"The first point is that same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue. Without exception, every adult in Maryland already has a right to marry. But everyone also has restrictions on whom they may marry--again, without exception. No one is permitted to marry a child, a close blood relative, a person who is already married, or a person of the same sex. These restrictions apply equally to everyone--there is no discrimination involved.
Nevertheless, homosexual activists continue to hitch their caboose to the civil rights train--something which is offensive to a majority of African Americans. We ban discrimination based on race in this country for the specific reason that race is a characteristic which is inborn, involuntary (you can't choose it), immutable (you can't change it), and innocuous (it harms no one). Plus, race appears in the Constitution. The choice to engage in homosexual behavior is none of the above. The laws which once limited one's marriage partner on the basis of race were designed to build walls and to keep blacks and whites apart. But restricting one's choice of a marriage partner by gender preserves marriage as an institution that builds bridges to bring men and women together to create future generations and serve the health of society.
But even if same-sex marriage is not a legal right, some people ask, what harm would be done by letting same-sex couples marry? I sometimes find it hard to believe people can ask that question in light of the devastation we've seen from other changes in family structure in the last 35 years. The research we've done at the Family Research Council shows several things: homosexuals are much less likely than heterosexuals to enter into long-term relations in the first place; if they do have a partner, they are less likely to remain sexually faithful; and they are much less likely to remain committed for a lifetime. These problems--an unwillingness to commit to marriage, a lack of fidelity, and a lack of permanence--exist among heterosexuals as well. But the experience of the Scandinavian countries shows that opening marriage to same-sex couples would make these problems worse, not better, throughout the population...
Finally, let's be clear about one thing. This debate has not arisen because there's been a large groundswell of public support for same-sex marriage, for no such groundswell exists. We are sometimes accused of being "divisive" for opposing same-sex marriage, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, there are few political issues on which Americans are so united as they are in believing that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The only reason this debate is taking place at all is because small groups of homosexual activists have gone to court in an attempt to gain from a small band of judges what they know they could never win through the democratic process. They did it in Vermont and succeeded; they did it in Massachusetts and succeeded..."
