Why Same-Sex Marriage Will Strengthen Marriage for Everyone

Marriage is about love, family and commitment -- for everyone. If we look at the specifics of how marriage strengthens and protects loving commitments and provides a more secure framework for home and family, we'll see how and why extending the social recognition and the legal protections of marriage to same-sex couples strengthens everyone's families.

1. Coercing same-sex oriented individuals into mixed orientation marriages is a formula for heart-break and marriage failure. One of the major reasons opponents of same-sex marriage offer for their position is that they believe it is God's will for everyone to be in heterosexual marriages. By denying same-sex couples the social approval that comes with marriage, they assume, opposite-sex marriage will be upheld as the social ideal and more individuals will feel drawn to enter into those kinds of arrangements.

While no one is forcing anyone to marry an opposite-sex spouse against his or her will, this is a subtle form of social coercion/pressure whose end goal is essentially to promote mixed-orientation marriages, the vast majority of which fail. This social policy is, in other words, almost calculated to increase the likelihood of divorce for large numbers of couples.

It is in the best interests of our society to promote stable, lasting pair-bondings. Allowing same-sex marriage as an option helps to remove the social stigma on homosexuality. It will encourage same-sex oriented individuals to come out of the closet and pair bond with (marry!) other same-sex oriented individuals. This is what opponents of same-sex marriage do not want. But, it is nevertheless in society's best interests, because it will reduce the likelihood that closeted individuals will enter into inherently unstable unions with persons of the opposite sex. It will correspondingly increase the likelihood that they will form lasting commitments with persons they are attracted to, and who are attracted to them.

Same-sex marriage will decrease divorce and increase family happiness and stability for everyone!

2) We are individually and collectively stronger when we are members of a family. Families are the oldest form of social insurance there is. Being married means you have someone to rely on if you get sick, if you lose your job or if you experience any other form of misfortune. That someone is there to take care of you not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. Often when we experience tragedy, the thing that plays the biggest role in helping us get back on our feet again is the emotional support and encouragement we get from someone who has committed to be our yoke-mate for life. I know this has been true for both me and Göran. In our going on 18 years together, there have been times when one or the other of us has been down and out, and the other has been there as number one cheerleader and supporter.

Opponents of same-sex marriage would prefer that if gay people can't be married to a member of the opposite sex that they be single for life. But in whose best interest is that really? Certainly not in the state's interest. When a person who is alone falls, who is there to help pick him up?

Individuals live in families, families live in societies. If an individual falls, if he has no immediate family, extended family is expected to help. If extended family is non-existent or ineffective, then it falls to the larger society. Forcing gay people to be alone weakens the fabric of society. Because Göran and I have been able to help each other over the years, we are stronger, we've been able to become resources to others. In recent years we have become foster parents, able to provide a loving home to children who have fallen through the cracks of society. So, the fact that we exist as a family unit means we can provide resources to help care for others, to become part of the social safety net.

Any one of the personal crises that Göran and I have faced could have proven deadly. That fact that each of us was here for the other increased the likelihood that we are both here today. And we are here today as a family unit that is capable of contributing to our neighborhood, community and state. And so society is stronger.

Same-sex marriage makes all of us stronger.

3) Marriage promotes morality and makes us more spiritually sensitive. Refusing same-sex couples the right to marry essentially sends a message to gay folks that the normal rules and expectations of sexual morality don't apply to us the way they do to everybody else. It also sends another, subtler and more damaging message: that gay people are inferior to heterosexual people. That we don't deserve stability, love or family. That we are inherently morally inferior. This damaging message encourages just the kinds of reckless, immoral behavior that the opponents of same-sex marriage claim to oppose. By legalizing same-sex marriage, we send gay folks the message that they are expected to abide by the same social norms, the same morality that we expect of everyone else.

When Göran and I got married, it had a huge psychological impact on me. I became aware of a profound responsibility to my significant other. It changed the way I thought about myself and about my sexuality. Committing myself to my husband and being willing to bridle my sexuality in a way that honors my love for him and my commitment to him has changed my life in so many ways for the better. In many ways, those commitments paved the way for me to come back to the Church. I believe living in a way that honored my love for him made me more sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit.

It is those spiritual benefits of the kind of love and commitment that can be fostered in marriage that I personally consider one of the greatest benefits of marriage. Though, for obvious reasons -- such as social stability and the reduction of sexually transmitted diseases -- providing a social framework that discourages promiscuity and encourages sexual morality among gay men and lesbians is also a benefit that strengthens not just the individuals involved, but society as a whole.

Let's tell our stories. If you are straight, why is marriage valuable to you? How would same-sex couples marrying spoil marriage for you? How would it weaken your marriage? If you're gay, what have you gotten from your relationship with your same-sex spouse? How has it strengthened you, made you a better, happier, more complete person?

Come, let us reason together!

The Fight Over Marriage Comes to Minnesota

It hasn't been fun watching the same-sex marriage debate roiling other states. Until now, the gay marriage debate has been an abstract issue for Minnesotans. Previous efforts to amend the Minnesota state constitution were stopped in the legislature. But in the last election, Republicans took over the Minnesota state legislature (even as they lost the governor's mansion), and now Republicans in the legislature have put an anti-gay-marriage amendment on the ballot for 2012. (The voting in the legislature has been almost totally along party lines, with only a couple of Republicans joining Democrats in opposition to a marriage amendment.) So now we get to have a public referendum on same-sex relationships.

Recent polls are showing that a majority of Americans favor same-sex marriage, and a a majority of Minnesotans oppose banning same-sex marriage. Both sides claim polling data in Minnesota that supports their position. And as we know from the Prop 8 campaign in California, public opinion can change in the course of a campaign. So for these reasons, and also because Minnesota is currently seen -- both by gay marriage opponents and by gay marriage supporters -- as a bellwether for the nation, it looks likely that national organizers on both sides of this issue will get involved here. Which means we could be in for a fight, and it could get ugly.

This is not something I am constitutionally capable of sitting through on the side lines. Even if I wanted to keep silent and let others fight this fight, every molecule in my body would force me to my feet, to get out of the house, and to open my mouth. Bottom line, I'm getting involved. I've joined the Faith Steering Committee of OutFront Minnesota.

The mood of many GLBT folks here is gloomy. Many do not look forward to having the merits of our lives, our love, and our families publicly debated and demeaned in the way that only politics can demean.

But I am not gloomy. I am glad, and I am excited. Public opinion is evenly divided which means we can win this. And I believe that, since we live in a Democracy, the only way a lasting resolution of this problem will ultimately be brought about is not in a court, and not by executive fiat, and not even in a legislature, but by the voice of the people. Minnesotans now have an opportunity to discuss, not legal finery or constitutional procedure, but substantive values and real lives. If we do this, if we talk about our lives, and about why love, family and commitment matter to us, we will win.

Gay folks are a small minority everywhere, so it is frightening and dismaying to have our lives, our rights, and our families voted on by majorities. But our opponents aren't bigots, they're just afraid because they don't understand. If we stop looking at those who oppose same-sex marriage as our enemy, and start looking at them as folks who just don't know us well enough yet to be our friends, we will find the voice that will enable us to tell our stories in a way that will reach and touch real people and make a difference. If we just have patience and faith, and if we show kindness, we will find friends in unexpected places.

We must not be fearful, and we must not be dismayed. We must find the hope and the courage that only love can inspire.

If you live in Minnesota, and, gay or straight, you want to help, let's talk!