The issue of gay marriage is one that has raged back and forth and has received a lot of attention from the media and the American people in recent years. However, the legalization of homosexual marriage is unacceptable. Gay marriage should not be legitimized because it is not condoned by God, it is not a right, it threatens the institution of marriage, and the children who are reared in these relationships will ultimately suffer.
First and foremost, gay marriage should not be legitimized because it is not condoned by God. In a revelation given to Moses in the book of Leviticus, God explicitly says, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is an abomination" (Leviticus 18:22). Speaking through a modern-day prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley, God has reaffirmed this position: "The family is ordained of God. Marriage between a man and a woman is essential to His plan" (The Family: A Proclamation to the World). I believe this because President Hinckley is a modern-day prophet, and that this is coming directly from God. This nation, being "One nation, under God," is largely religious, and a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Organization in February of 2006 found:
"[D]espite the constant barrage of propaganda, the American people oppose gay marriage by 56% to 28%--better than a 2-to-1 margin. Forty percent feel so strongly that they would vote against a candidate that favored homosexual marriage, even if they agreed with him on virtually every other issue. (The Family in the Media's Myopic Eye)"It's clear that the media has its agenda, and the American people have a separate one. I am not in the minority in my beliefs. Despite what the media would have us believe, the majority of the American people do not want gay marriage. In summary, God, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and most of society do not condone gay marriage, despite what the media would have us believe.
Second, gay marriage should not be legitimized because it is not a right. It has been argued that the issue is a matter of civil rights, and as such, is an issue of discrimination of a minority. This is not so. Discrimination is failure to treat people equally because of a bias on characteristics such as race, religion, sex, gender, national origin, and disability. It is not discrimination because there is no hard evidence that homosexuality is genetic. Twins studies conducted by J. Michael Bailey showed a 20% likelihood of the identical twin being gay compared with 2-4% of males in the general population. (Homosexuality is Not Hardwired). A similar study of 71 pairs of female identical twins yielded approximately the same proportion of co-twins who classified themselves as gay. The twins have the exact same genetics, the same childhood experiences, the same environment, and yet only 20% of the co-twins classify themselves as gay. Thus we can see that sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations. Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, who first convinced the world in the 1960s that homosexuality was not a mental illness but was genetic, has reversed his claim. He says, "Like most psychiatrists, I thought that homosexual behavior could be resisted—but that no one could really change their sexual orientation. I now believe that's untrue—some people can and do change" (Historic Gay Advocate Now Believes Change is Possible). Research has not proven the existence of a genetic difference between homosexual and heterosexual individuals, and in the absence of genetic proof, the criteria for discrimination is not met.
The legalization of gay marriage threatens the institution of marriage. Heterosexual marriage has been a cornerstone of civilization from the beginning. As George Murdoch writes in his book Social Structure, "Heterosexual marriage can be found in every known human society." Proponents of homosexual marriage believe that allowing homosexual marriage will increase the rate of marriage and will benefit society. Norway and Sweden legalized homosexual marriage in the early 1990s. Researchers have found that "the number of same-sex marriages have run 'considerably lower' than might have been expected by those relying on recent surveys of sexual behavior."
"Between 1993 and 2001, while Norway recorded 196,000 heterosexual marriages, the country witnessed the legal registration of only 1,293 homosexual partnerships. Similarly, while Sweden recorded 280,000 heterosexual marriages between 1995 and 2002, the country saw the formation of only 1,526 registered homosexual partnerships. The researchers accordingly calculate 'a ratio of around 7 same-sex marriages to every 1,000 new opposite-sex marriages' in Norway and a comparable 'ratio of 5 new partnerships to every 1,000 new opposite-sex marriages in Sweden.'" (Homosexual Unions: Rare and Fragile)Now, you would think that with all of the interest leading up to the legalization of gay marriage, there would be a large number of marriages. But the studies of Norway and Sweden show that people aren't taking advantage of the new privilege. The same researchers found that same-sex unions are remarkably fragile, ending in divorce significantly more often than the heterosexual marriages of peers. "The divorce risk for partnerships of men is 50% higher than the corresponding risk for heterosexual marriages" (Homosexual Unions: Rare and Fragile). However, "for lesbian women, the divorce rate is 170% higher" (The Cultural Argument Against Gay Marriage). The same researchers say that "many of the demographic characteristics of our Scandinavian couples resemble those found for other populations of same-sex couples, such as same-sex co-residents in the United States" (Homosexual Unions: Rare and Fragile). Accordingly, what has happened in Scandinavia will most likely happen in the United States if homosexual marriage is legalized. It has also been found that gay marriage may have a higher incidence of abuse. Among the same-sex couples surveyed, a remarkable 56% reported that "they had experienced one or more [...] forms of domestic violence" (Homosexual Harmony?). Interestingly enough, intimate physical violence seems to be a greater problem for homosexual men than for their heterosexual counterparts. Homosexual women also reported the occurrence of physical violence slightly above that reported by heterosexual women, but the difference was not that significant (Homosexual Harmony?). Repeated studies continue to find that same-sex domestic violence is a fairly prevalent problem. Contrary to many predictions, with the legalization of gay marriage, people did not take advantage of the new benefit. Studies showed that the couples that did get married had between a 50% to 170% higher divorce rate than heterosexuals. Studies also showed that the instances of domestic violence were much higher. All these factors weakened the institution of marriage.
Another reason against the legalization of gay marriage is the fact that the children that will ultimately be exposed to this type of relationship will suffer because of it. In a debate that appeared in the Chicago Tribune between columnist Eric Zorn and Allan Carlson, Eric Zorn states the ideal circumstances under which children thrive:
"Children will do best in all aspects of life if they grow and develop in an intact home with their two natural parents. The necessary, complementary roles of fathers and mothers in child rearing enjoy their complete expression in such homes. In this setting, children will—on average—be healthier, happier, more intelligent and better adjusted than when living in any other configuration. The institution of marriage exists, then, to maximize the number of children who reside within a stable, heterosexual setting." (A Primer on the "Gay Marriage" Debate)Homosexual marriage does not provide these ideal circumstances, and the children suffer as a result. As one scholar explains in a recent issue of the University of Illinois Law Review, "Most of the so-called 'scientific' literature which purports to show that homosexual behavior by parents has no detrimental impact upon children is methodologically flawed, based on distorted designs, small skewed samples, and a priori [non-scientific] analysis" (A Primer on the "Gay Marriage" Debate). Another researcher, Philip Belcastro, concludes that most of these studies "were biased towards proving homosexual parents were fit parents. [S]ome of the published works had to disregard their own results in order to conclude that homosexuals were fit parents" (A Primer on the "Gay Marriage" Debate). In short, a political agenda seriously distorts the science. A study done in 2003 by Gunilla Ringbäck Weitoft, et al. found that "children of single parents in Sweden have more than double the rates of mortality, severe morbidity, and injury of children in two parent households" (The End of Marriage in Scandinavia). Because there is a higher divorce rate in Scandinavia, and it has been proven that children of broken homes suffer, it is reasonable to assume that there are more suffering children in Scandinavia, where there are more broken families.
In conclusion, gay marriage should not be legalized because it has been clearly stated by God that it is not right. There is no genetic basis for discrimination, and therefore, no claim for a civil rights issue. The legitimization of gay marriage threatens the institution of marriage because, as shown in Scandinavia, marriage becomes a tribial thing to hop in and out of. Children will not get the care and nurturing that they need if homosexual relationships are legalized, and children of the increasing number of broken homes are suffering as a result.