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12/31/2004 Archived Entry: "Misunderstanding Marriage"

Posted by antle @ 05:29 PM EST [Link]

MISUNDERSTANDING MARRIAGE: While I am more sympathetic to some of the reasons many gays and lesbians (among others) feel so strongly there should be same-sex marriage, I wholeheartedly agree with the conclusion Thomas Sowell reaches in his latest syndicated column. The whole debate fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of marriage laws, which is to limit the sexual and other freedoms of adults by tethering them to responsibilities of some societal import.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the life of the law is not logic but experience. Marriage laws have evolved through centuries of experience with couples of opposite sexes and the children that result from such unions. Society asserts its stake in the decisions made by restricting the couples' options.

Society has no such stake in the outcome of a union between two people of the same sex. Transferring all those laws to same-sex couples would make no more sense than transferring the rules of baseball to football.

Read on.