Defending Marriage
Dr. Morse: Why We Must Win the Fight for Marriage
By Dennis Durband, Director of Publications, United Families International
June 21, 2006
Citizen defenders of marriage have a remarkable winning streak going: 20 state constitutional marriage protection amendments in 20 elections going back to 2004. Arizona is among a few more states aiming to extend the winning streak this fall in its general election. United Families Arizona (UFA) and its Protect Marriage Arizona Coalition partners are collecting signatures in order to qualify a state constitutional amendment for the November election. By giving citizens the right to vote on a state constitutional amendment, judges will not have the opportunity to arbitrarily re-define the nature of marriage in Arizona.
With the defense of marriage as a backdrop, UFA sponsored a lecture June 16 by Dr. Jenn if er Roback Morse, accomplished scholar, author and lecturer, on the topic of “Taking ground in the Culture Wars: why we must win the fight for marriage.” In her Mesa appearance, Dr. Morse explained that what is actually at stake today is the meaning of marriage. She asked if marriage an organic institution, or if marriage is simply about the desires of adults?
“There are competing views of sex,” Dr. Morse said, “a recreational activity with no meaning; opposed to the view that marriage has an organic purpose to build up the father, mother and children, building the community of family and keeping the society going.”
The debate over marriage in the United States rages from coast to coast, in court rooms, legislative bodies and on election days. Scholars have already viewed same-sex “marriage” under a microscope and detected substantial problems.
“The experience of other countries is that you further weaken the connection of marriage and permanence and the connection of marriage and child bearing,” Dr. Morse said of same-sex “marriage.” “In Northern Europe, marriage is completely optional. The next thing will be to turn marriage into a contract of multiples, such as polyamory. Look through history; it has never worked. But this is what progressive legal scholars are talking about. It leads to the destruction of marriage and temporary coupling easily resolved.”
In Spain , the government changed birth cert if icates to “progenitor A and progenitor B.” Canada changed it to “legal parent A and legal parent B.” The idea behind this thinking is that children are supposedly assigned to people by the state. Relational couplings thus become matters of legality, as opposed to the traditional view of marriage.
What same-sex “marriage” will do is change it to a gender-neutral institution, Dr. Morse said. “What people are intuitively sensing is that that can't be right. Kids need dads and moms.”
Dr. Morse told the Mesa audience that her first book – “ Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn't Work” (Spence Press, 2001) -- showed why substitutes for marriage, including divorce, re-marriage and cohabitation, don't work. She said, “A child does best when raised by a mother and a father. All the research piles up on one side of this question. All these diverse family forms we're supposed to celebrate are not being celebrated by kids. Marriage is the fundamental unit of society; it creates society. … Cohabitation and illegitimacy are big problems. People are afraid that relationships won't work. Women work longer than they want to so husbands won't leave them.”
In a time when many people find it difficult to articulate a defense of one-man/one-woman marriage, Dr. Morse points out sensible logic for that purpose. Take the oft-repeated claim that straight people have messed up marriage with high divorce rates and for that reasoning, homosexuals should not be excluded from marriage rights.
“We do need to lower the divorce rates,” Dr. Morse says, “but let's talk about the instability of same-sex relationships. Eighty percent of heterosexual marriage relationships last five years or more. There are a lot of early breakups, but a lot of marriages last to 20 years and beyond. The male homosexual rate for lasting one year is 11 percent, and only five percent last to 20 years or more.”
Surely, the claim that everybody's cheating on their spouses is a good rationalization for allowing homosexuals to marry. Surely not, says Dr. Morse:
“Seventy percent of heterosexual men never stray,” said Dr. Morse, who then chronicled the norm of infidelity among homosexual men. “The expectations of monogamy are much stronger among heterosexual couples.”
The domestic violence rates among male and female homosexuals are also extraordinarily high.
Dr. Morse said, “The claim that Super Bowl Sunday is when men slap the wife around is total myth. Forty percent of lesbians are victimized by their partners. It is 20 percent for married or cohabiting women. Twenty-three percent of homosexual men are victimized and seven percent of hetero men get pans thrown at them.”
One of the most common problems in defending traditional marriage is what Dr. Morse refers to as an “insidious” live and let live argument. She was referring to the mentality that says, “I'm on my homestead and you're on yours. Don't tell me what to do. I'll do my thing and you do yours.” This line of thinking prevents a debate of marriage on the merits. Nevertheless, this thinking resonates with the American psyche.
Dr. Morse shared a strategy that might make advocates of same-sex “marriage” re-think the issue.
“Make adultery a civil offense,” Dr. Morse suggested. “You recognize adultery as harmful, as a wrong. A spouse, if he or she chooses to, can bring a civil suit vs. the other spouse and the third party. ‘You do realize, sir, your wife can take your whole business from you. Is your secretary really worth that to you?' Do you think gay men would be interested in marriage with the adultery law in effect? With them having eight partners a year? Are they really interested in improving marriage, or not? This strategy will expose them.”
In spite of everything, the pro-marriage movement can be hopeful, Dr. Morse believes. “So many young people have been through divorce and they are confused. They don't want what their parents had.”
To prevent the further demise of marriage, people can rationally articulate the merits of marriage and support efforts to defend the institution.
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