6 non-religious reasons to oppose gay marriage

This post is part of the Love Wins series – a series of posts covering topics within the issue of gay marriage (post 1, post 2, post 3, and post 4). The goal of these posts is not to convince anyone to think what I think, but to create a conversation and explore the topics together. I am not an authority figure on this issue, and will not always approach this from a highly academic perspective, but am writing as a Catholic young voice seeking the truth. I hope you’ll follow along and be part of the conversation!

 

While my faith is very important to me, not everyone shares my beliefs. I think it’s important in this series to include non-religious reasons why legalizing gay marriage might not be the best idea.

Here are 6 reasons to think about:

1. In moving away from traditional families, we move away from traditional values.

Duh, that’s the whole point, right? Some people count this as progress. And of course we should always learn and become better and develop as a world. But in moving away from traditional families, we’ve become relativistic. People say it just doesn’t matter what anyone does. But anything that encourages a departure from absolute truth is problematic.

2.  There are two different genders for some reason, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s to propagate the species. 

I guess this is good news for people who think the world is overpopulated. I mean, more gay marriage, less people born, right? Well, many countries, including the U.S. are below a replacement level of fertility rate. That means we’re going to have more and more older people with less and less younger people to care for them. That doesn’t sound like a good economy.

3. STD’s are more prevalent among those who are in sexual relationships with a person of the same gender. 

Ever wonder why they ask you when you’re donating blood whether you’ve been in a sexual relationship with someone of the same gender? According to the CDC, “75% of primary and secondary syphilis cases in the United States” are among men in sexual relationships with other men. These men are 17 times more likely to develop anal cancer. This doesn’t sound like a normal and healthy lifestyle.

4. Children are entitled to a mother and a father.

Yes, two people of the same gender are capable of raising a child. But the balance between the differences mothers and fathers provide is not replaceable with two people of the same gender. Some people say it’s not important to have both, that it doesn’t matter. But two parents of the same gender cannot provide the same environment of a traditional family structure.

5. It purposefully deprives children of their biological parents.

Adoption is a beautiful and courageous thing to do. But when two people of the same gender want a child who is not adopted, they have to use a donor. There are too many articles to link here that say what a problem egg and sperm donation is. It’s a hugely unregulated industry I certainly wouldn’t want to encourage people to be part of. As people get older, adopted children or children conceived using donors often want to know their biological parents. Often times nowadays, it’s impossible with anonymous donors.

6. We do not have enough evidence to say that children growing up with homosexual parents do not have any problems down the road.

According to one study, children of homosexual parents:

-Are more likely to be currently cohabiting
-Are almost 4 times more likely to be currently on public assistance
-Are more than 3 times more likely to be unemployed
-Are nearly 4 times more likely to identify as something other than entirely heterosexual
-Are 3 times as likely to have had an affair while married or cohabiting
-Are 10 times more likely to have been “touched sexually by a parent or other adult caregiver.”

That’s just one study. We need a heap more research to know what the long-lasting repercussions are before we say all families are equal.

The fact is that besides philosophical and theological reasoning, there are plenty of reasons why a sweeping decision to legalize gay marriage is highly problematic. I hope you’ll continue to follow along as we wrap up this series looking at a few more topics!

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin’ or by email to follow along during this series. And help spread the conversation by sharing this post!

Be sure to check out post 1, post 2, post 3, and post 4 if you haven’t already!

To Life,

 

 

Image via Hartwig HKD on Flickr.