COLUMN: Nothing to lose by allowing homosexual marriages
The United States Supreme Court has deemed the regulation of sexual behavior unconstitutional. Lawrence v. Texas (2003) was devastating blow to conservative America because it made homosexual intercourse legal nationwide. The homosexual stride toward equality is not only inevitable but also proactively working in favor of what conservatives call the “homosexual agenda.” Therefore, conservatives feel threatened.
Many religious-conservative people, since Lawrence, and since same-sex unions happening in California and Massachusetts, have proactively gone on a crusade to pass amendments to their state constitutions as well as the federal constitution that will “define” marriage between a man and a woman. In order to advance their crusade and disguise themselves as victims they have adopted words like “defense” and “protect.” A Utah Statesman columnist actually used the word “inundated” to describe the presence of same-sex couples on our own campus. This language allows the conservatives to present their movement as one of defense against an overwhelming homosexual power. The Right uses the politics of fear and God to progress an anti-gay agenda that they hope will ultimately relegate gays and lesbians to the status of second class citizenship.
This need to “defend marriage” is a misnomer. In fact, the only thing that the Right is doing by passing amendments and defining marriage is defending their fabricated sense of superiority. Throughout history, religious radicals have tried to position themselves as superior. My God is better than your God, white is better than black, men are better than women and heterosexuality is better than homosexuality. This stratification is baseless therefore conservative arguments on this matter are solely based on emotion and proprietary beliefs.
Since the beginning of history, homosexuals have been thwarting the heterosexual bureaucracy and living as couples, raising families and interacting with children. Society has still progressed, continued to exist, and procreation has not been brought to a standstill. All homosexuals will gain by the right to marry are benefits that are external of that sanctity that religious zealots are pretending to defend. However, heterosexual society will lose a class of people to which they are no longer superior.
The Right has made a habit out of using “traditional families” and children to defend their prejudice. They claim that marriage is the institution in which life is created. They disregard the fact that life can be created outside of wed-lock and also the fact that many married people chosen not to have children. This logic of using marriage solely as an institution for procreation and childrearing degrades heterosexual relationships to the purpose of breeding. Where is the superiority in that?
In studying the Constitution of the United States, one can, by use of logic and reasoning, deduce certain characteristics that the great men who drafted it had in mind. This document was fashioned carefully and thoughtfully. It made provisions to keep a government that is by the people and for the people. The Constitution was created with checks and balances on every branch of government in order to make sure that the people could not overthrow the government and in turn our government could not tread on our inalienable rights. The judicial branch and judges were given a special power endowed to them by the sole fact that they are appointed and not elected. This allows various justices to make decisions on what is right not what is popular. It can be argued that since the judicial branch does not have to engage in politics as elected officials do, their job is to be activists for the rights of individuals. The drafters of the constitution put in place this type of judicial body in order to protect all individuals from the tyranny of the majority.
The Right knows that they are being discriminatory. Their need to be superior flies in the face of our country’s foundation that “all men [and women] are created equal.” Therefore, conservatives know that an amendment is the only way to establish their sense of dominance and will simultaneously stop the courts from raining on their heterosexual superiority parade.
There is nothing to lose by allowing homosexuals the right to marry. The structural integrity of our nations families as well as the moral guidance of our children can be perpetuated by homosexuals just as effectively as heterosexuals. There is no such thing as traditional marriage. Marriage throughout history has reinvented itself and taken on new formations. Even the state of Utah, and many people reading this article have spawned from a history of polygamy: a definition of marriage that does not fit the new religious-conservative definition. Neither homosexuals nor their behavior creates the immorality of same-sex marriage, but moreover the immorality is forged by the people who have an unearned desire to feel superior to homosexuals.
Cy Martz is a senior majoring in public relations at USU. He is also the president of the USU Pride! Alliance. He welcomes your comments cmartz@cc.usu.edu.