A hot topic in Idaho, where I live, and many other states around the country is the issue of same-sex marriages. Alabama, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Tennessee are voting on state amendments banning same-sex marriage this year and 5 other states are expected to follow suit.
A total of 19 states have now banned same-sex marriages by adding amendments to their state constitutions. These states include: Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Utah.
Although all of these states had laws against same-sex marriage they recognized that laws could be overturned by the court system. Adding the ban to the state’s constitution helps ensure that the courts cannot overrule the ban. Only a federal amendment could overrule the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. This is not likely to happen since President Bush says he supports a federal measure to ban same-sex marriage, which a number of organizations are currently trying to push.
Why have Americans taken such a stand against same-sex marriage?
The National Annenberg Election Survey found that 60% of people did not want same-sex marriage legalized.
One of the reasons is the strong religious participation in the United States.
Tocqueville observed, “there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.” Sixty percent of Americans said they attended religious services at least monthly in a World Values Surveys. This was 2 times that of Canadians and 5 times that of the French. Obviously many of those same 60% that attend monthly religious services also do not support the legalization of same-sex marriage.
When commenting about the passing of a ban on same-sex marriage Rod Parsley, pastor of World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio, said, “Christians here and around the nation consider this a great victory for the institution of marriage. We had to stand up and say, ‘Enough is enough.’”
Many take the same view as President Hinckley, leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints when he said, “Some portray legalization of so-called same-sex marriage as a civil right. This is not a matter of civil rights; it is a matter of morality.”
Another reason is the long-standing government support of marriage.
Historian Nancy Cott has argued, “that the nation’s founders viewed Christian marriage as one of the building blocks of American democracy. The marriage-based family was seen as a mini-republic in which the husband governed with the consent of the wife.”
In 1888, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field wrote, “marriage, as creating the most important relation in life, as having more to do with the morals and civilization of a people than any other institution, has always been subject to the control of the legislature.”
Republican representative Lawrence Denney said, “You cannot make people moral by legislation. But all of our social laws are legislated morality. Laws against murder and rape, robbery and incest, are all social laws. These laws are boundaries that we as a society say must not be crossed. If we don’t set boundaries and let everyone do what is right in their own eyes, we lose our entire structure; we have chaos.”
Others support the ban for same-sex marriage because of the benefits children receive being raised in a two-parent heterosexual family.
Representative Bill Sali said, “The notion that we would develop public policy that would recognize same-sex marriage or, worse yet, establish it through an activist court would ignore that growing body of evidence that shows how important it is to have a man and a woman involved in a child’s life for proper development.”
Findings published in “The Future of Children” by the Brookings Institution and Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School say that children from two-parent families “have a higher standard of living, receive more effective parenting, experience more cooperative co-parenting, are emotionally closer to both parents, and are subjected to fewer stressful events and circumstances.”
Whatever the reason it seems that the majority of Americans do not support same-sex marriage and states are recognizing this fact.
Do you support a federal amendment banning same-sex marriage?