In response to my article “Why Two? The Question Gay Activists Cannot Answer,” James Peron penned an article titled “Polygamy Is Not the Next ‘Gay Marriage’.”
In his response, he dissed one of the sites where my article was posted, dissed me (for writing a “a book on how Christians will reverse the course of the ‘gay revolution,'” referring to my forthcoming book Outlasting the Gay Revolution), and dissed the return of Jesus (as something not likely to happen, let alone any time soon).
Ironically, while disparaging that site as “not exactly a site for intellectuals,” Peron published his piece on the Huffington Post website, which, to my knowledge, has never been mistaken for the Harvard Law Review. (In reality, both sites are designed for the general reader, with all manner of articles posted.)
What Peron did not do, though, was provide a convincing answer to my question, namely, If marriage is not the union of a man and a woman, why should it be limited to two people (or, for that matter, require two people)?
Peron writes that, “[Brown] claims, and I suggest he’s lying, ‘I have not yet received a single cogent answer.’ My guess is he is guilty of typical fundamentalist bias confirmation. Any answer he gets is dismissed in order to continue to say he’s never had an answer. He has gone into the debate with his mind closed to all opposing arguments, and since he is the sole judge of what comprises a ‘cogent answer,’ he can never be proven wrong.”
It appears here that Peron is guilty of typical liberal bias confirmation, because of which he cannot fathom that there are solid intellectual responses to his position so that he has to accuse his ideological opponents of either lying or engaging in intellectual dishonesty.
Peron also falls prey to liberal pride and presumption, writing of me, “He doesn’t want an answer. He wants to pretend there is none.”
Actually, up to this moment, including the posting of Peron’s article, I have not yet heard a sound response to my question, let alone a compelling one.
Before interacting with the arguments Peron raises, let me point out that the word “love” is significantly missing from his article, yet that was the word that carried the redefinition of marriage across the country and to the Supreme Court.
Accordingly, when the court overturned DOMA in 2013, President Obama tweeted out, “Love is love,” and last month, when the court decided to redefine marriage, he tweeted out, “Love wins.”
Strikingly, Peron chose not to answer the question behind my question, namely, “If love is love and I have the right to marry the one I love, then why must that love be limited to one other person?”
Peron’s non-answer to the question is glaring.
Note also that Peron had not a word to say about the Supreme Court’s reasoning behind their landmark (and tragic) decision.
Could it be that he’s aware that polygamists and polyamorists, among others, could use Justice Kennedy’s majority decision to argue for their own unions? Could it be that he’s aware that nothing that Kennedy presented can be limited to two people, as some of the dissenting justices pointed out in their opinions?
In short, both the popular and legal reasoning used by gay activists to advance their cause can be utilized by others seeking a further redefinition of marriage, so it’s no surprise that, already, polygamists have gone to court seeking further changes in the definition of marriage while Al Jazeera TV just posted a YouTube discussion titled “Could polygamy be legalized in the U.S.?” (The accompanying article notes that “a recent Gallup poll shows that polygamy has been gaining acceptance over the last decade—from 5 percent in 2006 to 16 percent today. The TV show Sister Wives is being credited with helping to normalize the idea of polygamy to the average American.”)
What then are Peron’s arguments against polygamy (but for same-sex “marriage”)?
First, he states that we have a massive number of laws dealing with marriage and “ALL those laws are written on the assumption of two members to a marriage.”
Actually, ALL those laws are written on the assumption that those two members are male and female. Not one of them in our past legal theory dealt with a theoretical same-sex “spouse and spouse” but with a presumed “husband and wife.”
That’s why a July 10 headline announced, “DEMOCRATS INTRODUCE BILL TO BAN ‘HUSBAND’ AND ‘WIFE’ AS ‘ANTI-GAY’ WORDS. ‘Gendered terms’ would be removed from federal law.”
Something similar to this already happened in Ontario, Canada, as a result of the legalization of same-sex “marriage,” where all references to terms like husband, wife and widow were removed from more than 70 pieces of legislation.
Here in the States, from birth certificates to wedding documents to specific laws, the wording will now have to be changed to reflect homosexual unions. The same could easily be done to reflect group unions.
Peron argues, “The moment you change it to three, the entire legal structure ceases to work for that relationship. Instead of limiting legal disputes, it exacerbates them.”
Again, the fact that legal documents would have to be rewritten did not stop the juggernaut of gay activism, to the point that California legislators have pushed to allow for male mothers and female fathers to be listed on birth certificate, a far more radical adjustment than the legal obstacles Peron projects for polygamists and others.
More importantly, has he forgotten that “love is love” and that “love wins” and that “I have the right to marry the one I love”?
Peron proceeds to list a number of problems for polygamy which, in his mind are legally insurmountable. What he seems to ignore is that polygamy is practiced in scores of countries, all of which have functioning legal arrangements and all of which require a less radical redefinition of marriage than do homosexual unions, since polygamous unions, with all their defects, have the virtue of being able to produce children naturally and to join those children to their biological parents.
As for Peron’s second argument, well, he doesn’t offer one, instead reiterating his first and only point: “Change the number of spouses and the entire legal system, meant to anticipate individual wants, collapses. That doesn’t happen when two men marry, or a black man and white woman marry.”
Putting aside his invidious comparison of interracial marriage to homosexual “marriage,” Peron fails to realize that marriage throughout human history has always presupposed at least one man and one woman, since only those two could naturally reproduce children and join those children to their parents.
Sadly, on its most fundamental level, homosexual unions cannot provide the components of reproductive life, always requiring a third party—by rule, not by exception—to bring a child into the world and then, by choice, separating that child from one of its biological parents.
Surely this is not in the best interest of society (or children), yet the only reason that society conveys benefits on marriage is because marriage conveys benefits on society, and it is only natural (heterosexual) marriage that can convey those benefits.
That’s why, throughout history, even in societies where homosexuality was widely accepted and, to some degree, celebrated, marriage was never redefined, the populace and governments recognized that gay love and sex were one thing; marriage was another.
Perhaps, recognizing the weakness of the sole argument he presented, Peron closed with, “It would take a lot more space than we have in one blog post to make the entire case.”
Then by all means, Mr. Peron, write another post, and then another one after that. Or else admit that, if love is love and I have the constitutional right to marry the one I love, then your argument that it would mean rewriting lots of laws falls flat, be it for gay activists or for polygamist activists.
As I will demonstrate in my forthcoming book (the one you ridicule, dear sir, sight unseen), once you redefine marriage you render it meaningless.
That’s just one reason why I (and many others) will continue to reject the Supreme Court’s attempt to redefine the very meaning of marriage. It is far too precious for that, and we tamper with the foundations of human civilization to our own detriment.
Michael Brown is the host of the nationally syndicated talk radio show The Line of Fire and is the president of FIRE School of Ministry. His newest book (September 2015) is Outlasting the Gay Revolution: Where Homosexual Activism Is Really Going and How to Turn the Tide. Connect with him on Facebook at AskDrBrown or on Twitter @drmichaellbrown
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