Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, was the most significant Supreme Court decision in decades. No longer are we required to allow America’s unborn children to be slaughtered in the womb because fifty years ago some black-robed activists stuck a wet finger in the wind and decided to get out in front of the sexual revolution’s next parade.
But there is still important work to be done. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) needs to be overturned. That was the case in which the Supreme Court decided that same-sex marriage was somehow enshrined in the Constitution, and that every state in the United States without exception must provide for same-sex marriage. Legally, Obergefell is every bit as nonsensical as Roe. The court’s reasoning—and I know that most non-lawyer lay people will find this difficult to believe, but it is true—was that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified by the states on July 9, 1868, had changed the definition of marriage to a man and a woman, or two men, or two women.
Is that a reasonable or even a sane interpretation of the 14th Amendment? Of course not. The post-Civil War amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th) were intended to end slavery and involuntary servitude, secure the right of the freedmen to vote, and do away with the infamous “black codes” by which the former Confederate States were continuing the subjugation of the freed slaves. It goes without saying that absolutely nothing in the post-Civil War amendments was intended to change the universal and eternal definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, and absolutely no one who participated in drafting, passing, or ratifying those amendments had any notion, much less any intent, to usher in same-sex marriage.
So basically the Supreme Court just invented out of nothing a supposed right to same-sex marriage that is absolutely nowhere in the text or the intended meaning of the United States Constitution. As I noted in my discussion of Roe v. Wade, this sort of thing is judicial lawlessness and thuggery. Activist judges, who are really lawless usurpers, have abused the 14th Amendment—and sadly this was far from the first time—by using “substantive due process” to create new rights. “Substantive due process” is a theory the justices invented out of thin air in order to elevate their own personal policy preferences over the plain text of the Constitution. Repealing Obergefell is the next step to rolling back substantive due process and its baleful consequences.
The last thing the Supreme Court should ever have taken away was the right of the people to define the most foundational of societal institutions—marriage. As Matthew Boose writes,
“Obergefell, like Roe, was a particularly arbitrary, extreme, and unjust imposition on the people. Like Roe, it had no basis in the Constitution’s text or American custom. It was simply dreamed up by a group of unelected judges who decided the time had come for them to impose a radically new understanding of the most fundamental institution of human society. Like Roe, Obergefell took away from the people the power to decide the most basic moral questions and daily life in their communities. As Justice Scalia put it at the time, the Court was violating ‘a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.’”
The people must be allowed to vote on what marriage should be in their states. The fact that conservative states will not allow same-sex marriage and the Democrat-controlled Sodoms like New York and California will allow it is not a compelling argument in light of Dobbs, which just created a legal regime in which abortion will be legal—in fact rabidly encouraged—in Leftist states, but mostly illegal in states that still love God and value life and human thriving.
Federalism is something to celebrate, not fear. Let each state’s elected representatives pass the laws the voters of that state prefer; this is what Justice Louis Brandeis called “the laboratory of democracy” meaning that one state may pass an unusual law while the other states can watch noncommittally to see how it works out. I have no doubt that those states that outlaw both abortion and same-sex marriage will be signally blessed in all manner of ways over those which choose to elevate and honor sodomy, and offer thousands of their unborn children to Moloch.
As we’ve seen, Obergefell rests on the absurd doctrine of substantive due process, just as Casey v. Planned Parenthood did, and therefore should be overturned as a legal monstrosity, just as Roe and Casey were overturned (thanks to the integrity of Donald John Trump, who kept his promise to appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court). But what of the merits of same-sex marriage as social policy? Regardless of the legalities, is same-sex marriage something that society should want?
For Christians, the fact that God created mankind male and female, and therefore created marriage to be between a man and a woman, should be dispositive. Biblically, God invented marriage in the Garden of Eden, and it is only between one man and one woman. Same-sex marriage is an anti-Christian, anti-Biblical counterfeit of true marriage.
But many Seventh-day Adventists subscribe to Kevin Paulson’s eccentric theory that biblical principles must never be allowed to intrude on legislative deliberation. They believe that if Christians are allowed a voice in government, vicious persecution will immediately follow. That is an absurd ideology that we have debunked here and here and here. But, as I say, many Adventists have drunk the Cool Aid on this issue, and do not believe that civil society legislation should be influenced by the biblical or Christian worldview.
So let us conduct a thought experiment. Let us see if we can think of secular, non-religious reasons why a state might not want to recognize same-sex marriage. Does religion provide the only objection to extending marriage beyond the male-female template? Here are a few non-religious reasons I can think of:
The primary purpose of marriage is to propagate the species within a structure that can create new life, and nurture, raise, educate, and socialize the next generation. A man and a woman can procreate new human beings; two men or two women cannot.
Men and women are very different and bring very different things to the task of parenting. A child needs both the unconditional and tender love of a mother, and the sterner, principle-imbuing guidance of a father. For the child to grow into a well-rounded adult, both parents must play their role in the child’s rearing, education, and socialization. Two men or two women are usually better than no parents at all, but it takes no special religious belief to understand that same-sex parents are not the ideal. No, the kids will not be alright.
It takes no divine revelation to understand that, from society’s point of view, the main purpose and function of marriage is to perpetuate human society, not for you to get your jollies. How you get your jollies is your business, but do not expect the state and the civil society to re-arrange and re-define ancient, universal institutions—which have worked for millennia—just to legitimize your predilections. There is a cost to society in having the institution of marriage—the judges, lawyers, court reporters, bailiffs, constables, police officers, sheriffs, etc. required to divide property, set up and enforce child custody and visitation orders, set up and enforce alimony and child support, etc.—and society is rationally entitled to expect a return on that investment. Two dudes and a terrier do not provide a return for society’s investment. Hence, you will not be allowed to marry your blow-up doll, nor your vibrator, nor your ox, nor your ass, nor any stranger of your own sex who is within your gates—not because God or the gods will zap you if you do, or will zap the state if the state allows it, but simply because such “marriages” do not further society’s rationally understood interest in fostering an institution to perpetuate human society into the future.
Sodomy is unhealthy. Men who have sex with men spread all sorts of diseases, either exclusively or predominantly. AIDS is old news, so look up Monkey Pox if you’re bored and ready to be disgusted. Strictly for health reasons, society should discourage men from having sex with other men, not normalize it or even honor it by pretending that, through marriage, it is capable of becoming constructive to society. It is not. It is a hazard to public health, even within a same-sex “marriage,” because such “marriages” are almost never monogamous. A study from Amsterdam found that steady partners contribute more than casual partners to HIV infection, because gays tended to engage in risky behavior more often with steady partners than with casual partners. An earlier study that found that 67 percent of HIV-positive men aged 30 and younger had been infected by a steady partner. (See Elizabeth’s article for citations.)
The benefit of marriage to same sex couples—by which I mean the benefit that they themselves perceive—is minimal, as demonstrated by their low marriage rate. Although Obergefell made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, only 10% of homosexual adults choose to be married to someone of the same sex. Gays and lesbians are not clamoring to be married, so what was all this about? (To me, this is a clue that same-sex marriage—like today’s insanely destructive enthusiasm for gender-bending and “transitioning”—was always primarily a Marxist ploy to ruin the existing society to make way for the utopia they intend to erect on its ashes.)
The push for same-sex marriage was based upon the idea that, except for the same-sex attraction, homosexuality is just like heterosexuality, and same-sex marriage can be just like heterosexual marriage. Not true. The dirty little secret about male homosexuality is that it is driven by an astonishing promiscuity that is extremely rare among heterosexual males (outside of the NBA). A large-scale study conducted during the 1970s found that 43% of white male homosexuals had had sex with 500 or more partners, and 28% had had sex with 1,000 or more partners (by contrast, the typical heterosexual man has sex with 9 women in his entire lifetime). Seventy-nine percent (79%) of the homosexual men said that more than half of their sexual partners had been strangers whom they had met in places like gay bars, bath houses, public parks, truck stops, and public bathrooms in various venues, such as parks, airports and bus stations. (That’s one reason—not the only one—why men who have sex with men spread so much disease.) A study of 156 males in committed, same-sex relationships lasting from one to 27 years found that only seven couples had a totally exclusive sexual relationship, and these men had been together less than five years. Stated another way, only 9% were monogamous, but none were monogamous who had been in a relationship more than 5 years. (See Elizabeth’s article for citations.)
So it just is not true that religion is the only reason not to extend marriage to same-sex couples. There are plenty of secular reasons, having no basis in revealed religion, that marriage should remain a male-female institution just as it always and universally has been up until 15 minutes ago.
While we’re on the subject, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) also needs to go. Lawrence struck down laws criminalizing sodomy, even though the Supreme Court had upheld such laws just 17 years before, in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986). It is unlikely that even the most conservative jurisdictions will return to a regime in which homosexual sex behind closed doors is criminalized, but the justices are not philosopher kings and should not have a say in the matter. Lawrence v. Texas is very instructive, however, on the fact that even recent precedent need not be slavishly followed, so the Court need not and should not wait half a century to overturn Obergefell.