In early , Roy Moore, then the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, prohibited probate judges in the state from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. Moore, who is currently running for a U. Senate seat from Alabama, was suspended from his judicial duties in September over his gay marriage order. Just last year in Texas, a Waco-based judge was issued a public warning by the state Commission on Judicial Misconduct for her yearslong refusal to perform same-sex weddings.
The judge, Dianne Hensley, responded by suing the commission, claiming it violated her rights under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Last month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, declined to defend the state agency in the lawsuit because its actions conflict with his views of the Constitution. Since the legalization of same-sex marriage federally, hundreds of state bills have been introduced that poke holes in gay marriage in various ways.
Colorado had been on this list until just last week, when advocates defeated five bills they described as being anti-LGBTQ. One of them, House Bill , had proposed that existing state law — which still stipulates that marriage is between one man and one woman — be enforced as written, and that no judicial rulings, including those from the U.
Supreme Court, should influence their enforcement. Jared Polis, who in became the first openly gay man elected governor in the U.
North Carolina and Tennessee are considering marriage bills similar to the one Colorado just killed. Bills in Kansas , South Dakota and Tennessee draw on the idea of the separation of church and state in their proposals. A separate Iowa proposal would require applicants for marriage licenses to disclose their sexual orientation, which could be used in child custody cases. There would be more use of gender-neutral language like "partners" and--more importantly--more social and cultural pressures to neuter our thinking and our behaviors in marriage.
But marriages typically thrive when spouses specialize in gender-typical ways and are attentive to the gendered needs and aspirations of their husband or wife. For instance, women are happier when their husband earns the lion's share of the household income.
Likewise, couples are less likely to divorce when the wife concentrates on childrearing and the husband concentrates on breadwinning, as University of Virginia psychologist Mavis Hetherington admits. Norton and Co. Men who are married earn more, work harder, drink less, live longer, spend more time attending religious services, and are more sexually faithful.
They also see their testosterone levels drop, especially when they have children in the home. If the distinctive sexual patterns of "committed" gay couples are any indication see above , it is unlikely that homosexual marriage would domesticate men in the way that heterosexual marriage does.
It is also extremely unlikely that the biological effects of heterosexual marriage on men would also be found in homosexual marriage.
Thus, gay activists who argue that same-sex civil marriage will domesticate gay men are, in all likelihood, clinging to a foolish hope. This foolish hope does not justify yet another effort to meddle with marriage. This paper is reprinted with permission of the Witherspoon Institute, Princeton, New Jersey, on whose website a version of it first appeared at www.
Who is FRC? Keyword Search. Marriage and Family Formation. This statement from Sara McLanahan, a sociologist at Princeton University, is representative: If we were asked to design a system for making sure that children's basic needs were met, we would probably come up with something quite similar to the two-parent ideal. The following are ten science-based arguments against same-sex "marriage": 1.
Children hunger for their biological parents. Kyle Pruett, Fatherneed Broadway Books, Children need fathers. Children need mothers. Evidence on parenting by same-sex couples is inadequate. Notice: JavaScript is not enabled. Please Enable JavaScript Safely. In Depth: Topics A to Z. Do you think marriages between same-sex couples should or should not be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages?
Do you think gay or lesbian relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal? Next, I'm going to read you a list of issues.
Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong. How about gay or lesbian relations? Morally acceptable Morally wrong Depends vol. Not a moral issue vol. How about -- Changing one's gender? Do you favor or oppose allowing openly transgender men and women to serve in the military?
Next, we have a question about policies for competitive sports that have separate teams for male and female athletes. Do you think transgender athletes -- [ROTATED: should be able to play on sports teams that match their current gender identity or should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender]?
Do you have any friends or relatives or coworkers who have told you, personally, that they are transgender? Next, we'd like to know how you feel about the state of the nation in each of the following areas.
For each one, please say whether you are -- very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.
If you don't have enough information about a particular subject to rate it, just say so. To begin with, all the marriage licenses issued to gay couples outside of Massachusetts were later nullified since none of the mayors and other officials involved had the authority to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
More significantly, the Massachusetts decision led to another major backlash at the federal and state level. In the U. Congress, conservative lawmakers, with support from President Bush, attempted to pass an amendment to the U.
Constitution that would have banned same-sex marriage nationwide. But efforts to obtain the two-thirds majority needed in both houses to pass the amendment fell short in and again in Gay-marriage opponents had better luck at the state level, where voters in 13 states passed referenda in amending their constitutions to prohibit same-sex marriage. Ten more states took the same step in and , bringing the total number of states with amendments prohibiting gay marriage to So far, voters in only one state — Arizona in — have rejected a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
The same-sex marriage debate may have had an impact on the outcome of the presidential election. Ohio, which in was holding a referendum on a constitutional ban on gay marriage, was the state that ultimately gave President Bush the electoral votes he needed to beat Sen. John Kerry. Bush, who narrowly won the state, opposed gay marriage and supported a federal constitutional amendment banning it.
Kerry also came out against gay marriage but opposed the constitutional ban and supported civil unions. Most of the states that approved constitutional amendments banning gay marriage are in the more socially conservative South and Midwest.
In more socially liberal states, the cause for same-sex marriage has fared somewhat better. Since , three Northeastern states — Connecticut, New Hampshire and New Jersey — have joined Vermont and passed laws authorizing civil unions. In addition, Maine, Oregon, Washington state and California have enacted domestic partnership statutes that grant many, though not all, the benefits of marriage to registered domestic partners.
In , the California legislature also passed legislation authorizing same-sex marriage — so far the only state legislature to do so. But the measure was vetoed by Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said that the issue was best left to the courts. Indeed, in the last two years, a number of top courts in more socially liberal states —New York, Washington state and Maryland — have rejected arguments in favor of gay unions.
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