If marriage is such a good thing, why are we so opposed to allowing those who have suffered so much enjoy its benefits? It is not enough to show that same-sex marriage will hurt society, we must show that no matter how much homosexuals want to “marry”, it is not in their own best interests.
Expectation of Infidelity
SSA is a psychological disorder in which, for many, sexual addiction is a significant factor. Pro-gay writers readily admit that expecting two men in a sexual relationship to remain faithful is an unrealistic goal. It is expected that over time at least one of the partners will engage in sexual acts with others. Fidelity in these relationships is redefined to mean that the extent and nature of other relationships is negotiated between the partners. To legalize marriages in which infidelity is expected changes the very meaning of marriage.
Persons with SSA who seek to “marry” undoubtedly hope to escape from the cycle of raised expectations and dashed hopes. They may sincerely believe that “marriage” will solve their problem, but marriage doesn’t resolve psychological problems. The psychological disorders associated with SSA (see Sandfort et al, Archives of General Psychiatry, 2001) make healthy, stable same-sex relationships difficult to achieve.
Persons with SSA want acceptance, as children they felt rejected, different, unaccepted. For them, the legalization of same-sex marriage would finally force the world to accept them. They are willing to pay the price for that acceptance — the surrender of their true masculine or feminine identity. They want us to agree to the lie that governs their inner life — to say that all they are or can ever be is homosexual — and we must love them enough to say, “No, you are real men and women.”
Dale O'Leary is a freelance writer, editor of Heartbeat News, author of The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality and The Art of Raphael: Coloring Book. Her conversion story appears in Spiritual Journeys. She is currently working on a book on forgiveness and was a featured presenter at the Canticle Conference in Dallas TX March 22, 2003.
Different and Equal
Marriage in its essence involves complementarity. Sexual complementarity allows the two to join as one flesh and to bring forth new life from that union. A man is designed to enter and impregnate a woman and a woman is designed to be entered and to become pregnant by a man. A woman cannot achieve this with another woman, and a man cannot achieve this with another man. Both alternatives are contrary to natural human sexuality.
Complementarity is not merely physical. A man and a woman are also emotionally and psychologically complementary. In marriage the man can be fully male and a woman to be fully female. The radical feminists laid the foundation for the homosexual onslaught by claiming that men and women are essentially the same and that the obvious differences are the result of unjust gender socialization which should be eliminated so that the differences between men and women will disappear. Those interested in understanding more about radical feminism can read my book The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality. (Available from Heartbeat News, for $12.00, P.O. Box 41294, Providence, RI 02940)
Having won acceptance among the liberals in academia and in the media for their claim that the differences between the sexes were the result of oppressive heterosexist socialization, the radical feminists and pro-homosexual activists then were able to argue that restriction of marriage to a male/female couple was part of the same unjust oppressive system.
I have been working with other women for over ten years to develop an understanding of how men and women can be different and equal and how true complementarity of the sexes works. Canticle Magazine was founded to forward this effort. Once the true complementarity of the sexes is properly understand, one can easily understand why same-sex relationships lack complementarity. To compensate for this, same-sex couples must make accommodations; one partner must deny some part of his or her true identity.
One way is through a pseudo marriage in which one person imitates the role of the other sex. An effeminate male may think that he is like a woman, but as a woman I find the behavior of most effeminate men a rather poor imitation of true feminine behavior. They imitate the form but don’t understand the content. Underneath they are still men, but men who feel inferior to other men. They don’t really understand what it means to be a woman.
In the same-way masculine appearing women in same-sex relationships aren’t real men; they are only imitating men. I saw this clearly during a special in which Ellen DeGeneres gave a televised tour of her home. Inside her closet there were no feminine clothes, but her closet did not resemble the closet of a well-dressed preppy man. Instead of a wide variety of shirts, pants, there was one style of each item in different colors — shirts, jackets, pants, and shoes. It was as though she were stuck in a stereotype of masculinity. The program included a fitting for a gown in which Ms. DeGeneres would attend an awards ceremony. The dress was lovely but Ellen appeared to be on the verge of having a panic attack. It struck me that at the height of her success Ms. DeGeneres was tragically unfree — unable to be comfortable as a woman and caught in a narrow stereotype of masculinity.
While the general public may view most same-sex couples as pseudo marriages, another form of accommodation may be as prevalent: couples whose relationships resemble that of a parent and child. Since SSA is frequently related to failure to bond with the same-sex parent, the younger, dependent partner may be trying to repair this failure by seeking a union with a replacement for the parent of the same sex.
In marriage both partners should want what is best for the other. In a pseudo parent/child relationship, the older partner does not want what is best for the younger – namely that the younger become fully adult and independent. For the relationship to continue, younger remains dependent and immature.
A less common type of a same-sex couple is those who see their partner as a mirror image of themselves. Like girls in elementary school the couple may dress identically and share all activities. This type of relationship is threatened if either partner wishes to be a free individual.
In some same-sex couples, the partners are so wounded, so lonely, so lost that each sees the other as the only person who has ever cared. Their loneliness becomes sexualized. They are afraid to let go.
None of these relationships forwards the good of both partners — namely to live as a mature and fully complete person according to one’s true sexual identity. Each is based on an unspoken promise to remain unhealed — to never be the full man or woman they were created to be. Legalizing a same-sex marriage would be approving a covenant to remain in psychological bondage.
It is true that in some marriages complementary does not lead to true equality between the husband and wife.
The differences is that in a dysfunctional marriage healing can improve the marriage, while with a same-sex couple, healing will doom the relationship.
A Particularly Terrible Form of Child Abuse
The desire to be a parent is normal and healthy. Persons with SSA almost always have had problematic relationships with one or both of their parents. If they want children, they hope that they will be better parents than their parents.
There are several ways in which persons with SSA can acquire children. In the past, persons with same-sex attraction frequently tried to solve their problem by marrying. Many had children and when marriage failed to resolve their same-sex attraction, they divorced, and sought custody or visitation with their children. Today persons with SSA are less likely to marry or conceive children in a sexual relationship with a person of the opposite sex and more likely to acquire children through adoption, foster care, artificial insemination (for women) and surrogate parenting (for men). Once they have children, they will love them and they want what is best for their children. They certainly don’t want their children to suffer, but by creating a child who is permanently and purposefully fatherless or motherless through artificial insemination or surrogate parenting, they are the direct agent of suffering.
Every child has a right to know and to be raised by his or her biological father and mother. Anything less is rightly perceived by the child as a tragedy. If a tragedy occurs, adults can respond heroically to diminish the effects of the tragedy. Single parents, deserted mothers, parents who adopt, and foster parents try to cushion the blow.
The creation of a child who is conceived to be permanently and purposefully fatherless or motherless is not unexpected tragedy to which a family heroically responds, but a calculated injury. It is a tragedy engineered by the child’s parent and partner. Although the same-sex partners who have created the child may claim that the child is suffering because society doesn’t accept same-sex parenting, in fact the child is suffering because he or she has been denied something essential — either a father or a mother. Two mothers is not a substitute for a mother and father and children know this, no matter how many times they are told differently.
Not only do these children begin life with a calculated, planned loss of one parent, the chances are extremely high that these children will experience subsequent losses. Same-sex relationships both male and female are extremely unstable. When the relationship breaks up, the biological parent will demand custody, and the non-biological parent will try to sustain the relationship. This has already led to a number of messy custodial battles. Children conceived into these unstable families will probably cling to whatever security they can, grow up feeling guilty, and afraid to express legitimate anger. Their parents and the gay community will undoubtedly encourage these children to turn their anger on an unaccepting society, but would society’s acceptance make it better for the children? Or would it just be another betrayal? Would these children think to themselves, “If everyone else says it’s all right so why does it feel so wrong? Why am I so ungrateful as to want a daddy and mommy when everyone says that two mommies are just as good?”
The children created for same-sex couples will suffer and same sex couples rather than admit that their actions are the cause of their children’s pain will have to deny the pain or blame someone else. They are already demanding that the world be restructured so that their children aren’t exposed to “heterosexist” images of families. A large number of studies have been done on children of lesbian couples. According to the studies, the children in spite of traumatic divorces and other stresses have no problems. This absence of problems is in itself problematic. Could it be that the researchers, the couples, and the children themselves are afraid to admit problems that do exist?
The denial of the children’s pain and fundamental human right to be conceived in an act of love between a man and a woman who married and committed to the child for life constitutes the gravest evil. Children are not objects, created to satisfy their parents’ needs. At present the law cannot prevent same-sex couples from creating fatherless or motherless children, but making same-sex marriage legal would encourage these couples to acquire children. Same-sex marriages would constitute a legal encouragement of a particularly terrible form of child abuse.
