2011

1 “Undeserved Trust: Reflections on the ALI’s Treatment of De Facto Parents,” Robin Fretwell Wilson, in Reconceiving the Family: Critique on the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006)

2 “FBI arrests Tenn. Pastor in Vt.-VA custody case,” Sign On San Diego, April 22, 2011. http://www.signonsandiego.com/ news/2011/apr/22/fbi-arrests-tenn-pastor-in-vt-va-custody-case/ “Vermont: ruling in Lesbian Custody Case,” New York Times, January 22, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/us/23brfs-RULINGINLESB_BRF.html

3 Jennifer Roback Morse, “The Curious Case of the Incurious Economists,” American Thinker January 17, 2010 http://www. americanthinker.com/2010/01/the_curious_case_of_the_incuri.html

4 In the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision rendered in Ferguson v. McKiernan, 940 A. 2d 1236 Pa: Supreme Court 2007, the court upheld a private contract between a mother and a known sperm donor. The contract called for no visitation by the father, in exchange for no child support demands by the mother. This contract was upheld in part because failure to do so would make sperm donation less likely and reproduction without sexual intercourse less likely.

5 “Johnny has two mommies—and four dads,” Boston Globe, October 24, 2010, http://articles.boston.com/2010-10-24/ lifestyle/29312572_1_three-parents-modern-family-parental-relationship For an academic defense of multip-parenting by contract, see Associate Professor at Michigan State University College of Law, Melanie B. Jacobs, “Why Just Two? Disaggregating Traditional Parental Rights and Responsibilities to Recognize Multiple Parents,” 9 Journal of Law and Family Studies 309 (2007)

6 The PA Superior Court Jacob v Shultz-Jacob, 2007 Westlaw 1240885, 2007 PA Super 118 ruled that a child may have three parents, in this case a former lesbian couple and the man who donated sperm.

7 Superior Court of Pennsylvania, J.F. v. D.B., 897 A2d 1261 (Pa. Super. 2006), http://caselaw.findlaw.com/pa-superior-court/1119500.html In this case, a 61 year old man purchased the services of an egg donor and a gestational/surrogate mother. He intended to raise the triplets with his 59 year old girlfriend. The father did not come to the hospital to take the babies home, and the babies were discharged to the surrogate. In a complex and tumultuous course of litigation, the surrogate mother and her husband raised the babies for the first two and half years of their lives. The surrogate and her husband attempted to obtain custody of the children, but were ultimately denied. The sperm donor father got what he paid for: three children without a legal mother. For details and analysis of this case, see Robert E. Rains, “What the Eire “Surrogate Triplets” can Teach State Legislatures about the need to Enact Article 8 of the Uniform Parentage Act (2000). Cleveland State Law Review, Vol. 56:1 (2008) https://www.judicialview.com/ ajaxupload/upload_pdf/Constitutional_Law/1247510048.pdf For similarly convoluted cases, see Indiana Supreme Court, No. 29S02-0904-CV-140, In the Matter of the Adoption of Infants, H. Marion County Division of Indiana Department of Child Services v. S.M.

8 “In Norway, 43% of male partnerships included a non-Norwegian citizen. In Sweden, 45% of gay partnerships involved at least one foreign-born partner, compared with 22% of newly contracted heterosexual marriages that had at least one partner of foreign origin.” “The Demographics of Same-Sex Marriages in Norway and Sweden,” Gunnar Andersson, Turid Noack, Ane Seierstad, Harald Weedon-Fekjaer, Demography Vol 43, No. 1 (Feb. 2006).

9 “Court upholds woman’s ‘de facto’ parental rights,” Delaware on-line, April 18, 2011, The Delaware statute ”is not specific to same sex couples, but applies to other unmarried partners and stepparents.” http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110419/ NEWS01/104190347/Court-upholds-woman-s-de-facto-parental-rights?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|s; State of Minnesota, A05-537, May 10, 2007, In re the Matter of Nancy SooHoo, Respondent, vs Marilyn Johnson. In re parentage of L.B., Washington case creating 4 part test for definition of de facto parents.

10 For a general discussion of the likely impact of same sex marriage on a variety of church-related activities, see Douglas Laycock, Anthony R. Picarello, Jr. and Robin Fretwell Wilson, Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts, (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008).

11 Benjamin Scafidi, “The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and for All Fifty States,” Institute for American Values

12 For some of the California enactments mandating public school curriculum favorable to the interests of the gay lobby, see the following bills: SB 572: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/sen/sb_0551-0600/sb_572_ bill_20090910_enrolled.html AB 394: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_0351-0400/ab_394_bill_20070919_en­rolled.html SB 48: http://e-lobbyist.com/gaits/text/74798 SB 777: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/sen/sb_0751- 0800/sb_777_bill_20070917_enrolled.html You may object that this legislation only applies to public schools. Is there any legal barrier to legislation requiring gay-friendly curriculum in private schools? Would the gay lobby, including libertarians, oppose such legislation if it were proposed? If the answer to one or both of these ques­tions is “no” then the threat to independent schools such as Catholic schools must be taken as a serious possibil­ity.

13 In the UK, a Pentecostal Christian couple who had been foster parents for years were disallowed due to being unwilling to sign gay-affirming statement. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361469/Christian-beliefs-DO-lose-gay-rights-Judges-ruling-devout-foster-couple-lose-case.html

Certainly, the legalization of abortion was one such moment, as barbarism is defined as the inability or unwillingness to recognize another person as a human being. Abortion is the denial of procreative sex by nullifying its effects, which are seen as accidental. If you have an accident and conceive a baby, you can just clean up the mess by aborting it.

Now we are experiencing other Weimar moments, which also deny procreative sex by accepting sodomy as a morally normative act.  In Maryland, Gov. Martin O’Malley signed into law a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, effective next January.  In Washington state, Gov. Christine Gregoire signed a similar bill that will take effect June 7. Gregoire said, “We tell the nation that Washington state will no longer deny our citizens the opportunity to marry the person they love.”

This is exactly the same language that actor and producer Rob Reiner used in justifying his March 3rd live-streaming production of a dramatization of California’s Proposition 8 trial, with Brad Pitt playing Judge Vaughn R. Walker.  This was the decision that overturned Proposition 8, which added to the California constitution the definition of marriage as only “between a man and a woman.” This provision was challenged by several homosexual couples, the plaintiffs in the case, as a denial of due process and their right to equal protection under the law.

The original defendants in the case, the then-Attorney General Jerry Brown (now Governor) and the then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, refused to defend their state constitution in court, even though Proposition 8 was passed by a majority of their citizens. For this, a Californian might think, they should have been impeached for dereliction of duty. Brown and Schwarzenegger should not have been able to choose which parts of California’s constitution they would uphold and which they would not. Their absence left an apparently less than competent volunteer team to defend the provision.  (In a similar move, President Obama and his administration have chosen not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, though it is the law of the land.)

Personal interests

In deciding the case, US District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that Proposition 8 is unconstitutionally discriminatory because marriage is not between a man and a woman.

Where could he have gotten this idea? It turned out that the judge himself is a homosexual. It is more than a stretch to believe that his life as a homosexual did not affect his decision concerning homosexual rights. Would a person engaged in the very activity that is being questioned be the best judge of its legal character? One of the most elementary principles of justice is that one should not judge a case in which one has an interest. But Judge Walker apparently did not feel the need to recuse himself, though it would seem obvious that he, as a homosexual, would have had a personal interest in the outcome.

District Court Judge James Ware heard arguments on the motion that raised this very issue, and denied it. In the decision, Ware explained that,

“Requiring recusal because a court issued an injunction that could provide some speculative future benefit to the presiding judge solely on the basis of the fact that the judge belongs to the class against whom the unconstitutional law was directed would lead to a Section 455(b)(4) standard that required recusal of minority judges in most, if not all, civil rights cases.”

There is a profound problem with this reasoning.  It prejudges the case as a “civil rights” issue.  It is not the “class” to which Walker belonged, but the behavior in which he engaged that was at issue in his conflict of interest.  Do laws against murder discriminate against a “class” of murderers?  Acts do not constitute class.  They are voluntarily performed by individuals.  It is the moral and legal character of an act that constitutes the matter at hand, not the class of the person performing the act.  Let us say that the constitutionality of Prohibition was being decided.  Would it be relevant to the judge’s competence to hear the case if he were an active alcoholic?  Why, then, is it less relevant in this case, which was to decide the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, that Judge Walker was in a 10-year “relationship” with a partner, as he later admitted?

In fact, the judge was a beneficiary of his own ruling – not only in the direct sense that he could now marry his “partner” if he so wished, but in the larger rationalization of homosexual acts as being morally normative. His 136-page ruling can be seen as a bald act of self-justification, which he now enforces upon the broader public as legally mandatory.

This, of course, is a major misuse of law. In The Ethics, Aristotle noted what impels it: “Men start revolutionary changes for reasons connected with their private lives.” People who live morally disordered lives – and a life centered on homosexual acts is morally disordered – must always search for rationalizations that permit them to continue their behavior. Otherwise, their conscience rebels (see The Culture of Vice). Judge Walker’s revolutionary ruling was indubitably tied to his private life, the rationalization for which he then required everyone to accept – according the U.S. Constitution, no less.

Rationalizations

Let us examine the rationalizations in his judgment, which have now been shared by the 9th Circuit Court appeals panel, which supported his ruling in a split (2-1) decision issued in February. (The full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has been asked to review this ruling.)

Judge Walker declared that “Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.” This, he contended, is wrong because marriage is a basic right.

However, one has a “right” or is “free” to marry only in so far as one is capable of being married. One does not have a right to a vocation in life that one cannot perform the duties of. Does one have the “right” to be a fireman if one cannot quickly climb a ladder and lift a heavy hose? Does one have a “right” to serve in the military if one cannot physically meet its demands?

What, then, might be the minimal demands of marriage which one must be capable of performing? One of those martial duties, as in the two examples above, is actually physical, though its implications and true meaning extend far beyond the merely physical.

Common law holds that a marriage is not valid until it is consummated. What does consummating a marriage mean? It means and has always meant by law an act of vaginal intercourse between the husband and wife.

If this act does not take place, the marriage can be legally declared a nullity. Until consummation, it is subject to annulment. Therefore, becoming one flesh is not optional for a legally valid marriage. If one is incapable of consummating a marriage or simply unwilling to do so for any reason, there can be no marriage, and therefore the “right” to it is irrelevant. Similarly, if one cannot perform as a fireman, the right to be a fireman is also irrelevant.

The elephant in the room: sodomy

How did Judge Walker get around this? By ignoring it – and with this bit of legerdemain: he stated that the ability to produce offspring has never been a prerequisite for granting heterosexual couples marriage licenses. This, of course, is true, but he segues from it to the clear implication that an act of sodomy can therefore replace vaginal intercourse to consummate a marriage. He implies this, though the word “sodomy,” the elephant in the room, is never mentioned in his decision.

He was wise, if not entirely honest, in not using the word, because it has never before been thought that sodomy could legally consummate a marriage, regardless of the fertility or infertility of the couple. Many state laws forbade sodomy. Since some even included prohibitions of it within marriage, it was inconceivable that marital consummation could have meant anything but vaginal intercourse.

For homosexual couples, the marital act is physically impossible – the pieces don’t fit – and the attempt to ape it through sodomy is hygienically compromised and incapable in any circumstances of generating new life. For these reasons, among many others, common law has held through the centuries that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

In light of this, it is astonishing that Judge Walker could state in his conclusion that “Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license” (my emphasis). Is it not rational to state that those incapable of consummating a marriage cannot in fact be married? It seems quite irrational to say otherwise – that, against all legal tradition or any notion of natural law, marriage can be valid without its consummation.  This is a completely novel legal notion.

Is a ban discriminatory?

Judge Walker’s big issue is the denial of equality and the discriminatory nature of Proposition 8. However, everyone is equal before this law, because no man and woman can be denied marriage for reasons of race, creed, or color. No extraneous issues can be brought to bear outside of the qualification that it takes a man and a woman to marry – certainly not matters of class, as was alleged by the Ninth Circuit review panel. Homosexuals and lesbians are also equal before this law in so far as they are willing, respectively, to find a woman or a man with whom to marry. Proposition 8 did not single out anyone; it simply defines marriage as marriage has always been defined. Like any law, it distinguishes between those who qualify and those who do not.

Similarly, because of the principle of equality, everyone has the right to consent in the manner in which they are governed. However, in order to exercise this right – expressed as the right to vote – one must meet the qualifications of voter registration as to age, residence, etc. If one is unwilling to register or has not reached the proper age, one cannot exercise the right. A child cannot; neither can an insane person. In some states, neither can felons.

Contrary to Gov. Gregoire’s and Rob Reiner’s effusions that that everyone should have the right “to marry the person they love,” relevant disqualifications for marriage include consanguinity – brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters, cannot marry no matter how much they love each other. Neither can children, the insane, or those who are already married. Could anyone reasonably argue that children, the insane, bothers and sisters, or the already married are not equal before the law regarding marriage? Because you cannot meet the stipulations of a law does not mean you are unequal before it.  This makes specious Judge Reinhardt’s claim on the appeals panel that “Proposition 8 singles out same-sex couples for unequal treatment by taking away from them alone the right to marry.”  Hardly, all they have to do is find someone of the other gender who is not an immediate relative, already married, or a minor, and off they could go, like anyone else.  However, they don’t want to be like anyone else.  They wish a special law for special people.  This is the antithesis of the rule of law.

The law that forbids drunk driving, for instance, applies equally to everyone, including alcoholics. Because an alcoholic is more likely to break this law, or because it may be harder for him or perhaps even impossible to observe, does this mean the law is a violation of his due process and equality before the law? What would Judges Walker and Reinhardt say?  If they employed the same logic as in their Proposition 8 rulings, they would say that alcoholics are being discriminated against as a “class” and that, therefore, the law against drunk driving is unconstitutional.  The remedy, of course, would be a special statute or ruling to allow alcoholics to drive drunk.  Why is this proposal any less absurd than setting up a special class of marriage for those who refuse or are unable to perform the marital act?  (And what about bi-sexuals?  By this logic, shouldn’t a bi-sexual be allowed to maintain simultaneously consummated and unconsummated marriages?)

Judge Walker, however, took greatest umbrage at the “belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples” or “the belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women.” On what could such a “belief” be based? He suggested either “animus toward gays and lesbians,” which of course is inadmissible, or “moral disapproval of homosexuality,” which very well might be admissible, depending on its relationship to the common good.

Echoing this, Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the appeals panel that, “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”  Neither of these judicial bodies spoke to the relative moral worth of the conjugal act as against that of sodomy.  This seems an odd omission, as the judgment of their moral worth would be precisely the basis upon which to establish their “dignity,” or lack thereof.

Smuggling in a new morality

However, Walker dismissed morality altogether as an insufficient basis for legislation. This is in sync with his purported libertarian beliefs. He concluded that “Proposition 8 finds support only in such [moral] disapproval,” and is therefore unconstitutional. However, law is by its nature moral, as it stakes its claim to make something better, rather than worse. “Better” and “worse” are relative terms ultimately measured against what Aristotle called “the good,” the end toward which the human soul is ordered. If you do not think in terms of what is “good” for man, you cannot conceive of how society’s political order ought to be arranged or how man’s behavior should be legitimately regulated. Without morality, law is reduced to the rule of the stronger.

While dismissing the morality of his opponents as inadmissible, Judge Walker went on to legislate his own stealth morality. He averred, in effect, that it is wrong – in other words, immoral – to deny homosexual and lesbians a “right” to marry, because this is a violation of the principle of equality. Now, equality is a moral principle. Therefore, Judge Walker completely contradicted himself in asserting that morality is an insufficient basis for the law, when morality is exactly what he used to justify his decision in changing the law. Is this hypocritical or simply ignorant?

On the other hand, Judge Walker never addressed what might be immoral in the acts of homosexuals that would lead others to the attitude that heterosexual marriage is “morally superior” to same-sex marriage. He put it all down to changing attitudes. He called the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage “an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and marriage.” Being a good historicist, he stated, “That time has passed.” In fact, he insisted that same-sex partners can do anything in marriage (except consummating it?) as well as heterosexual couples, including child-rearing.

As a parent, this makes me wonder. When my children were younger, they used to think that, if my wife and I removed our wedding rings, they would disappear. We never told them that. Yet they instinctively understood that their very existence depended upon the love between my wife and me. They sensed that they were incarnations of this love, and they therefore concluded that, if it were broken, they would disappear.

For all of Judge Walker’s fulminations about the absolute equivalency of heterosexual and homosexual parenting, the children raised by two males or two females would never have that instinctive sense about the beginnings of their existence in the love of their parents – for the obvious reason that they could not originate in the relationship between two males or two females. This will leave these children with the lifelong quest for their real origins, or suffering from their being unable to discover them and wondering why at least one of their real parents did not want them. Even the laudable love of adoptive parents cannot overcome this instinctual problem.

A denial of reality

Another of Judge Walker’s extraordinary rationalizations is that “the evidence shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples” (emphasis added). This is a startling claim. How about a biologist? Can he tell the difference? Or a proctologist? How about a gynecologist? Might they not notice some slight difference between the two?

Judge Walker’s decision was not only irrational; it was a denial of reality. Socrates said that the worst thing a person could do was to lie in his soul about what is. This is such a lie. It denies what is between a man and a woman in marriage. As bad as this is for the poor souls who have organized their lives around a moral disorder, it is even worse for the political order that publically adopts it for its own – since it is marriage properly understood that is essential for civilization’s survival. Publicly enforced lies about what is are evil. That is why this is a Weimar moment.

These moments are flares in the night, distress signals, calls for moral rescue before a tsunami engulfs all memory of moral order. Signals have been sent. They still hang in the night sky, the last illumination before bearings are lost. In the darkness that descends, who will answer the cries for help? Will it be those who have been told to be less than men and women in marriage?

Robert Reilly has worked in foreign policy, the military, and the arts. His most recent book is The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis.

The school released a statement announcing that Tim Miller, a pro-abortion rights and pro-gay marriage performance artist who often appears nude on stage, would not be hosting a week-long workshop on campus in April.

“Villanova University embraces intellectual freedom and academic discourse. Indeed, it is at the very heart of our University and our Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition. With regard to the forthcoming residency and performance workshops by Tim Miller, we had concerns that his performances were not in keeping with our Catholic and Augustinian values and mission.

“Therefore, Villanova has decided not to host Mr. Miller on our campus. Villanova University is an open and inclusive community and in no way does this singular decision change that.”

As The Cardinal Newman Society reported, Miller, according to Facebook, sued the National Endowment for the Arts for pulling a grant due to his obscene “art,” he’s been arrested dozens of times, is a very public advocate of gay marriage and abortion rights, and is a member of the anti-Catholic group ACT UP which once sent protesters to interrupt Sunday mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and desecrated the Eucharist, according to The New York Times.

Far from renouncing his membership in ACT UP after that 1989 incident, Miller remains a member of ACT UP, according to Facebook, and even called the group’s confrontational tactics, “the single most influential thing in my life.“

Miller’s “art” has reportedly included simulating intercourse and lewdly exposing his naked body.  Has has criticized the “hideous religious baggage” that Americans have and said laws defending traditional marriage are “right out of the Third Reich.”

Miller responded to the cancelled invitation from Villanova in news reports by blaming Catholic blogs, saying that they were spreading “this bizarre lie that I’m anti-Catholic … People tell these lies and it gets people who read these blogs worked up.”

“Times have changed,” he reportedly said. “We’re in a much more coercive, censorious time.”

The school had billed the performance workshop as “an intimate process of self-discovery and exploration, focusing on identity and culture, questions of diversity and difference, knowledge of self and others, etc.”

To read the original report from The Cardinal Newman Society please click here.

I forget that, for some people, “homosexual” describes something like a different race, or maybe even a different gender. I forget that some Christians think I’m the worst kind of pervert (but a pervert they have to treat nicely), and some secularists think I’m the worst kind of hypocrite; the former because I’m sexually attracted to men, and the latter because I don’t do anything about it.

Read the last part again. Yes, I’m attracted to men; no, I don’t sleep with them, for the same reason that a lot of Catholics don’t sleep with people they’re not married to. But you’d be surprised how often people hear the first part (gay) and not the second (celibate) — even though the second is the only part that’s up to me.

I wrote a whole article once about what it was like to be a celibate, gay Catholic, and what was the first response in the combox? “Repent!!”

Not that everyone who finds out that I’m gay is like that. Overwhelmingly, the people I’ve told — mainly family and close friends — respond with compassion and even admiration. Usually it’s something like “I’m honored that you trust me enough to tell me this.” But even the most understanding people don’t always understand what I mean, if only because (unlike me) they haven’t had the last 14 years to figure it out, and because “I’m gay” is not a simple sentence.

I’m not very sensitive about the word “gay”, but some of us in the Gay Catholic business prefer the phrase “same-sex attraction,” or SSA. I find it more accurate than “gay” or “queer” or any of the others, just because it suggests that homosexuality is something I have rather than something I am. That’s the way I think of it. So the idea of gay culture, gay rights, gay marriage, gay anything really, is foreign to me. You might as well talk about gluten-intolerance culture, or musician’s rights.

Which is not to say that I don’t strongly identify with those parts of myself that people often conflate with being “gay.” I’m musical, I’m verbal, I’m intuitive, I have a strong aesthetic sense. But men with SSA don’t have a monopoly on those things, and the fact that I have those characteristics doesn’t mean I belong to some special culture; it means I’m myself, and not anybody else.

I also don’t mean to trivialize the experience of having SSA. Sex isn’t everything, but as anyone with any kind of sexual dysfunction knows, it’s an awful lot. Put the sexual aspect together with the other things that homosexual men and women often experience — depression, low self-esteem, loneliness, a sense (however false) of being utterly different — and you have a heavy cross.

I’ve experienced healing in every area I mentioned above, but nobody’s healing is complete this side of heaven. Loneliness can be the worst part: not the absence of friends, I’ve got those, but the effort of forging out a way to live in a society that constantly tells us that romantic love is anyone’s only shot at real happiness, and that celibacy (not to mention virginity!) is some kind of psychological disease.

And there’s the question of friendship. I love men, and I always will. That’s not weird, that’s not strange, that’s not even gay. But it’s not as simple as “look, but don’t touch” — chastity is a question of the heart and soul and emotions, as well as the groin. What do you do if your best friend turns you on? How do you learn to love another man without making him into an idol?

These questions are still present to me, but none of them are show-stoppers anymore. You deal with them, you pray and seek advice, you offer up the incidental pangs, and you get on with your life. And none of the things I deal with are unique to gay men or women. Being straight isn’t a guarantee of having a healthy, shiny, pre-integrated sexuality; it just means the whole beautiful, messy concerto is in a different key. Nobody gets to sit this one out.

To quote the YouTube campaign — you know the one, full of compassion and good intentions and muddled thinking — it does get better. If anyone had told me ten years ago what my life would be like today, maybe just showed me a video of an ordinary Tuesday evening in the life of contemporary Steve, my eyes would’ve bugged out. I never had any idea things could be this good, that I could be so confident, that I would so often feel like smiling for no particular reason.

You will be wondering how I got from there to here. There’s no quick answer. It took lots of prayer and hard work, and the love and patience of brothers, sisters, mentors, and friends. If you are looking for a good place to start — for yourself or someone you know, or just because you want to understand the whole thing better — I recommend browsing around People Can Change and Courage. I recommend picking up a copy of Fr. Harvey’s The Homosexual Person and Alan Medinger’s Growth Into Manhood. You might also try Melinda Selmys’ Sexual Authenticity and Wesley Hill’s Washed and Waiting. And of course there’s my blog.

And maybe the most important thing: you can do this, but not alone — and the Church may be your greatest ally. Maybe you don’t understand yet why the she teaches what she does; but don’t quit listening. Maybe you don’t feel Jesus’ love in the Mass; so then go more often, not less. Maybe you ran into a priest who didn’t understand; so find one who does.

Most of all, don’t accept any easy answers, from the right or from the left. The quick way is rarely the right one, and the long way around is well worth the trip.

Q: You argue that marriage is an institution with its own norms which exists in many different legal systems. So what are the basic characteristics of marriage?

A: I think is important to think of marriage as an “institution” rather than some other metaphor. Perhaps the worst way to think about marriage is “as a contract.” A contract is a legally enforced agreement between two people, and although marriage contains this element, there is much more to marriage than this. An institution is a collection of expectations, norms, and humanly devised constraints that work together towards some social objective. Across cultures and time there are a number of basic institutional characteristics of marriage that are relatively constant.

These characteristics would include the following. First, there is a strong contractual element to marriage. Marriage almost always requires some degree of consent between the husband and wife. Even in arranged marriages, the individuals are almost always involved in some extent and often have veto powers. In modern marriages, the couple determine a number of the details of marriage. For example, how things are to be shared, produced, and monitored are matters left up to the couple.

Second, marriage always has involved third parties. Families are involved in marriages, but so are extended family members, non-blood relations, and third parties like the church, state, or tribe. These third parties often regulate the terms of entry into and exit from marriage. Here is where marriage starts to move beyond mere contract. Whereas contracts can be customized between two people, marriage regulations are common across couples. The meaning of marriage for one couple in British Columbia is the same for another couple. Every couple within a jurisdiction faces the same entry and exit conditions.

Among these third party regulations we see many similarities across time and space. Marriage has always been a life-long arrangement (although recently in Mexico City some politician suggested making marriage a matter of a renewable two-year contract). Marriage has, until very recently, been heterosexual. For the most part marriage has centered on monogamous relations, although there are many instances of polygamous ones. Marriage is always a sharing arrangement. Rather than one spouse “hiring” the other, couples form unions and share in the good and bad times.

Finally, marriage is the institution that all societies have used as their first choice in raising children.

These similarities do not mean that one cannot find exceptions. In the history of mankind all sorts of institutions have been used to regulate sex. What we know is that these isolated cases were unable to grow in numbers and wealth. As a result they either died out or quickly converted when contact was made with other civilizations. In addition, often events in life (such as death) have meant that second-best arrangements have had to be made to accommodate children. Hence, most societies have had to develop welfare systems around marriage that include multiple marriages, adoption, and the like.

Q: Is it possible to create laws which will accommodate both heterosexual and homosexual couples?

A: I think it is, but not without a cost. Let me first say that there are four major categories of costs and benefits of including any type of couple into marriage. There are costs and benefits of including, and there are costs and benefits of excluding. Most of the debate on gay marriage focus on just one or two of these categories, and as a result there is much confusion. Let me spell them out before answering your question:

Inclusion Benefits: These are the private benefits a couple gains from marriage, plus any social benefits. Most believe that the major social benefit of marriage is a sufficient quantity of high-quality children to perpetuate the society.

Inclusion Costs: Any type of couple that is included into marriage that requires a redefinition of marriage imposes a cost on the existing types of couples. Marriage has been designed for monogamous heterosexual couples. Any change to its institutional structure to accommodate others, must impose costs on the existing marriages. This is the argument of my paper in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.

Exclusion Benefits: Every society has values that pass judgement on various types of unions. Some believe that polygamy is moral, others believe it is immoral. Some believe that gay marriage is good, others believe it is bad. When a type of marriage is excluded, those who believe this type of marriage is wrong benefit. These benefits must be included in the decision to allow the type of couple into the franchise of marriage.

Exclusion Costs: When a type of couple is excluded, the benefits they would have achieved in marriage are not realized, and this is a cost. In addition, some clerk somewhere has to be able to tell if a couple should be excluded, and this logistical problem also is a cost.

I have argued that the inclusion benefits of gay marriage are small because (i) there are very few of them in total, and (ii) they produce very few children. In a recent paper examining same sex couples in Canada, I find that gays and lesbians make up on 3/4 of 1 percent of the population, and that across the entire country there are only about 33,000 children living with a gay or lesbian in the household. There are 10 million children in Canada, and almost all of these children come from a previous heterosexual marriage or common law relationship.

I have argued that the inclusion costs of gay marriage are high. The institution of marriage must be fundamentally redefined to accommodate same sex couples. This includes, most notably, the definition of parenthood and the rights associated with that.

The exclusion benefits are changing every day, and this is why same sex marriage is now a debate. Whereas 30 years ago very few people would have considered same sex marriage a legitimate form of marriage, in North America around 50 percent now consider it so.

Finally, the costs of excluding same sex marriage is low. Society forgoes little by excluding them, and the logistics of identifying a same sex couple are low.

Hence, from an economic point of view, same sex marriage should not be allowed. The costs exceed the benefits. Now to your question.

The key element, in my opinion, is that the inclusion costs must be eliminated. Here is the major problem. By having one type of marriage for three different types of unions (and gays and lesbians are very different types of unions), we end up with major costs. If we could eliminate these costs, then same sex couples could enjoy the private benefits of marriage while only hurting those who think it is wrong.

The way to do this is through some type of civil union, or to have two types of marriage co-existing. The former has been tried. The latter has not. The problem with doing the latter is that it does open the door of “marriage as contract.” If same sex couples get to have a customized marriage, then why can other couples not also have customized marriages? If we go down this road, then marriage pretty much loses all meaning.

So, my answer would be: if we can create something called “same-sex marriage” that is not binding on heterosexuals, and which does not open the door for other custom marriages, then this is one way of accommodating everyone.

Q: How are heterosexual, gay and lesbian relationships essentially different?

A: Of course the fundamental difference between opposite and same sex unions is the ability of the former to cheaply procreate. In a recent paper I have examined this difference and found that it alters many behaviors. In particular, same-sex couples, given the higher costs of children, have fewer children. The costs of procreating are higher for gays than lesbians, and gays have many fewer children than lesbians. Because they have fewer children in their households, gays and lesbians partake in behaviors that are not complementary to children. They consume more alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes than heterosexuals. For both gay men and lesbians, they are more likely to have multiple sex partners, both as singles and couples.

Finally, because children are unlikely in a same-sex relationship, gays and lesbians sort on different criteria when seeking a mate. In particular, I find that they are less concerned about the genetic fitness of their partners. This makes sense since heterosexuals have to worry about the genetic traits their spouses will pass on to children, and they want a healthy spouse to be around for the entire duration of child rearing.

All of these factors help explain another factor that has been observed in same-sex unions: they are less stable than opposite-sexed ones. One study done in Norway and Sweden found that lesbians were six times more likely to divorce compared to heterosexuals, and gays were three times more likely to divorce.

It is not so much that children hold marriages together (which they probably do), but that those interested in children are also interested in long-lasting relations. The absence of children means that gays and lesbians are generally getting something out of their relationships that is different (eg, companionship). There’s no particular reason why one should have the same companion or sex partner for life once children are out of the picture.

Q: Do these differences have consequences?

A: They certainly do, as I’ve just pointed out. From an institutional perspective, they also mean that gays and lesbian relationships are likely to require different types of regulations. Even when children are present, they likely arrive by different channels. These different channels require different forms of management. As has become clear in the Netherlands, over time, there are now several different categories of parents with different levels of rights.

Q: How can changing the law to accommodate the demands of same-sex couples possibly harm heterosexual marriages?

A: Let’s take one example. Historically the definition of parent has been “natural parent” which has meant “biological parent.” There can only be two natural parents, and someone who is the biological parent has been given an entire set of rights and responsibilities. These rights and responsibilities have been designed to manage the problems that arise in procreation. Societies have wanted parents to have the proper incentives to remain married and to look after their offspring. It has always been a serious matter to alter these rights and responsibilities.

Well, natural parenthood makes no sense when you introduce same-sex marriage, because if there are children one of the spouses is not biologically connected. In jurisdictions that have same sex marriage there is always some type of redefinition to accommodate this. In Canada we created a concept called “legal parent.” In British Columbia this has meant a birth certificate asks for the mother’s name and the “co-parent’s” name. The concept of “father” has been reduced. More significantly, there can be more than two legal parents. There have been a host of legal cases involving divorce where biology has no standing and non-biological but legally-connected parents have been given custody. This is a dramatic shift in the rights of parents, and affects the way parents behave. The impacts of these are yet to be fully seen.

Q: What has been the experience in Canada, after the definition of marriage was changed?

A: Well, that is a good question. Most of the outrageous cases have not been held up by the courts. So, for example, when BC introduced same-sex marriage there were many couples from the US who came up and got married. They then went back home, and within a few years wanted a divorce. This put them in limbo. The states they resided in did not recognize their marriages, and so would not grant a divorce.

However, BC has a residency requirement and would also not grant the divorce. A lawsuit was launched demanding that BC allow divorces to non-residents. If passed it would have made BC a divorce mill. Fortunately, it was defeated, but this just shows yet another unintended consequence.

One immediate change was the subsequent change of all divorce laws. Of course, the meaning of marriage in the culture has changed. But, the measurable effects are not known yet, and unfortunately it will take some time before they are known.

Q: Many people say that adverse consequences of legalizing same-sex marriage are just social science scaremongering. But you argue that we should learn from the legalization of no-fault divorce.

A: Yes. This gets back to my fundamental point: marriage is an institution designed with a purpose. If you mess with it, there will be consequences.

During the no-fault divorce debate the same arguments were made that are heard today: “marriage is a formalization of love.” Hence, if a couple no longer loves each other, why shouldn’t they be allowed to divorce? The view was that there exists an exogenous number of dead and living marriages, and so the law was only setting free those trapped in a dead marriage.

Well, guess what? Marriage is designed to mitigate bad behavior, and by allowing individuals to unilaterally abandon their marital responsibilities there was a lot of bad behavior.

In the 1960s debate, no one thought the divorce rate would change, but it changed enormously and led to a divorce culture. No one thought there would be changes to labor force participation, hours worked, violence against spouses, suicide rates for children, and on and on. And yet, changes to these thing are linked to no-fault divorce.

The no-fault divorce experiment proves that marriage is an institution designed with a purpose, and therefore, further changes to accommodate same sex couples will also have consequences. As in the 1960s we’re probably unable to predict what they all will be, but they will come nonetheless.

One of the overriding purposes of marriage has been to encourage fertility. Every couple wants to have one baby, but not enough want to have enough to replace or grow a population. This has been a social problem for 3,000 years (ask the Spartans). Over the past 100 years we’ve been able to dodge this bullet through high levels of wealth and immigration, but as we continue to erode the value of marriage, reduced fertility is likely a long-term consequence.

Douglas W. Allen is Burnaby Mountain Professor of Economics at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, British Columbia. His latest book is The Institutional Revolution (U Chicago Press). He is also a member of the Ruth Institute’s Circle of Experts.

For Further Reading
Douglas W. Allen. “An Economic Assessment of Same-Sex Marriage Laws.” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Vol 29, No 3. 2006.
Douglas W. Allen. “Who Should Be Allowed Into the Marriage Franchise?” Drake Law Review. Vol 58, 2010.

At first glance, these three statements do not appear to be in conflict as long as “the law” is enforced. But during the same month, President Obama announced his administration’s intentions to “ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation” to complement his administration’s previous announcement to work toward eliminating the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) through executive orders and in the courts.

In the strongest letter of his brief tenure as the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Archbishop Timothy Dolan called on President Obama and his administration to stop violating the law by actively lobbying against DOMA. The archbishop did not mince words, stating that the administration’s actions do not “stand the test of common sense,” and that unless rolled back, such actions would “precipitate a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions.” He further wrote that Obama needs to “push the reset button” on DOMA. To do otherwise, “ignores the will of millions of Americans who have voted in favor of state constitutional versions of the law.”

Shortly after Archbishop Dolan’s letter, the Obama administration immediately denounced a North Carolina ballot initiative for a Constitutional Amendment that would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. In doing so, the administration repeated its earlier statement that it would no longer defend the constitutionality of DOMA in the courts.

This is not the only example of the Obama administration’s complete disregard for the law in order to push its LGBT agenda. In addition to the actions cited above, Dolan also called attention to a June report that the Department of Agriculture had created another “ism” – “heterosexism” – for those who support DOMA, and the lifting of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for the military.

And it is not only the Catholic Church that opposes the Obama administration’s overreaching in its push to redefine marriage. DOMA-like statutes currently exist in 39 states and 30 define marriage as between one man and one woman in their constitutions. Since 2004, 22 state constitutions have been amended to include this language by a popular vote of citizens. The six states, plus the District of Columbia, which have legalized homosexual “marriage” have done so through legislation or court order, not by the popular consent of the citizens of the state.

President Obama flagrantly disregards the will of the American people by not only ignoring the federal law that defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman, but also by openly opposing it. Can you imagine what would happen to a pro-life president who directed the appropriate agencies to ignore the law in order to withhold congressionally-approved funds to Planned Parenthood?

Like all who attempt to redefine marriage to suit an activist minority, the administration doesn’t appear to understand the important role natural marriage serves in securing the health of a nation. A recent study, “The Sustainable Demographic Dividend: What Does Marriage and Fertility have to do with the Economy?” focused on the marriage of one man and one women, the children resulting from that marriage, and the role of this natural family in sustaining economic growth. Its four key findings, cited from the executive summary, are:

(1) Children raised in intact, married families are more likely to acquire the human and social capital they need to become well-adjusted, productive workers.

(2) Men who get and stay married to one woman work harder, work smarter, and earn more money than their unmarried peers.

(3) Nations wishing to enjoy robust long-term economic growth and viable welfare states must maintain sustainable fertility rates of at least two children per woman.

(4) Key sectors of the modern economy—from household products to insurance to groceries—are more likely to profit when men and women marry and have children.

The “bottom-line message” of the report is that, “[B]usiness, government, civil society, and ordinary citizens would do well to strengthen the family—in part because the wealth of nations, and the performance of large sectors of the modern economy, is tied to the fortunes of the family.”

This is a direct contradiction to the actions taken by the Obama Administration with regard to the family. Its radical societal engineering will be felt by future generations as there will be fewer persons in the work force and consumers to generate the wealth that yields the taxes necessary to fund the government.

European nations are scrambling to halt the demographic decline that the Obama administration seems determined to foist upon America. Archbishop Dolan is correct. If not reversed, this action will most certainly harm our nation in ways that do not appear to have occurred to the President.

Words do have meanings, but actions speak louder than words. The Obama administration’s attempts to redefine marriage prove that its proclamations on Mother’s and Father’s Days ring hollow.

As Archbishop Dolan put it, it is long past time for the Obama administration to “push the reset button” on DOMA. The future of our nation depends on it.

Bob Laird is a fellow of HLI America, an educational initiative of Human Life International, and is the former Director of Tepeyac Family Center. He writes for the Truth and Charity Forum.