Wednesday, December 31, 2003

Morally neutral?

By GREGORY K. MOFFATT, PH. D
Child's Play

My personal rule for the content of my column is that the topic has to have some direct impact on families and children. The current debate over gay marriage certainly does.

Let me set the debate of gay and lesbian lifestyle aside. Everyone has his or her own personal belief about lifestyle choice, but for my purpose here, homosexuality isn’t the issue. Instead, I want to address the implications same-sex marriage has for our culture.

There is little academic debate over the fact that a child ideally needs both a mother and father at home providing, among many other things, both male and female role models for the child - something you cannot have in a single-parent home nor in same-sex marriages/partnerships. While I know that some people grow up just fine without a mother or father, research for decades has demonstrated that children have the best chance for success in school, emotional development, and development of healthy relationships when they are raised in a stable, two-parent, husband and wife home.

For every person that grows up “just fine” in the home of a gay or lesbian couple or in a single-parent family, I can show you one or more who didn’t. Anecdotal experience proves nothing. Instead of our personal experience and political or religious leanings, we have to operate on what the preponderance of the data demonstrates.

Even though advocates for same-sex marriage argue that “loving relationships” should be recognized beyond the narrow scope of heterosexual marriage, I take issue with this flawed logic. All loving relationships are not equal. Laws that allow same-sex marriages inherently change the definition of what the word “family” means, and perhaps even worse, establish a precedent that the concept of family itself can be defined by anyone who has an opinion on the subject.

Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that we could all agree that there is nothing wrong with gay or lesbian marriages and let’s ignore the evidence that demonstrates that such relationships put children at a disadvantage. Let us also agree with the truth that some homosexuals can be just as good at parenting as a heterosexual. The bigger cultural issue that would still remain has to do with the question of where the redefining of family stops.

Should the marriage between brother and sister be legally sanctioned? What about brother-brother, sister-sister, father-son, mother-son, and so on? What about the marriage between three men and two women or could we legally recognize a marriage between two men, four minors and a woman? If all loving relationships are equal, who can say that any of these options is ridiculous? In fact, who says they even have to be “loving” relationships at all. Maybe family and marriage could simply be business ventures that work to the financial advantage of all involved parties.

If you think I’m overreacting you are mistaken. The debate has already begun. Just weeks ago a convicted polygamist used a gay sex ruling as a basis for his appeal. How long will it be before other laws (marriage between siblings, marriage between minors, etc.) are challenged on the same basis? Think I’m crazy? Look up the study in the American Psychologist, the flagship publication of the American Psychological Association from several years ago that argued that there was nothing wrong with pedophilia. The stage is clearly set.

By this point, you either are muttering “amen” or you are calling me a moralistic fundamentalist. However, how can anyone argue that we shouldn’t “moralize”? There is a limit to what even the most liberal thinkers will allow. Should the law recognize marriage between people and animals? If we shouldn’t moralize, then who is to say this isn’t acceptable? I find it interesting and somewhat comical that those liberated thinkers who differ with my opinion will argue that it is wrong to believe what I choose to believe. Isn’t that moralizing? They moralize in their own argument about how we shouldn't moralize.

The debate, then, isn’t between homosexual or straight, nor is it between those who moralize and those who do not. It is about whose moral position will become precedent. I do not despise those who engage in homosexual lifestyles and I do not despise those who are pious in their religious faiths. However, this argument is about more than the right to marry. It is about how we define ourselves and the process we use to define truth. To pretend that such a debate has no effect on our children is analogous to burying one’s head in the sand.

(Gregory K. Moffatt, a resident of Brooks, is a a psychologist, author and college professor also in private practice as a counselor, specializing with children. His column appears regularly in HealthWise.