Lizards' Rationale

Lizards' Rationale

via Big Lizards by Dafydd on 5/10/12

Huge Hewitt is spending the three hours of his show today to discuss same-sex marriage (he's agin' it). He would have done so yesterday, because of President Barack "Big Stick" Obama coming out on national TV; but Hewitt was too busy spending the three hours of his show promoting Dennis Prager, who has a new book out.
Not being a religious person or even a believer -- I'm a true agnostic, not an atheist tarted up as an agno -- I get frustrated when the religous argue against same-sex marriage (SSM). I'm frustrated that the argument always begins and ends with "God said so," with only a small forray in the middle towards a non-religious reason, that children are best raised with one male father and one female mother.
Which is certainly true; alas, however, that one secular argument still has a gaping hole: What about same-sex couples who have no intention of having children, which probably encompasses most of them? The government can't mandate traditional marriage on the basis that "God said so;" so if the lone non-religious argument is the welfare of children, then what is the "rational basis" for saying that two guys or two gals who don't want kids cannot marry?
(For that matter, what is the rational basis for denying marital status to a triplet comprising two women and one guy who's had a vasectomy? Or to a gaggle of swingers, male and female, whose only religious impulse is that they all religiously use condoms and the Pill?)
We need a solid and secular rational basis to restrict marriage to the traditional definition. A truly activist court can still ignore the basis and overturn it; but with such a rational basis, the odds are much greater that a supervisory court will overturn the lower court.
With this much buildup, you won't be surprised that I have just such a solid and secular rational basis to propose. Here we go:
Premise 1: The United States (and most of Western civilization) is based upon several premises, one of which is that males and females are of equal value in our societies.
Premise 2: Another traditional American premise is that, unlike, e.g., Afghanistan, we do not live in gender-segregated societies.
Men and women interact with each other all the time, and per above, should be able to do so on a basis of equality. American men are not supposed to treat women as property or prisoners, nor vice versa (though that's rare to the vanishing point, except among feminists).
These conditions may not prevail in every family, but they are organizing principles of American society. They set the standard we should all strive to meet.
Ergo, the rational basis of recognizing only the traditional definition of marriage is that it is the best marital system ever created for promoting gender integration and the full valuation of women in society.
Every other form of marriage either devalues and degrades women, leads to gender segregation, or both -- without exception. So if we want to promote equal value of both genders and a gender-integrated society, we have only one realistic choice: traditional marriage, regardless of the individual's personal sexual preference.
(Do I mean that gay men should nevertheless marry women, and lesbians should marry men? Yes, you betcha! That is exactly what I mean: It's better for society, better for kids (if they have any), and even better for the two individuals in the marriage.)
Why is this so?

• SSM, by its very nature, promotes gender segregation: A man married to another man is not forced into constant contact with a woman he is expected to treat as his equal; the same is true for a marriage of two lesbians, vis-à-vis men.

Most gays and lesbian naturally organize themselves into all-male or all-female groups: A gay man dates other men, hangs out with other men, goes to gay bars full of men, and may only come into even casual contact with women at work... and even that is iffy, since it's easier to avoid someone at work than avoid someone who lives with you.
Men who have no significant contact with female equals (wives, committed girlfriends) tend to be far more violent than men who do; women generally civilize men. Similarly, women who have no significant contact with male equals tend to be unambitious, unsuccessful, poor, and dependent upon welfare; men generally encourage women to become stronger, more confident, and more independent. (If the men in your life don't do that, replace them with men who do!)
Either of these conditions is horrifically destructive of American society. It's entirely rational that states wish to avoid them both.

• Then what about polygamy, polyandry, and group marriage? Don't they force men and women to live together?

Yes they do; but by its nature, polygamy devalues women, because you always have another woman waiting in the wings; you can "freeze out" the uppity wench who dares to think she's an equal. (Observe Moslem and African polygamous societies and how the women are treated.)
And by its nature, polyandry simply hasn't worked in any society in history I've ever heard about: Men are aggressive and jealous, and they will invariably start fighting each other for "bed rights" with the girl.
Finally, group marriage has the problems of both polygamy and polyandry, plus an increasingly attenuated and fragmented sense of being married; when everybody's "married" to everybody else, then nobody's really married to anyone.
So if you believe women and men should have equal value in our society and that they should not segregate themselves by gender, then rationally, you must support only traditional marriage. It is equally true for religious and irreligious, and for families with and without children.
And that forms the rational basis for the laws: to bring the female and male principles, the yin and the yang, together as equals in American society.
If that's not what you want to see in America, then go be a tribal chief in the Congo or a slaver in Sudan. Or join Occupy Wall Street, where rapists and woman abusers are celebrated!