EVAN WOLFSON AND GLENN STANTON DEBATE SSM: From the Denver Post

YES: Marriage is a civil right for all

...Opponents claim marriage and civilization itself will be destroyed if discrimination ends. But this is not the first time our country has struggled over exclusion from marriage. Previous chapters in U.S. history have seen race discrimination in marriage, laws making wives legally inferior to husbands, resistance to allowing people to end failed or abusive marriages through divorce, and even a refusal to allow married and unmarried people to make their own decisions about whether to use contraception or raise children.

In each of these civil-rights struggles, opponents claimed that the proposed change was "against the definition of marriage" or "against God's will." Fortunately, our country rejected the sky-is-falling claims of opponents and made marriage a more inclusive and fair commitment of equals. As the Massachusetts court and others have made clear, government simply has no good reason for continuing to deny same-sex couples marriage licenses.

By contrast, there are many reasons to support marriage equality. From tax treatment to cheaper "family membership" rates, from the ability to ensure a spouse's health care in times of crisis to the right to inherit hard-earned pension or Social Security, older couples like Del and Phyllis as well as the children raised by same-sex couples need and deserve the protections and security marriage can bring to their families. There is no good reason for shoving any group of Americans outside the legal protections and responsibilities their taxes pay for, or to deny gay people the dream of building a life together with a partner in marriage.

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NO: Majority of Americans are against it

...Gay activists have gained their ground through emotional manipulation and by diverting the public's attention away from the thousands of scientific studies that tell us how healthy child-development requires mothers and fathers. They have manipulated us by hijacking civil-rights language. As a result, millions of boys and girls will be subjected to intentionally motherless and fatherless families for no other reason than to fulfill the desires of adults who want such families....

The real reason the overwhelming majority of African-Americans and two-thirds of all Americans oppose same-sex marriage is because they understand that it fundamentally redefines the family and says mothers and fathers don't matter for children. And the black community, more than any other, has suffered under the ravages of this. The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, coordinator of the 1963 March on Washington and president of the National Black Leadership Roundtable, recently warned, "Don't confuse my people who have been the victims of deliberate family destruction by giving them another definition of marriage."

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posted by Eve at 11:06 PM VOTE

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