February 26, 2004

Gay Marriage Proponents: Let’s Just Close Our Eyes and Jump.

Larry Elder, with whom I agree on almost everything, was on the air the other day saying, why not permit gay marriages? What can it hurt? Shouldn’t people be permitted to do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else? And these are the arguments made by most proponents of this change to our nation.

I have several responses to this.

Notice that the argument isn’t, “we know it won’t be bad for our society to encourage gay behavior.” Instead the argument is, “what can it hurt?” It’s an argument that says, “we don’t know if it can hurt, but let’s try it anyway.” It’s an argument from lack of information rather than presence of information.

Of course, there is some data available on the subject. In fact, through literal millennia of human history, societies have found that the good of society as a whole, requires them not to encourage gay behavior.

We’ve all heard the phrase, measure twice, cut once. The proponents of gay marriage are saying, “Don’t measure at all—and cut forever.”

Then there’s the other argument Larry made: why shouldn’t people be permitted to do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else? You know what? Gay behavior is already permitted in our society. It’s not illegal.

This is about whether gay behavior should be encouraged so much by our society, as to be encouraged as much as heterosexual behavior. That, as countless human societies have already learned throughout history, would be detrimental to our nation.