(U-WIRE) - I have decided to come out of the closet and openly proclaim my support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Even though I will now face open discrimination and accusations of bigotry, I just can't keep it pent up inside anymore.
Newspapers will say my desire for an amendment is a mixture of pandering to the religious right and poorly repressed homophobia. Liberals everywhere, with minds so open that their brains have slipped out, will accuse me of hate-mongering and attempting to write discrimination into the Constitution.
Now that I am out of the closet, I might as well explain why an amendment is needed.
Marriage is just an artificial social construct. Its only recommending force is the momentum built by years of tradition, as well as the observation that it is the best way to raise children.
You cannot kick out one of the pillars of tradition that upholds marriage - in this case heterosexuality - and not expect it to have some effect, be it good or ill, on the institution of marriage.
Opponents who scoff at all tradition will say slavery was a tradition, too, and we got rid of it for good reason. But slavery and marriage are both traditions in the same way Hitler and Ghandi were both human. We shouldn't blindly preserve all traditions at any cost, but rather we should preserve those that are fundamental building blocks of our society.
Here's an analogy to help understand the conservative case. What if the Fourth of July holiday were changed into a celebration of the independence of all nations, instead of just the United States?
Would this water down the holiday and make it lose some of its specialness, some of its appeal?
This analogy is very limited, but helps to uncover the legitimate question at the center of the gay marriage debate: Would gay marriage in some way dilute, bastardize or further atrophy the institution of marriage?
The conservative case against gay marriage holds that officially sanctioning gay marriage will lead to a further disassociation of marriage from child-rearing and a slippery slope to even worse distortions of marriage.
The latter claim, the slippery slope, is often dismissed as paranoia. But once you have allowed tampering with the definition of marriage to suit individual tastes, be aware of what those tastes might entail.
Proposing an amendment to define an age-old institution does not set a dangerous precedent, both because of the difficulty of amending the Constitution as well as the social consciousness of the nation on real rights issues.
Even if you advocate gay marriage, you must agree the gravity of this subject rises to a level of national concern.
Why not put it there?
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Grant Reichert
