The Archdiocese of Washington has scrapped its 80-year-old foster care program, claiming it’s no longer eligible to serve as an adoption provider due to the District of Columbia’s pending same-sex marriage law.
Under the legislation, which legalizes same-sex marriage in the nation’s capital and which goes into effect March 2, all outside contractors must recognize gay couples in the District.
In a press release posted on its Web site Tuesday, the archdiocese, which opposes gay marriage, said it had no choice but to transfer its foster care program to the National Center for Children and Families, or NCCF.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse defends marriage at Columbia University in this short hour-long exchange. This is your chance to hear how anti-child advocates of same-sex marriage really are. And Dr. J links SSM to unilateral divorce at the end of the Q&A, too. Awesome! This debate really needed to go for twice the time, and I look forward to hearing MORE debates from Dr. J.
Details:
Columbia University’s Federalist Society hosts a debate between Dr J and Professor Katherine Franke based on the question “Is Marriage Equality Possible?” About an hour of audio includes opening position (Dr J), arguments (Prof. Franke), and rebuttal (Dr J), as well as a brief question-and-answer period.
1) same-sex marriage is not the equivalent of traditional marriage
2) if we legislate that they are equal, then we are really redefining marriage by changing the essential purpose of marriage
A case study from Ireland:
a known sperm donor for a lesbian couple was excluded from having a relationship with the child he conceived
after the child was born, the sperm donor wanted regular contact with the child, but the women opposed giving him access
same-sex marriage requires that courts are able to assign parental rights instead of having rights assigned biologically, as with traditional marriage
That is why SSM is different from TM
What is the purpose of marriage?
Marriage is about attaching mothers and fathers to children, and mothers and fathers to one another
Children are born helpless from two opposite-sex parents and they need parental guidance and care during development
In TM, there is no third party needed in order to have a child
In TM, the biological parents have rights and responsibilities for the child
TM is about providing the child with justice
Every child is entitled a relationship to both biological parents, and is entitled to care, protection and nourishment from both parents, and every child is entitled to a stable family environment
the problem is that children don’t have standing to sue for these rights in court
so the purpose of marriage is that we have a social construct to provide these rights to children naturally, without the state having to intervene
The purpose of marriage according to SSM?
In SSM, the essential child-centered purpose marriage is replaced with new purposes like pooling resources and having same-sex couples recognized by society
SSM redefines marriage in four ways:
it diminishes the entitlement of children to a relationship with both biological parents
it diminishes the identification of parental roles with biology
it requires the state to determine parental relationships, instead of recognizing biological parents
it enshrines the idea that mothers and fathers are interchangeable, that children don’t really need mothers AND fathers
Dr. Franke’s opening speech (20 min.)
Hard cases make bad law 1: the presumption of paternity
consider the case where a mother is married and has an affair resulting in a child
the Supreme Court has ruled that the father of the child has no right of contact
this is a case where marriage gets in the way of biological parents having a relationship with the child
so it can be the case where marriage is in conflict with the relationships to biological parents
Hard cases make bad law 2: the purpose of marriage can be changed
marriages was used to keep peace between families and communities
marriage used to be about trading and trafficking of women
so the concern for offspring was not always the greatest concern
TM and SSM are both equally able to create stability for children:
same-sex unions are just as stable for children as TM marriages
Same-sex unions do provide justice for the child:
giving the adults in same-sex couples the social recognition that opposite sex married couples have is good for children
Children can sue in court
children can use guardians to sue their parents in court to get their rights
Opposing SSM is racism
opposing same-sex marriage is equivalent to racism
we could abolish marriage completely and let individuals form private contracts, then the state would really be neutral on marriage
Dr. J’s rebuttal speech (5 min.)
The state cannot be neutral on marriage
what the deinstutionalization of marriage means is that the private contracts are made by adults and children will have no consideration in those contracts
Regarding the adultery case
the presumption of paternity is there to protect the marriage
such borderline cases almost never happen with TM, whereas in SSM these third party problems occur in 100% of the cases
Children are not happy being separated from their biological parents
adults do not have a right to exclude a child’s biological parents from having a relationship with them, and children are often not happy being excluded from their biological parents
Let me just quickly review how traditional marriage supporters are being treated in the prop 8 trial by Judge Walker. ECM sent me this article from National Review.
Excerpt:
Take, for example, Walker’s resort to procedural shenanigans and outright illegality in support of his fervent desire to broadcast the trial, in utter disregard of (if not affirmatively welcoming) the harassment and abuse that pro-Prop 8 witnesses would reasonably anticipate.
[…]Take the incredibly intrusive discovery, grossly underprotective of First Amendment associational rights, that Walker authorized into the internal communications of the Prop 8 sponsors…
[…]Take Walker’s insane and unworkable inquiry into the subjective motivations of the more than seven million Californians who voted in support of Prop 8.
But the thing I want to focus on is the way that same-sex marriage would reduce the liberties of people who believe in traditional marriage, because this is something that is never discussed.
Consider this article from Jewish scholar Dennis Prager about the effects on your liberties that would occur if same-sex marriage became the law of the land.
Excerpt:
Outside of the privacy of their homes, young girls will be discouraged from imagining one day marrying their prince charming — to do so would be declared “heterosexist,” morally equivalent to racist. Rather, they will be told to imagine a prince or a princess. Schoolbooks will not be allowed to describe marriage in male-female ways alone. Little girls will be asked by other girls and by teachers if they want one day to marry a man or a woman.
The sexual confusion that same-sex marriage will create among young people is not fully measurable. Suffice it to say that, contrary to the sexual know-nothings who believe that sexual orientation is fixed from birth and permanent, the fact is that sexual orientation is more of a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. Much of humanity — especially females — can enjoy homosexual sex. It is up to society to channel polymorphous human sexuality into an exclusively heterosexual direction — until now, accomplished through marriage. But that of course is “heterosexism,” a bigoted preference for man-woman erotic love, and therefore to be extirpated from society.
Any advocacy of man-woman marriage alone will be regarded morally as hate speech, and shortly thereafter it will be deemed so in law.
Companies that advertise engagement rings will have to show a man putting a ring on a man’s finger — if they show only women fingers, they will be boycotted just as a company having racist ads would be now.
Films that only show man-woman married couples will be regarded as antisocial and as morally irresponsible as films that show people smoking have become.
Traditional Jews and Christians — i.e. those who believe in a divine scripture — will be marginalized. Already Catholic groups in Massachusetts have abandoned adoption work since they will only allow a child to be adopted by a married couple as the Bible defines it — a man and a woman.
Anyone who advocates marriage between a man and a woman will be morally regarded the same as racist. And soon it will be a hate crime.
WINTERY KNIGHT 