Posted by
Mike on Monday, December 06, 2010 4:43:08 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
Now that oral argument has commenced in the California Proposition 8
Appeal in the Ninth Circuit, it has become obvious that the opponents
of Proposition 8 unfortunately misunderstand what this case is all
about.
Chief counsel for the backers of Proposition 8 Charles Cooper presented
outstanding arguments for upholding traditional marriage. The
opposition, however, continually strayed away from the central issue.
Is marriage between a man and a woman essentially the same or different
from a consensual, contractual union formed between two persons of the
same gender?
If the same sex union were essentially the same as traditional marriage,
then obviously there is no no justification for the state to be
involved at all in upholding the institution of marriage. This,
however, is something which the opponents have the burden of proving,
both because traditional marriage is the norm from time immemorial, and
because the people of California chose to overrule the state court's
decision wrongly equating the two types of unions. The opponents have
not met their burden of proof, nor can they, because two different
things like apples and oranges cannot be the same thing.
In summary, there is a compelling state interest for the state
recognizing the institution of marriage as something qualitatively
different from unions between persons of the same sex, as by analogy
sexual intercourse is qualitatively different from masturbation, and
there is a rational basis for the state making this distinction, namely
that children are begotten through heterosexual unions and not through
homosexual unions, and that all relevant studies demonstrably prove that
children not only need both a father and mother growing up, but also
that traditional families, having both a father and mother, produce
salutary effects much more beneficial for the children and society,
whereas single parent families, or families with two fathers or with two
mothers only, produce adverse effects both on the children growing up
within such communities and upon society in general, e.g. increasing
crime rates.