Traditional Marriage

When nations safeguard the institution of marriage, they safeguard themselves. Consequently, theologian Wayne Grudem writes,

• The history of marriage laws in the United States shows that society has a strong interest in protecting and encouraging marriage between one man and one woman because of the great benefits that this institution gives to society in multiple ways, benefits that no other relationship or institution can give. (Politics According to the Bible)

Many court decisions have reflected this fact. For instance, the Indiana Court of Appeals stated this in 2005:

• The State of Indiana has a legitimate interest in encouraging opposite-sex couples to enter and remain in, as far as possible, the relatively stable institution of marriage for the sake of children who are frequently the natural result of sexual relations between and man and a woman. One commentator put it succinctly as follows: “The public legal union of a man and a woman is designed…to protect the children that their sexual union regularly promotes.” (Morrison vs. Sadler)

It’s not only the USA that has come to his insight. It has been the consensus throughout history. Aristotle wrote,

• Since the legislator should begin by considering how the frames of the children whom he is rearing may be as good as possible, his first care will be about marriage – at what age should his citizens marry, and who is fit to marry. (Politica)

But is traditional marriage really essential to the welfare of the children? In The Case for Marriage, Linda Waite & Maggie Gallagher write:

• A preschooler living with one biological parent and one step-parent was forty times more likely to be sexually abused than one living with two natural parents. (159).

Another study similarly concluded:

• Cohabitation is bad for men, worse for women, and horrible for children. It is a deadly toxin to marriage, family, and culture. (www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?print=1&did=0907-schneider)

We are led to believe that cohabitation provides a greater measure of protection for the spouse and for abused children. It is argued that the mother could more easily remove herself from an abusive situation if there isn’t a legally binding marriage. However, the statistics demonstrate the very opposite thing:

• Spanish statistics, which have been highlighted in recent years by Europe’s Family Policy Institute (FPI), and recently reported by the Spanish Newspaper ABC, indicate that while only 11% of Spanish couples cohabit without marriage, such unions account for 58% of the most violent crimes between couples. For every one protection order issued for a married couple, ten are issued for cohabiting couples. (LifeSiteNews.com)

• Men in cohabiting relationships are four times more likely to be unfaithful…Depression is three times more likely…The poverty rate among children of cohabiting couples is five-fold greater…and 90% more likely to have a low GPA…Abuse of children is 20 times higher in cohabiting biological-parent families; and 33 times higher when the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend. (Gallagher)

• A large body of research shows that marriage is much less dangerous for women than cohabitors…1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households: married people are much less likely than cohabiting couples to say that arguments between them and their partners had become physical in the past year (4% of married people compared to 13% of the cohabiting).” (155)

Psychiatrist and Yale and Harvard lecturer, Jeffrey Satinover, raises concerns about alternative marriages, claiming that male homosexual practice removes 25-30 years in life expectancy:

• We are designed with a nearly impenetrable barrier between he bloodstream and the extraordinarily toxic and infectious contents of he bowel. Anal intercourse creates a breach in this barrier …whether or not the insertive partner is wearing a condom. As a result, homosexual men ae disproportionately vulnerable to a host of serious and sometimes fatal infections caused by the entry of feces into the bloodstream. These include hepatitus B and the cluster of otherwise rare conditions…known as the “Gay Bowel Syndrome.” (Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, 51)

There are many elements of the homosexual lifestyle that can adversely impact children. Health and diminished lifespan are only two of them. Satinover writes that while sexual faithfulness is relatively high among married heterosexuals – “90 percent of women and more than 75 percent of heterosexual men have never engaged in extramarital sex” – the picture among gay men is very different:

• A 1981 study revealed that only 2 percent of homosexuals were monogamous or sem-monogamous – generally defined as ten or fewer lifetime partners…A 1978 study found that 43 percent of male homosexuals estimated having sex with five hundred or more different partners…Seventy-nine percent said that more than half of these partners were total strangers. (55)

Why aren’t these concerns ever raised in the media, an institution supposedly committed to balanced reporting and to making our leaders accountable? Meanwhile, cohabitation has almost become the norm and same-sex marriage has been legalized in a handful of states, always in opposition to the popular vote and without a word of protest from the mainstream media. Nor is our National Institute of Health sounding an alarm.