With the recent rulings of the Supreme Court on the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8, there is an air of undaunted jubilation among those of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
On Wednesday, 26 June 2013, the highest court in the land, with a 5-4 vote, ruled that the law which forbade the federal government from recognizing same-gender marriages legalized by the states is unconstitutional, signifying victory and success after a long arduous battle, for those of the LGBT community and its proponents. The Supreme Court Justices in favor of the court’s opinion which brought about the peerless ruling are Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Those in opposition of the court’s opinion are John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas. The court’s opinion which was delivered states in part:
“The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. “By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment.” [1]
One of the main drawbacks of the Supreme Court ruling is that it potentially opens the proverbial door that leads to the eventual eradication of the rights of innocent children – in particular, the right to be reared in a home where they are nurtured by a father and a mother. Thus, another chink in the foundational structure of traditional family and marriage has been created. And as the Psalmist exhorted, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3).
The Imminent Danger of Same-Gender Marriage
In an article dated 3 July 2013 in the Christian Post titled Wounds of This Generation Can Harm Children, Bishop Harry Jackson, senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., and Hope Connexion Orlando in Florida, commented,
Lost in the never-ending push to redefine marriage are those who suffer most when they are denied the benefit of a traditional marriage. Children need both a mother and a father far more than any adult needs societal approval of a romantic relationship. And although American children may, for the most part, have food, shelter and education, too many are denied this most basic need.
Critics of the traditional family have long sought to convince us that the gender of a parent is irrelevant: boys can learn to be men even if they are raised by two “mommies,” and girls do not need their biological fathers in their lives to have healthy relationships with men in the future.
And no social policy that fails to take into account the deep and legitimate need that every child has for both a mother and a father can ever be considered fair or just.
As I have pointed out many times before, words that mean everything, mean nothing. The looser we make the definition of marriage, the fewer people will feel bound to its obligations and constraints. And while broken relationships can hurt adults, they can destroy children. [2]
In short, it becomes vitally important that a child is nurtured by both a male and a female – a mother and a father. Those who oppose the concept of traditional family, however, will argue that two mothers, or two fathers can love a child equally as well as a mother and a father. The real heart of the matter is that a father contributes certain character traits that a child needs to observe during his growing up years, and a mother contributes different character traits that are also needful for a child to observe. A father and a mother can provide a harmonious balance to life, allowing a child to experience what masculinity and femininity are like, which in turn also gives the child a healthy view of relationships. Two mothers or two fathers cannot emulate that same type of healthy environment for a child.
The Urgent Need to be nurtured by a Father and a Mother
As early as July 2008, just 5 short years ago, in an article on the Renew America.com website titled “Why same-sex marriage is bad for children,” Dr. Trayce L. Hansen, a licensed psychologist with a clinical and forensic practice, who has a particular interest in issues related to marriage, parenting, male / female differences, and homosexuality, warned of the dangers of same-sex marriages. In part she stated:
Sociologists have demonstrated over and over again that the optimal nurturing environment for young children is in a home where they are raised in a two-parent family headed by a man and a woman who are married to each other. All good public policy will facilitate this ideal and discourage the recognition of marriage counterfeits.
Fundamental to this is the conviction is that there are just two genders — male and female — and not five, as homosexual activists want us to believe.
Parents are not interchangeable parts which can be gender-shuffled without creating a deficit in the development of children.
As Hansen puts it, “Two women can both be good mothers, but neither can be a good father.”
Children need the complementary balance of the kind of love both a mother and a father provide, the nurture and compassion of a mother combined with a father’s love which calls a child to achievement in order to fulfill his God-given potential. Plus, children learn how to relate to both sexes later in life by relating to both a mom and a dad and observing the way in which they relate to each other. [3]
Redefining Traditional Marriage and Family
As same-sex marriage strives to become a societal norm, traditional marriage and family as defined by the Creator Himself in Genesis 2:24 when He issued the command, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh,” becomes a distorted hodgepodge of definitions based on what is best suited for an individual in accordance with his particular belief system. As a result, children raised in a home by same-gender parents will be left in a state of sexual confusion as they later in life attempt to have healthy relationships of their own, with only the experiences of their childhood to use as a base model of what a relationship is.
David Blankenhorn, a prominent family scholar, stated:
Yes, children are adaptable. But what exactly do we as a society want our children to adapt to? To growing up without the mother and father who made them? To being told that whoever happens to be taking care of them at the time is their ‘parent’? To not knowing their biological origins? . . . To listening to a lot of didactic happy-talk about families coming in all shapes and sizes? (David Blankenhorn, The Future of Marriage, 2007, pages 211-12.)
The wise man Solomon taught, “Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches” (Proverbs 24:3-4). A home is built upon a sound foundation when there is a mother and a father in that home who through wisdom and understanding know how to love, protect, and nurture their “precious and pleasant riches” – their children. It is through their examples that children gain a healthy view of life and learn how to develop relationships that will last.
In the battle to redefine the true meaning of marriage and family, although we may be empathetic of those who define marriage and family in different terms, the needs and the rights of the children are paramount, and must at all cost far outweigh the relationship desires of adults.
Additional Resources:
The Divine Institution of Marriage
The Family: A Proclamation to the World