Question:
I can’t believe a country that is the leader in the world is moving toward changing one of our society’s most important institutions, marriage. Is the Supreme Court analyzing the future negative impact LGBT marriages may have on our society
LGBT marriage is purely un-natural and I am surprised a leading nation in the world encourages this behavior.
Answer:
If you think it’s “un-natural,” then you shouldn’t do it. Stabilizing already existing family structures will have no negative impact on our society; it will have a positive impact—but that is beside the point. Our Constitution is written in a way that assumes people have rights given them by the creator—and that the government only administers certain functions, among them adjudicating disputes about rights. In the course of our history, this has been a path of liberation.
In this case, the legal privileges inherent in the governmental contract of marriage are what is at stake, not religious values (which are protected under the First Amendment). Therefore, the people opposed to same-gender marriage have to prove that same-gender marriage in some way damages heterosexual marriage in the civil context. In the Proposition 8 case, the people opposed to same-gender marriage could not prove that point—they couldn’t come up with a single expert who had proof.
Nothing’s changed since then, except more same-gender marriages have been performed in the states that permit them. And guess what There’s still no proof that same-gender marriages in some way damage heterosexual marriages. I expect the Supreme Court will see things the same way as the judges in California.
Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column is a top draw on Fair360.com. Visconti, the founder and CEO of Fair360, formerly DiversityInc, is a nationally recognized leader in diversity management. In his popular column, readers who ask Visconti tough questions about race/culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability and age can expect smart, direct and disarmingly frank answers.
