Predictions on the effects of same-sex 'marriage'

Maggie Gallagher has developed a list of predictions should the United States as a whole or more individual states recognize SSM.

Her list of five is here over at The Corner on National Review online, with sixth here.

I just sent a letter to the Corner editor with the following additions:

I'd like to add a seventh prediction on SSM to Maggie Gallagher's excellent list:

Court challenges to laws against polygamy (on religious freedom grounds) will arise, leaving open the redefinition of marriage from two persons to any number of persons. Before that happens, de facto polygamy will also increase, affecting immigration and welfare rolls, because authorities fear challenging it on religious freedom or politically correct moral relativism grounds.

Why do I say this? Because I live in Canada where SSM is the law. During the 2005 debate prior to marriage redefinition, those who warned polygamy would be next were called extremists and scare-mongers. But over the past year, there have been many signs that polygamy is on our horizon.

The problem with removing the biological basis for marriage, i.e. having a mother and a father with children biologically related to them (and having exceptions like adoption clearly as exceptions to the norm) is that parenthood has been made a legal construct by the state. What the state used to recognize --the natural family (which existed prior to the state) the state has now redefined, removing from all legislation any references to mother or father and replacing it with "legal parent" or something similar. So, what was a concrete social reality and a social institution best designed for the rearing of children by parents biologically related to them, has been replaced with an abstraction where suddenly the "between two people" loses its meaning. Why then should marriage be restricted to two "legal parents"?

We have an Ontario court case that recognized three legal parents---the "married" lesbian couple that are raising a child and the sperm donor father. If three legal parents, why not more? We have welfare agencies recognizing de facto the multiple wives of immigrant families, supporting the wives in separate households. We had British Columbia afraid for years to file charges against a breakaway Morman sect openly practicing polygamy because of fears of such charges would not stand up against a religious freedom challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Though charges have since been filed, defense lawyers have waved the religious freedom argument.

Thus, a concrete reality ---the biological family---can no longer be used to reinforce traditional marriage and an abstraction involving two people is vulnerable to the politically correct moral relativism that sees all religions as equally irrational and equally worthy of respect. Except of course our Judeo-Christian religious foundations for the temerity of challenging that relativism. Gallagher is absolutely right: redefining marriage does become a way for anti-western activists to use the levers of state power (human rights commissions up here in Canada) to shut down Christian expression (or at least subject Catholic bishops, and Catholic magazines for example) to a lengthy and expensive process where truth is no defence, nor is religious freedom, only the perceived impact on an alleged victim group.

I would add an eighth prediction: SSM and its abolition of the biological basis of the family opens the door to soft totalitariasm. This has been the thesis of McGill University professor Douglas Farrow in his excellent essays in his beautifully written Nation of Bastards. The biological family (and the church) are the chief bulwarks (along with other civil society groups) against untrammeled state power, he argues. The change in the law makes us all, in effect, wards of the state, hence the provocative title.

All the the rights that biological families have had to raise their children in their religious faith and to have the primary responsibility for their children's education are being challenged with ever-increasing state encroachment in Canada. In Quebec, for example, a religion and ethics course that takes a relativist, "all religions are equal" approach is mandatory even in private Catholic schools.

There needs to be another way to guarantee that gays and lesbians who throw their lot in with each other get recognition in terms of tax laws, or hospital decisions involving their partners. But then, why should the sexual relationship be the deciding factor? What if some Jean Vanier type had taken in some disabled individuals to care for them with love and concern, or two elderly widows making a home together. Some kind of recognition of civil partnerships could be in order.

But to remove the biological basis of the family makes it impossible to discriminate in favor of the best social institution for the procreation and rearing of children. As we approach our demographic winter, that would be a sad, sad state of affairs, where the state can not by law provide incentives to support marriage, fatherhood, motherhood as a social good. Imagine if the state were unable to distinguish between mother/father families and multi-wife families? Gallagher is right, the proportion of gay and lesbian couples who will opt for marriage will be tiny. But the effects down the road of redefinining marriage will be huge.

Thanks for your consideration

Deborah Gyapong
www.deborahgyapong.com