These have forced me to take another look at the marriage institution, its relevance and its essence. My first challenge is the definition of marriage. While there were minor differences in the understanding of marriage as a result of cultural, geographical and religious differences, humanity was always firm and uniform that marriage is a union of man and woman. Not anymore; this common denominator has been thrown overboard to accommodate LGBTs (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders). Now, in some dictionary definitions, marriage is simply “a union of two people.”
The Catholic Church has one of the most apt definitions of marriage: “the matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole life, which is ordered by its nature towards the good of spouses and the procreation and education of offspring…” Apparent in this definition is the fact that marriage involves procreation and upbringing of the offspring. If we accept marriage as a union of two people, not necessarily male and female, then procreation is no longer part of marriage. The question then arises, how do we perpetuate humanity in an orderly manner?
Those who propagate the irrelevance of marriage cite children being brought up by single parents as an example that procreation does not necessarily have to take place within matrimony. I am very sensitive about single parents, especially widows/widowers, so I do not intend to drag this issue. But we should not sweep the truth under the carpet and live a lie that one is equal to or better than two in a child’s upbringing. If that were the case, God would simply have made humans hermaphrodites so that we do not need collaboration to procreate in the first place.
Even in families where husbands and wives raise children, you sometimes find the first set of children being better brought up than the subsequent ones and vice versa. In the first instance, the children were raised when the parents were in their prime and paid attention to details. Subsequently, wear and tear of old age had set in and they were not as thorough in raising the younger ones. On the other hand, the first set of children were born when the parents were inexperienced in parenting and used them as guinea pigs to bring up the younger children better.
This brings us to the “education (upbringing) of offspring,” part of the definition. In traditional African societies children were brought up within the family and extended family set up. It was a communal arrangement which ensured children were well brought up. Within a family set up, there are different roles fathers and mothers perform in a child’s upbringing. Under normal circumstances, they complement each other in the children’s upbringing.
Honestly, it does not bother me that two consenting adults of same sex have decided to live together as spouses. It will also not affect my relationship with them, although my Christian orientation makes it unacceptable to me. But let God deal with that. However, I have two main issues with gay unions. One, referring to it as marriage, and two, raising children—they are incapable of a procreating in the first instance—in an unnatural environment and bringing up a generation of uncertain and unpredictable children in a world that already has too many troubled children. That is worrisome.
I read an article by Dawn Stefanowicz, a Canadian raised by a gay father. Her narrative on the experience is succinct and bares my worries:”Children are not commodities that can be justifiably severed from their natural parentage and traded between unrelated adults. Children in same-sex households will often deny their grief and pretend they don’t miss a biological parent, feeling pressured to speak positively due to the politics surrounding LGBT households …
“Contrary to the logic of same-sex marriage, the gender of parents matters for the healthy development of children…Fathers by their nature secure identity, instill direction, provide discipline, boundaries, and risk-taking adventures, and set lifelong examples for children. But fathers cannot nurture children in the womb or give birth to and breast-feed babies. Mothers nurture children in unique and beneficial ways that cannot be duplicated by fathers.
“…Men and women are anatomically, biologically, physiologically, psychologically, hormonally, and neurologically different from each other. These unique differences provide lifelong benefits to children that cannot be duplicated by same-gender ‘legal’ parents acting out different gender roles or attempting to substitute for the missing male or female role model in the home.”
We need to understand the American same-sex marriage agitation for what it is. President Barrack Obama tied it to equal rights and freedom. Specifically, there are certain government benefits married Americans enjoy and gays have always been shut out of these benefits because their unions were not recognized as marriage. With this ruling they will now be entitled to these benefits. It is that selfish; that is essentially what the gay marriage agitation is about. They are not particularly concerned about the issues Dawn Stefanowicz raised above. Economic benefits have just been elevated above the future and well-being of children.
After carefully re-examining the marriage institution, I put forth that the Catholic Church’s definition captures its essence: Man and woman, procreation, lifelong union, etc. Now that LGBTs have come to stay, they should use other names to define their unions: lerriage for lesbians, horriage for homosexuals, birriage for bisexuals and transrriage for transgenders or just one name to avoid confusion: garriage (gays). Then people like me will not have issues because the name will be original and owned by them, not borrowed.
The Catholic Church has one of the most apt definitions of marriage: “the matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole life, which is ordered by its nature towards the good of spouses and the procreation and education of offspring…” Apparent in this definition is the fact that marriage involves procreation and upbringing of the offspring. If we accept marriage as a union of two people, not necessarily male and female, then procreation is no longer part of marriage. The question then arises, how do we perpetuate humanity in an orderly manner?
Those who propagate the irrelevance of marriage cite children being brought up by single parents as an example that procreation does not necessarily have to take place within matrimony. I am very sensitive about single parents, especially widows/widowers, so I do not intend to drag this issue. But we should not sweep the truth under the carpet and live a lie that one is equal to or better than two in a child’s upbringing. If that were the case, God would simply have made humans hermaphrodites so that we do not need collaboration to procreate in the first place.
Even in families where husbands and wives raise children, you sometimes find the first set of children being better brought up than the subsequent ones and vice versa. In the first instance, the children were raised when the parents were in their prime and paid attention to details. Subsequently, wear and tear of old age had set in and they were not as thorough in raising the younger ones. On the other hand, the first set of children were born when the parents were inexperienced in parenting and used them as guinea pigs to bring up the younger children better.
This brings us to the “education (upbringing) of offspring,” part of the definition. In traditional African societies children were brought up within the family and extended family set up. It was a communal arrangement which ensured children were well brought up. Within a family set up, there are different roles fathers and mothers perform in a child’s upbringing. Under normal circumstances, they complement each other in the children’s upbringing.
Honestly, it does not bother me that two consenting adults of same sex have decided to live together as spouses. It will also not affect my relationship with them, although my Christian orientation makes it unacceptable to me. But let God deal with that. However, I have two main issues with gay unions. One, referring to it as marriage, and two, raising children—they are incapable of a procreating in the first instance—in an unnatural environment and bringing up a generation of uncertain and unpredictable children in a world that already has too many troubled children. That is worrisome.
I read an article by Dawn Stefanowicz, a Canadian raised by a gay father. Her narrative on the experience is succinct and bares my worries:”Children are not commodities that can be justifiably severed from their natural parentage and traded between unrelated adults. Children in same-sex households will often deny their grief and pretend they don’t miss a biological parent, feeling pressured to speak positively due to the politics surrounding LGBT households …
“Contrary to the logic of same-sex marriage, the gender of parents matters for the healthy development of children…Fathers by their nature secure identity, instill direction, provide discipline, boundaries, and risk-taking adventures, and set lifelong examples for children. But fathers cannot nurture children in the womb or give birth to and breast-feed babies. Mothers nurture children in unique and beneficial ways that cannot be duplicated by fathers.
“…Men and women are anatomically, biologically, physiologically, psychologically, hormonally, and neurologically different from each other. These unique differences provide lifelong benefits to children that cannot be duplicated by same-gender ‘legal’ parents acting out different gender roles or attempting to substitute for the missing male or female role model in the home.”
We need to understand the American same-sex marriage agitation for what it is. President Barrack Obama tied it to equal rights and freedom. Specifically, there are certain government benefits married Americans enjoy and gays have always been shut out of these benefits because their unions were not recognized as marriage. With this ruling they will now be entitled to these benefits. It is that selfish; that is essentially what the gay marriage agitation is about. They are not particularly concerned about the issues Dawn Stefanowicz raised above. Economic benefits have just been elevated above the future and well-being of children.
After carefully re-examining the marriage institution, I put forth that the Catholic Church’s definition captures its essence: Man and woman, procreation, lifelong union, etc. Now that LGBTs have come to stay, they should use other names to define their unions: lerriage for lesbians, horriage for homosexuals, birriage for bisexuals and transrriage for transgenders or just one name to avoid confusion: garriage (gays). Then people like me will not have issues because the name will be original and owned by them, not borrowed.
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