Keep marriage between man and woman

Andy Dygert
News Editor
Mar. 11, 2004, Page 4

Marriage is almost as old as humanity itself.
Adam took Eve as his wife. Cleopatra married Mark Antony. Henry VIII could not seem to stop marrying (and then executing) different women. Every single president of the United States has been married.
What is the one thing all of these marriages have in common? They were between a man and a woman. This part of the institution of marriage is now being abused.
On Feb. 4, 2004, the Massachusetts Supreme Court handed down a decision to allow same-sex marriages. Following this ruling, city officials in San Francisco and the mayor of New Paltz, N.Y. began performing same-sex marriages.
President Bush answered these proceedings by calling for a Constitutional amendment which would define marriage as being between a man and a woman.
Tosha Rae Long wrote an article, published in last week’s edition of The Doane Owl, which stated that she thought Bush’s proposal is “bigotry in disguise.”
Long asks, “What exactly is Bush trying to defend? Marriage is not under attack.” She goes on to say that marriage is only being “reconstructed to fit the needs of everyone.”
This, however, is incorrect as the very core of marriage is being attacked.
Marriage was instituted for the sake of the family - legally giving guardianship (through parents) to the children coming from the union of the couple. Children are created naturally only between a man and a woman. Two men or two women cannot create children together.
Homosexuality comes about because two people of the same sex are attracted to each other and want to engage in their attraction or lust. Children are not in any way part if the equation (adopted or medically implanted children are not the fruit of a homosexual couple).
Marriage is a union entered into in mutual love ordered towards the procreation and education of children. Therefore, allowing homosexuals to marry one another strikes directly at the core of marriage. Furthermore, children with parents of the same sex are brought up without the complementary differences of a man and a woman - children relate to a mother differently than to a father for instance. A child is deprived of one of these differing influences if brought up by homosexual parents.
Such a child is actually deprived of both influences! In marriage, the femininity of a wife is perfected and brought out in its full glory through the masculinity of her husband, and vice-versa.
When a man loves a man as he would love a woman, however, people’s experience should show them that his masculinity is, to say the least, not as well defined.
Long ends her article by sayin that officials like the ones in San Francisco and New York “set the example that Americans can challenge the system and fight suppression.” These officials do in fact challenge and fight against something – the law. California Family Code 300 reads, “Marriage is a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman.”
Therefore San Francisco officials were indeed breaking the law by “challenging” the system.
The state of New York has similar legislation.
Bush’s amendment to the Constitution of the United States would effectively end the question of the legitimacy of these unlawful acts.
Marriage must be protected on a national level in order to preserve its very meaning and purpose.