NOM BLOG

Anderson: When it Comes to Marriage, Gender Matters

 

Ryan Anderson of Heritage:

"...Some supporters of redefining marriage appeal to the civil rights movement and interracial marriage. They argue that laws defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman are unjust because that they fail to treat people equally—exactly like laws that prevented interracial marriage. Yet such appeals beg the question of what is essential to marriage. They assume that gender is as irrelevant as race in making policy about marriage.

164718775But the relevance of gender to marriage is the exact question we need to debate, not preemptively discard without discussion as advocates of redefinition seem to do.

Marriage must be color-blind, but it cannot be gender-blind. The color of two people’s skin has nothing to do with marriage. But the sexual difference between a man and a woman is central to what marriage is. Men and women regardless of their race can unite in marriage, and children regardless of their race need moms and dads. To acknowledge such facts requires an understanding of what, at an essential level, makes a marriage.

By contrast, race has nothing to do with marriage, and racist laws kept the races apart—and that is a bad thing. Marriage unites the two halves of humanity—male and female—and that is a good thing."

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