{"id":6153,"date":"2013-06-28T06:53:43","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T05:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=6153"},"modified":"2014-01-14T23:23:52","modified_gmt":"2014-01-14T23:23:52","slug":"the-winners-and-losers-in-the-supreme-court-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/the-winners-and-losers-in-the-supreme-court-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Decision Winners and Losers"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Robin Phillips<\/a><\/p>\n

\"supreme_court\"<\/a>Neither side in the same-sex \u2018marriage\u2019 debate could claim that the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling<\/a><\/strong> last Wednesday came as a decisive victory. Nevertheless, there were some definite winners and losers. Let\u2019s begin by looking at the losers.<\/p>\n

The Losers<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Wednesday Was a Bad Day for Christians<\/h3>\n

Significantly, the Supreme Court did not \u2018discover\u2019 a right to gay \u2018marriage\u2019 in America\u2019s constitution. Nevertheless, by declaring that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to limit marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman, the Court paved the way for gay marriage to be implemented throughout the states. As more and more states pass laws to change the definition of marriage, the inconsistency will be highlighted. After all, is it really fair for a couple to be \u2018married\u2019 in Washington but not married once they cross over the border into Idaho? Faced with this inconsistency, it will probably be only a matter of time before all 50 states begin approving same-sex \u2018marriage.\u2019 As this happens, Christians will be the first to suffer.<\/p>\n

The reason we know that Christians will suffer is because that is exactly what happened in Canada, the first English-speaking country to legalize gay \u2018marriage.\u2019 Since 2005 when Canadians changed their definition of marriage, Christian business owners, florists, caterers, educators and many others have all found themselves prosecuted for their refusal to recognize gay \u2018marriages\u2019 or participate in gay weddings. Some of these cases were highlighted by Michael Coren last year in an article for The National Review Online titled, \u2018Canadian Crackdown<\/a>\u2019<\/strong> :<\/p>\n

Although precise figures about gay marriages in Canada are elusive, there are thought to be fewer than 30,000, after an initial surge of around 10,000 as soon as the law was passed. But if large numbers of gay people failed to take advantage of the law, the law certainly took advantage of its critics. Again, definitive figures are almost impossible to state, but it\u2019s estimated that, in less than five years, there have been between 200 and 300 proceedings \u2014 in courts, human-rights commissions, and employment boards \u2014 against critics and opponents of same-sex marriage. And this estimate doesn\u2019t take into account the casual dismissals that surely have occurred\u2026.<\/p>\n

As I write, two Canadian provinces are considering legislation that would likely prevent educators even in private denominational schools from teaching that they disapprove of same-sex marriage, and a senior government minister in Ontario recently announced that if the Roman Catholic Church did not approve of homosexuality or gay marriage, it \u201cwould have to change its teaching.\u201d What has become painfully evident is that many of those who brought same-sex marriage to Canada have no respect for freedom of conscience and no intention of tolerating contrary opinion, whether that opinion is shaped by religious or by secular belief.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(For more about the challenges faced by Christians when same-sex \u2018marriage\u2019 is legalized, see myth #3 in my article \u2018Five Gay Marriage Myths<\/a>.\u2019)<\/p>\n

Wednesday Was a Bad Day for Children<\/h3>\n

The Supreme Court Ruling did not codify same-sex \u2018marriage\u2019, but it did create the legal space for same-sex \u2018marriage\u2019 to begin to be mainstreamed in the states. The collateral effect of this cannot be overstated, since it will inevitably help to reinforce the notion that moms and dads are interchangeable. The logic for this spurious notion is already substantially in place. Listen to what Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse said in an article<\/strong><\/a> reflecting on her debate with Judith Stacey:<\/p>\n

I crossed swords with Judith Stacey\u2026at a debate at Bowling Green State a few years ago. I asked her point blank if she believed men and women were completely interchangeable as parents. In front of that very friendly audience, she said absolutely: the gender of parents doesn\u2019t matter\u2026.<\/p>\n

Treating same sex unions like marriage amounts to saying that mothers and fathers are interchangeable. It is a coin toss from a child\u2019s point of view, whether they have two moms, two dads, or one of each.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The damage caused by this spurious notion that moms and dads are interchangeable is felt most directly by the children. As Ryan T. Anderson explains,<\/p>\n

Social science claiming to show that there are \u201cno differences\u201d in outcomes for children raised in same-sex households does not change this reality. In fact, the most recent, sophisticated studies suggest that prior research is inadequate to support the assertion that it makes \u201cno difference\u201d whether a child was raised by same-sex parents. [See Jason Richwine and Jennifer A. Marshall, \u201cThe Regnerus Study: Social Science and New Family Structures Met with Intolerance<\/a><\/strong>,\u201d Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2726, October 2, 2012] A survey of 59 of the most prominent studies often cited for this claim shows that they drew primarily from small convenience samples that are not appropriate for generalizations to the whole population. [Loren Marks, \u201cSame-Sex Parenting and Children\u2019s Outcomes: A Closer Examination of the American Psychological Association\u2019s Brief on Lesbian and Gay Parenting<\/strong><\/a>,\u201d Social Science Research, Vol. 41, No. 4 (July 2012).]<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, recent studies using rigorous methods and robust samples confirm that children do better when raised by a married mother and father. These include the New Family Structures Study by Professor Mark Regnerus at the University of Texas\u2013Austin [See Children from Different Families, http:\/\/www.familystructurestudies.com\/] and a report based on Census data recently released in the highly respected journal Demography<\/em>. [Douglas W. Allen, Catherine Pakaluk, and Joseph Price, \u201cNontraditional Families and Childhood Progress Through School: A Comment on Rosenfeld,\u201d Demography<\/em>, November 2012.] Recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages would legally abolish that ideal. It would deny the significance of both mothering and fathering to children: that boys and girls tend to benefit from fathers and mothers in different ways. Indeed, the law, public schools, and media would teach that mothers and fathers are fully interchangeable and that thinking otherwise is bigoted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(For further reading, see my post \u2018Gender Matters<\/strong><\/a>.\u2019)<\/p>\n

Wednesday Was a Bad Day for Friendships<\/h3>\n

In his Nicomachean Ethics<\/em> Aristotle showed that laws create norms for citizens which implant certain notions of virtue on their souls. The laws contribute to the formation of how we think and perceive the world around us. Aristotle was right, but the principle he understood works both ways. Bad laws enshrine norms on the public consciousness that reinforce destructive and soul-destroying patterns of thought.<\/p>\n

What are the destructive patterns of thoughts created by rulings that create the legal space for same-sex \u2018marriage\u2019? We have already seen one, which is that moms and dads are completely interchangeable. Another destructive pattern of thought concerns friendships.<\/p>\n

As the logic behind \u2018gay marriage\u2019 becomes increasingly accepted, many citizens are increasingly coming to think that marriage is simply an intense emotional bond, with no necessary connection to procreation or child-rearing, and no fixed core other than the consent of two adults who love each other. In fact, both law-makers and homosexual activists have steered away from asserting that the sexual dimension is central to the essence of a same-sex ‘marriage,’ as I showed in my article ‘Gay Marriage Becomes a Joke<\/a>‘<\/strong> and ‘Gay Marriage and the Revenge of the Gnostics<\/strong><\/a>‘ and in my article ‘Why Gay Marriage is a Public Threat (part 1).<\/strong><\/a>‘<\/p>\n

In their book What is Marriage?<\/strong><\/a>, Girgis, Anderson and George show that by redefining marriage to mean simply an emotional union of persons, the difference between marriage and friendship becomes purely quantitative rather than qualitative. As Girgis, Anderson and George explain,<\/p>\n

Misunderstandings about marriage will also speed our society\u2019s drought of deep friendship, with special harm to the unmarried. The state will have defined marriage mainly by degree or intensity \u2013 as offering the most of what makes any relationship valuable: shared emotion and experience.\/ It will thus become less acceptable to seek (and harder to find) emotional and spiritual intimacy in nonmarital friendships. These will come to be seen not as different from marriage (and thus distinctively appealing), but simply as less. \u2026 A critical point here is that marriage and ordinary friendship do not simply offer different degrees of the same type of human good, like two checks written in different amounts. Nor are they simply varieties of the same good, like the enjoyment of a Matisse and the enjoyment of a Van Gogh. Each is its own kind of good, a way of thriving that is different in kind from the other. Hence, while spouses should be friends, what it takes to be a good friend is not just the same as what it takes to be a good spouse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wednesday Was a Bad Day for Most Americans<\/h3>\n

You would be forgiven for thinking that Wednesday\u2019s ruling was welcome to most Americans. That is certainly how the media is portraying it. However, most Americans are actually opposed to changing the definition of marriage. In Ryan T. Anderson\u2019s article \u2018On Marriage, Inevitability Is a Choice We Can Rejec<\/strong><\/a>t\u2019, he shares some fascinating facts:<\/p>\n

Citizens have gone to the polls to vote about marriage in 35 states. The truth about marriage has prevailed 32 of those 35 times. In only three states have citizens voted to redefine marriage\u2014all in the 2012 election\u2014and in each state the truth about marriage far outperformed the Republican presidential candidate<\/a><\/strong>. For example, in liberal Maryland, Mitt Romney received 36 percent of the vote, while marriage received 48 percent.<\/p>\n

All this in a campaign in which proponents of redefinition had a 4:1 financial advantage and the backing of national figures: President Obama, Vice President Biden, governors, and a host of business, sports, and entertainment leaders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wednesday\u2019s ruling guarantees that the voice of most Americans will continue to be marginalized. Take their ruling on Hollingsworth v. Perry<\/em>, which was brought to the Supreme Court after California executives refused to enforce a constitutional amendment that voters had enacted to limit marriage to a union between a man and a woman. The governor of California, emboldened by the Supreme Court ruling, has instructed government officials to disregard Proposition 8, thus bypassing the democratic process. This portends a dangerous shift in the balance of power away from representative government, for it gives the executive branch in the states authority to nullify duly enacted laws they do not approve.<\/p>\n

Wednesday Was a Bad Day for the Practice of Monogamy<\/h3>\n

In discussing the differences between heterosexual unions and homosexual unions, Dermot O\u2019Callaghan noted<\/a><\/strong> the tendency for homosexual men to downplay the importance of\u00a0 Monogamy. The notion that \u201cFidelity is not between your legs but between your ears\u201d (quoted in When Gay People Get Married<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, p. 95) is a typical position within the homosexual community. Up to now, such ideas have been sequestered to the homosexual community; however, as gay marriage becomes legal in more and more American states, we should expect to see cross-fertilization between homosexual and heterosexual notions of faithfulness under the concept of the new understanding of marriage implicated by the change of law.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t take my word for it that homosexual \u2018marriage\u2019 tends towards non-monogamy. Their own writings clearly establish this. Dermot O\u2019Callaghan writes <\/a>that<\/p>\n

A study called The Male Couple\u00a0 found that \u201call couples with a relationship lasting more than five years have incorporated some provision for outside sexual activity \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Another study, Beyond Monogamy, indicates \u201ca positive correlation between longevity and non-monogamy.\u201d\u00a0 It says, \u201c\u2026 non-monogamy isn\u2019t by nature de-stabilizing.\u00a0 In fact, the results of this study would suggest the opposite \u2013 many study couples said non-monogamy enabled them to stay together\u201d.
\nThe agony of non-monogamy amongst gay men surfaces repeatedly in the literature. Other terms include:<\/p>\n