Sunday, June 04, 2006

Same-Sex Marriage: Hijacking the Civil Rights Legacy

In an outstanding essay in theWeekly Standard, Eugene Rivers and Kenneth Johnson of the Seymour Institute for Advanced Christian Studies expose multiple flaws with the claim that refusing same-sex marriage is an infringement of rights analogous to racial discrimination. (HT: SharperIron) A sample:
Moreover, the analogy of same-sex marriage to interracial marriage disregards the whole point of those prohibitions, which was to maintain and advance a system of racial subordination and exploitation. It was to maintain a caste system in which one race was relegated to conditions of social and economic inferiority. The definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman does not establish a sexual caste systemor relegate one sex to conditions of social and economic inferiority. It does, to be sure, deny the recognition as lawful "marriages" to some forms of sexual combining--including polygyny, polyandry, polyamory, and same-sex relationships. But there is nothing invidious or discriminatory about laws that decline to treat all sexual wants or proclivities as equal.

The authors also appropriately lament the acquiescence of leaders in the black community to the comparison:

It is especially sad and disturbing that many self-proclaimed civil rights leaders have failed to resist corruption and co-optation by the homosexual movement. People who should be vitally concerned with promoting marriage and rebuilding the institution of marriage in African-American communities are either silent or complicit in a campaign which, if successful, will trivialize marriage.

Related Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments: