Info package on the South African homosexual debate

Info package on the South African homosexual debate, in particular the `Gay Marriage’ issue.

The gay issue in South Africa is hotting up because of the push for “gay marriage”. This is bound to result in much debate in newspapers, radio and other types of media. This info package is by no means comprehensive but has contains some “do’s and don’ts” and informational material about the topic.

Some basics that don’t relate to the topic but which are very important to get any message across on radio. The topic of gay marriage and related issues is likely to come up on talk shows quite often. You need to know when the show is on and what the call telephone number is. Sometimes there is a SMS number and you can send a text opinion. CFT is contacted quite often just before a radio discussion. Let CFT know if you’d like to be on a list of those willing to participate. Now, some things to remember for radio:

Eleven Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage (Part 1 of 5)
by Dr. James Dobson

An argument in favor of homosexual marriage that you are likely to hear again and again on radio talk shows, on national television, and on the Internet, reflects a line of reasoning that you must be prepared to counter. It is embodied in these kinds of questions: Why all the fuss about gay marriage anyway? And why should it matter to you if a gay couple marries and moves into your neighborhood? Why shouldn’t our definition of family be broadened and modernized? After all, what harm could possibly be done by yielding to the demands of those who say traditional notions of family are outmoded and irrelevant?

Columnist Steve Blow, in a recent edition of The Dallas Morning News, echoed some of these questions. His op-ed piece was titled “Gay Marriage: Why Would It Affect Me?” and was apparently written after he had read one of my recent newsletters on the subject. Blow wrote:

When opponents talk about the “defense of marriage,” they lose me. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family just sent out a mailer to 2.5 million homes saying: “The homosexual activists’ movement is poised to administer a devastating and potentially fatal blow to the traditional family.” And I say, “Huh?” How does anyone’s pledge of love and commitment turn into a fatal blow to families?

Mr. Blow clearly believes that the only reason for not legalizing homosexual marriage is sheer bigotry. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are very compelling arguments against marriage between homosexuals that should be considered by anyone who has not yet become familiar with the issues. Unfortunately, the American people, as a whole, have not yet thought through the consequences and measured the impact of this revolutionary concept. I could list fifty or more legitimate concerns. Let me focus on only eleven:

1. The legalization of homosexual marriage will quickly destroy the traditional family.

We’ve already seen evidence from the Scandinavian countries that de-facto homosexual marriage destroys the real Mc Coy. These two entities cannot coexist because they represent opposite ends of the universe. A book could be written on the reasons for this collision between matter and antimatter, but I will cite three of them.

First, when the State sanctions homosexual relationships and gives them its blessing, the younger generation becomes confused about sexual identity and quickly loses its understanding of lifelong commitments, emotional bonding, sexual purity, the role of children in a family, and from a spiritual perspective, the “sanctity” of marriage. Marriage is reduced to something of a partnership that provides attractive benefits and sexual convenience, but cannot offer the intimacy described in Genesis. Cohabitation and short-term relationships are the inevitable result. Ask the Norwegians, the Swedes, and the people from the Netherlands. That is exactly what is happening there.

Second, the introduction of legalized gay marriages will lead inexorably to polygamy and other alternatives to one man/one woman unions. In Utah polygamist Tom Green, who claims five wives, is citing Lawrence v. Texas as the legal authority for his appeal. In January 2004, a Salt Lake City civil rights attorney filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of another couple wanting to engage in legal polygamy. Their justification? Lawrence v. Texas. The ACLU of Utah has actually suggested that the state will “have to step up to prove that a polygamous relationship is detrimental to society” — as opposed to the polygamists having to prove that plural marriage is not harmful to the culture. Do you see how the game is played? The responsibility to defend the family now rests on you and me to prove that polygamy is unhealthy. The ACLU went on to say that the nuclear family “may not be necessarily the best model.” Indeed, Justice Antonin Scalia warned of this likelihood in his statement for the minority in the Lawrence case. It took less than six months for His prediction to become a reality.

Why will gay marriage set the table for polygamy? Because there is no place to stop once that Rubicon has been crossed. Historically, the definition of marriage has rested on a foundation of tradition, legal precedent, theology and the overwhelming support of the people. After the introduction of marriage between homosexuals, however, it will be supported by nothing more substantial than the opinion of a single judge or by a black-robed panel of justices. After they have reached their dubious decisions, the family will consist of little more than someone’s interpretation of “rights.” Given that unstable legal climate, it is certain that some self-possessed judge, somewhere, will soon rule that three men or three women can marry. Or five men and two women. Or four and four. Who will be able to deny them that right? The guarantee is implied, we will be told, by the Constitution. Those who disagree will continue to be seen as hate-mongers and bigots. (Indeed, those charges are already being leveled against Christians who espouse biblical values!) How about group marriage, or marriage between cousins, or marriage between daddies and little girls? How about marriage between a man and his donkey? Anything allegedly linked to “civil rights” will be doable. The legal underpinnings for marriage will have been destroyed.

The third reason marriage between homosexuals will destroy traditional marriage is that this is the ultimate goal of activists, and they will not stop until they achieve it. The history of the gay and lesbian movement has been that its adherents quickly move the goal line as soon as the previous one has been breached, revealing even more shocking and outrageous objectives. In the present instance, homosexual activists, heady with power and exhilaration, feel the political climate is right to tell us what they have wanted all along. This is the real deal: Most gays and lesbians do not want to marry each other. That would entangle them in all sorts of legal constraints. Who needs a lifetime commitment to one person? The intention here is to create an entirely different legal structure.

With marriage as we know it gone, everyone would enjoy all the legal benefits of marriage (custody rights, tax-free inheritance, joint ownership of property, health care and spousal citizenship, and much more) without limiting the number of partners or their gender. Nor would “couples” be bound to each other in the eyes of the law. This is clearly where the movement is headed. If you doubt that this is the motive, read what is in the literature today. Activists have created a new word to replace the outmoded terms infidelity, adultery, cheating and promiscuity. The new concept is polyamorous. It means the same thing (literally “many loves”) but with the agreement of the primary sexual partner. Why not? He or she is probably polyamorous, too.

Liberal columnist Michael Kinsley wrote a July 2003 op-ed piece in The Washington Post titled, “Abolish Marriage: Let’s Really Get the Government Out Of Our Bedrooms.” In this revealing editorial, Kinsley writes, “[The] solution is to end the institution of marriage, or rather, the solution is to end the institution of government monopoly on marriage. And yes, if three people want to get married, or one person wants to marry herself and someone else wants to conduct a ceremony and declare them married, let ’em. If you and your government aren’t implicated, what do you care? If marriage were an entirely private affair, all the disputes over gay marriages would become irrelevant.” Otherwise, the author warns, “it’s going to get ugly.”

Judith Levine, writing in The Village Voice, offered support for these ideas in an article titled “Stop the Wedding: Why Gay Marriage Isn’t Radical Enough.” She wrote, “Because American marriage is inextricable from Christianity, it admits participants as Noah let animals on the ark. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In 1972 the National Coalition of Gay Organizations demanded the ‘repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex or numbers.’ Group marriage could comprise any combination of genders.”

Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, summed up the situation in a recent Weekly Standard article. He noted that if gay marriage is legalized, “marriage will be transformed into a variety of relationship contracts, linking two, three or more individuals (however weakly or temporarily) in every conceivable combination of male and female … the bottom of this slope is visible from where we now stand.”

We must all become soberly aware of a deeply disturbing reality: The homosexual agenda is not marriage for gays. It is marriage for no one. And despite what you read or see in the media, it is definitely not monogamous.

What will happen sociologically if marriage becomes anything or everything or nothing? The short answer is that the State will lose its compelling interest in marital relationships altogether. After marriage has been redefined, divorces will be obtained instantly, will not involve a court, and will take on the status of a driver’s license or a hunting permit. With the family out of the way, all rights and privileges of marriage will accrue to gay and lesbian partners without the legal entanglements and commitments heretofore associated with it.

These are just a few reasons why homosexual marriage is truly revolutionary. Legalizing it will change everything, especially for the institution of the family.

Children Will Suffer Most (Eleven Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage — Part 2 of 5)
by Dr. James Dobson

The implications for children in a world of decaying families are profound. Because homosexuals are rarely monogamous, often having as many as three hundred or more partners in a lifetime — some studies say it is typically more than one thousand — children in those polyamorous situations are caught in a perpetual coming and going. It is devastating to kids, who by their nature are enormously conservative creatures. They like things to stay just the way they are, and they hate change. Some have been known to eat the same brand of peanut butter throughout childhood.

More than ten thousand studies have concluded that kids do best when they are raised by loving and committed mothers and fathers. They are less likely to be on illegal drugs, less likely to be retained in a grade, less likely to drop out of school, less likely to commit suicide, less likely to be in poverty, less likely to become juvenile delinquents, and for the girls, less likely to become teen mothers. They are healthier both emotionally and physically, even thirty years later, than those not so blessed by traditional parents.

Social scientists have been surprisingly consistent in warning about the impact of fractured families. If present trends continue, the majority of children will have several “moms” and “dads,” perhaps six or eight “grandparents,” and dozens of half-siblings. It will be a world where little boys and girls are shuffled from pillar to post in an ever-changing pattern of living arrangements; where huge numbers of them will be raised in foster-care homes or living on the street, as millions do in countries all over the world today. Imagine an environment where nothing is stable and where people think primarily about themselves and their own self-preservation. And have you considered what will happen when homosexuals with children become divorced? Instead of two moms and two dads, they will have to contend with four moms or four dads. How would you like to be a new husband a generation later who instantly had four or six or eight mother-in-laws.

We must also consider a world of the future where immorality is even more rampant than today, where both unbridled homosexual and heterosexual liaisons are the norm. The apostle Paul described such a society in the book of Romans, referring apparently to ancient Rome. He wrote, “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Romans 1:29–31).

It appears likely now that the demise of families will accelerate this type of decline dramatically, resulting in a chaotic culture that will rip kids apart emotionally.

With the legalization of homosexual marriage, every public school in the nation will be required to teach this perversion as the moral equivalent of traditional marriage between a man and a woman. Textbooks, even in conservative regions, will have to depict man/man and woman/woman relationships, and stories written for children as young as elementary school, or even kindergarten, will have to give equal space and emphasis to homosexuals. How can a child, fresh out of toddlerhood, comprehend the meaning of adult sexuality? The answer is, they can’t, but it is happening in the state of California already.

Adoption Laws Will Be Instantly Obsolete (Eleven Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage — Part 3 of 5)
by Dr. James Dobson

From the moment that homosexual marriage becomes legal, courts will not be able to favor a traditional couple of one man and one woman in matters of adoption. Children will be placed in homes with parents representing only one sex on an equal basis with those having a mom and a dad. Even the polyamorous couples won’t be excluded. The prospect of fatherless and motherless children will not be considered in the evaluation of eligibility. It will be the law.

Foster-care parents will be required to undergo “sensitivity training” to rid themselves of bias in favor of heterosexuality, and will have to affirm homosexuality in children and teens. Moral training, at least as it applies to sexuality, will be forbidden. Again, this is the current law in California.

This could be the straw that breaks the back of the insurance industry in Western nations, as millions of new dependents become eligible for coverage. Every HIV-positive patient needs only to find a partner to receive the same coverage as offered to an employee. It is estimated by some analysts that an initial threefold increase in premiums can be anticipated; even with that, it may not be profitable for companies to stay in business.

And how about the cost to American businesses? Will they be able to provide health benefits? If not, can physicians, nurses, and technicians be expected to work for nothing or to provide their services in exchange for a vague promise of payments from indigent patients? Try selling that to a neurosurgeon or an orthopedist who has to pay increased premiums for malpractice insurance. The entire health care system could implode.

Social Security Will Be Severely Stressed (Eleven Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage — Part 4 of 5)
by Dr. James Dobson

Again, with millions of new eligible dependents, what will happen to the Social Security system that is already facing bankruptcy? If it does collapse, what will that mean for elderly people who must rely totally on that meager support? Who is thinking through these draconian possibilities as we careen toward “a brave new world”?

In order to get a perspective on where the homosexual activist movement is taking us, one can simply look at our neighbors to the north. Canada is leading the way on this revolutionary path. I could cite dozens of examples indicating that religious freedom in that country is dying. Indeed, on April 28, 2004, the Parliament passed bill C 250, which effectively criminalized speech or writings that criticize homosexuality. Anything deemed to be “homophobic” can be punished by six months in prison or by other severe penalties.

Pastors and priests in Canada are wondering if they can preach from Leviticus or Romans 1 or other passages from the writings of the apostle Paul. Will a new Bible be mandated that is bereft of “hate speech”? Consider this: A man who owned a printing press in Canada was fined $3,400 for refusing to print stationary for a homosexual activist organization.

Censorship is already in full swing. One of our Focus on the Family radio programs on the subject of homosexuality was judged by the Canadian Radio and Television Commission to be “homophobic.” The radio station that carried the broadcast was censured for airing it, and I have not been able to address the issue since.

Is that kind of censorship coming to the United States. Yes, I believe it is. Once homosexual marriage is legalized, if indeed that is where we are headed, laws based on what will be considered “equality” will bring many changes in the law. Furthermore, it is likely that non-profit organizations that refuse to hire homosexuals on religious grounds will lose their tax exemptions. Some Christian colleges and universities are already worrying about that possibility.

9. Other nations are watching our march toward homosexual marriage and will follow our lead.

Marriage among homosexuals will spread throughout the world, just as pornography did after the Nixon Commission declared obscene material “beneficial” to mankind. Almost instantly, the English-speaking countries liberalized their laws against smut. America continues to be the fountainhead of filth and immorality, and its influence is global. Dr. Darrell Reid, president of Focus on the Family Canada, told me recently that his country is carefully monitoring what is happening in the United States. If we take this step off a cliff, the family on every continent will splinter at an accelerated rate. Conversely, our Supreme Court has made it clear that it looks to European and Canadian law in the interpretation of our Constitution. What an outrage! That should have been grounds for impeachment, but the Congress, as usual, remained passive and silent.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ Will Be Severely Curtailed (Eleven Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage — Part 5 of 5)
by Dr. James Dobson

The family has been God’s primary vehicle for evangelism since the beginning. Its most important assignment has been the propagation of the human race and the handing down of the faith to our children. Malachi 2:15 reads, referring to husbands and wives, “Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are His. And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.” That responsibility to teach the next generation will never recover from the loss of committed, God-fearing families. The younger generation and those yet to come will be deprived of the Good News, as has already occurred in France, Germany, and other European countries. Instead of providing for a father and mother, the advent of homosexual marriage will create millions of motherless children and fatherless kids. Are we now going to join the Netherlands and Belgium to become the third country in the history of the world to “normalize” and legalize behavior that has been prohibited by God himself? Heaven help us if we do!

11. The culture war will be over, and the world may soon become “as it was in the days of Noah” (Matthew 24:37).

This is the climactic moment in the battle to preserve the family, and future generations hang in the balance. This apocalyptic and pessimistic view of the institution of the family and its future will sound alarmist to many, but I think it will prove accurate unless — unless — God’s people awaken and begin an even greater vigil of prayer for our nation. That’s why we are urgently seeking the Lord’s favor and asking Him to hear the petitions of His people and heal our land. As of this time, however, large segments of the church still appear to be unaware of the danger; its leaders are surprisingly silent about our peril (although we are tremendously thankful for the efforts of those who have spoken out on this issue).

This reticence on behalf of Christians is deeply troubling. Marriage is a sacrament designed by God that serves as a metaphor for the relationship between Christ and His church. Tampering with His plan for the family is immoral and wrong. To violate the Lord’s expressed will for humankind, especially in regard to behavior that He has prohibited, is to court disaster.

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On May 17, our South African Constitutional Court will hear an appeal brought before it by the Government of South Africa, the newly formed Marriage Alliance of South Africa and Doctors for Life. At issue is whether it is unconstitutional or not to deny so-called marriage to same-sex couples.

The Government of South Africa and the Marriage Alliance of South Africa (representing some 80 denominations and groups) and I would imagine 98 percent of the nation, believes we should say no to same-sex marriage (SSM). Although there are some divergent views in a few mainline Protestant denominations, the vast majority of Christendom - Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Reformed, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, and Pentecostal - is clear on this issue, as are all major world religions.

Nor is this negative response to be labelled homophobic, hetero-sexist, hetero-normative, right-wing, intolerant or fundamentalist. Such labelling is not an argument, nor an appropriate way to respond, as it risks both raising temperatures and shutting down serious and considered debate on a matter so critical. Nor should those prosecuting this debate from this author's kind of perspective ever forget the proper respect, human dignity, sensitivity and Christian love to be accorded the gay or homosexual person, as indeed any other. Debating an issue is not to deny any human's value, or sacro-sanctity under God.

The background to all this is a High Court case in which a lesbian couple sought Constitutional sanction for same-sex marriages. Their case was lost in the High Court, but then won in a ruling on November 30, 2004, in the Supreme Court of Appeal. This led the Council of the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) -- which met with 4000 Christian participants in Pretoria in July 2003 -- to make representation to the Presidency and the Minister of Home Affairs. In consequence of this, and other representations no doubt, the South African Government put this on appeal. In early 2005, the Government was joined in this appeal by the newly formed Marriage Alliance of South Africa as client and amicus curiae. Patrons of the Marriage Alliance are Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of the Roman Catholic Church, Rev Moss Ntlha, General Secretary of The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa and Co-Chairperson of SACLA, and myself, as Co-Chairperson of SACLA and International Team Leader of African Enterprise.

The reason for our opposition is because in our view so-called SSM goes against the historic heterosexual understanding of marriage recognised from creation and time immemorial. This understanding, which is prior to both Law and the State, affirms marriage firstly as a given in human creation ,secondly as the God-given locus of covenanted male-female bonding, sexual intimacy and mutual support, thirdly as the God-given means of procreating the human race, and finally as the best and safest God-given context for raising and nurturing children. Marriage thus has a unique socio-sexual ecology in bridging the male-female divide, managing the procreative process, establishing parental obligations to children, supporting the birthright of children to be connected to both mother and father, and connecting responsibly to society and its needs.

We must also register that no law, state or church invented marriage. They only recognised it as a pre-existing creation ordinance rooted in biological and social realities. Governmental states therefore only put laws around it to protect that which they recognised as the foundational institution of human society and its civic glue, recognised by all religions, all ethnic groups, all ages and all social sectors. Remove or weaken that glue, or, put differently, cut the main threads from which our social fabric is woven, and societal stability is imperilled. As in South Africa, most constitutions never defined marriage because they did not need to. Its heterosexual and, in most Western states, monogamous nature were assumed.

Because the Law never gave or created marriage in the first place, it cannot now change or redefine it as Same-Sex- Marriage advocates require. That would involve a state invasion of civil society as those organisations, religious groupings , churches, clubs, associations, friendships and loves etc that are properly outside the formal regulation of the State.

The point is that the State and its organs have to know their proper limits and parameters. And these can most readily be registered in the case of marriage when it is grasped that marriage is not "state-created" but rooted with our creation in maleness and femaleness. As a biological "given" therefore, it can no more be redefined to be same-sex than women can be redefined to join a "brotherhood" or men be redefined to join a "sisterhood." Why? Because a brotherhood by essence and definition is male, and a sisterhood by essence and definition is female. Likewise marriage by essence and definition is male-female so that to talk of same-sex marriage is to use an oxymoron (i.e., a contradiction in terms.). It makes no sense. It's like talking about a liquid tree or boiling ice, or a four-wheeled whale. The notions are self-contradictory.

But if in a free society there are those who do want to attempt to change such a definition into something self-contradictory and adjust that ageless recognition of an institution affecting every last person in a nation, or on earth for that matter, then all must know it cannot be lightly done, and certainly in a democratic state should not be done at all by a handful of unelected legal officials. That is to place too great and inappropriate a responsibility on too few. The whole nation, along with its parliament, must be democratically involved in the debate. Certainly an electoral mandate, driven by democratic demand, should be required before any such radical and massive deconstruction of traditional marriage be sanctioned. This is because marriage is not just a private affair, but a public one. So in one sense it is unfair to ask our judges, who are there by state appointment and not public election, to rule alone on this very public matter. Otherwise we invite judicial encroachment on legislative authority and the democratic will and we permit judicial action to replace democracy under the guise of constitutional interpretation.

Beyond that, one has to challenge the integrity of this process, in so far as it is a known and conscious strategy of the gay lobby, as openly declared in many forums, that their intentions are to "bypass each nation's democratic process" and use the judicial process to secure sanctions for SSM. "Work the courts," said one gay activist, "to achieve legal breakthrough. This won't be just a change in law either; it will be a change in society." He spoke truly.

Nor should he be under any illusion that a radical redefinition on same-sex marriage lines will not involve a major change in marriage itself, because the previous and ageless marriage category will have been obliterated and replaced by a new norm requiring full social sanction even if it contradicts the convictions and consciences of the vast majority of the populace. That's why it's not a case of live and let live. It's not like adding oil to a glass of water and the two coexist. It's like adding drops of raspberry colouring which change the whole complexion of the water. It's like a few passengers on a boat drilling a hole in it and saying it won't affect the other passengers. In reality the hole will affect everyone because all are thereby imperilled.

This is because the marital redefinition we are asked to sanction is radical, and without precedent in all human history (until recently in a few western countries) and requires social sanction from multitudes whose religious convictions and consciences do not allow them to give it. This means it is also profoundly divisive in a society. And it would certainly be so here.

One should also note in terms of the legal process that it is inappropriate for legal officials to rule out the beliefs of a religious majority -- and hopefully they won't in South Africa -- on the ground that South Africa is "a secular state", as if those same judges had no belief systems themselves. Every person in fact is a "believer" with faith assumptions in something (even if agnostic, atheist or secularist). The question is: which faith assumptions are to prevail when social decisions are made? The peril is for explicit and religiously rooted faith claims to be discarded or put out of bounds in the name of "secularism", while implicit and so-called "secularist" faith assumptions rule the roost, thereby tilting the public sphere in the direction of atheism, agnosticism, secularism, or whatever, according to the various "beliefs" of the judges involved.

Likewise, one could ask of the "secularist" state or courts for that matter, how in the name of "secular neutrality" or by what rule of moral analysis can consciences informed by religious conviction (for example, about the nature of marriage) be overridden by consciences informed by secularist or agnostic assumptions.

What this does finally is to marginalize explicit religious convictions in the social and legal spheres which are then left to be dominated by so-called "non-religious" and implicit secularist convictions. And this even in a country like South Africa where theism, as against atheism, predominates within the overwhelming majority.

Interestingly enough, while "secularism" was an eighteenth century Enlightenment intellectual venture in reconstructing the world along material lines and eliminating the metaphysical and transcendent, the word "secular" is being revisited these days. Originally meaning in Latin the realm of time rather than eternity and the arena of the world rather than that which was beyond the world, the word "secular" was indeed revisited in the Canadian Supreme Court in 2002 where it was ruled (by nine judges to

nil) to be not exclusive but inclusive of religion. In other words, the secular is not to be regarded as a non-sacred realm. It is just the realm of the world, but nevertheless a realm where the divine is all-pervasive, because it originates in the divine and transcendent.

This means that the Law cannot be applied in a way where the transcendent and metaphysical is ignored or discarded. Put differently, the legal processes of a country are not an arena where it is either obligatory or appropriate in the name of the secular for the Law or its courts to ignore the religious convictions of the populace or discount either the explicit or implicit "faith assumptions" of the judges themselves.

This is why the SSM issue is not just about marriage, but about religious freedom and the place of religion and the state in civil society.

We must also note that if marriage is indeed "redefined" in our courts or even in Parliament, the effects will be catastrophic in that the church and all those who oppose SSM on the grounds of conscience or religious convictions will now be placed outside the new Constitutional norm. The fact is that gay marriage will create a new form of legal sexual coupling which instead of simply extending marital rights will, by state definition, abolish the understanding of traditional marriage and put a new, profoundly flawed and deeply damaged institution in its place. This is why many pastors and even sociologists in Scandinavia, where SSM has been legalised, will testify that SSM has dealt a body-blow to all of marriage. Says one

sociologist: "Gay marriage has undermined marriage's institutional standing for everyone." In Norway, writes one sociologist, "gay marriage has given ammunition to those who wish to put an end to marriage." One Norwegian social scientist, speaking in favour of gay marriage, said she treated its creation "as a welcome death knell for marriage itself." She said that in recognising SSM "society was ratifying the division of marriage from parenthood" and she welcomed those "social pioneers forging relationships unencumbered by children." This sort of thing is also why so many in Canada are now having second thoughts about what they have been rushing into.

Children are also profoundly affected in the long run. In reality, SSM opens up a giant experiment in social engineering at the expense of the well-being of children. Apart from anything else it denies the fundamental and foundational right and psychological need of children to have both a mum and a dad, unless an exception can justify this as in the child's best interests. The fact is that SSM severs children from the protections of traditional marriage and allows something which at best should be highly exceptional to become acceptable as part of a new state norm. And adult needs are inappropriately given priority over those of children as the most vulnerable in our society. The point is that non-traditional families should not be seen as within some new norm but as an exception to the traditional norm. Thus would adult rights wrongly trump those of children.

Moreover, if marriage is no longer a union of one man and one woman, but any two persons who wish to cohabit, what or who is to say, especially if the language of rights is used, why it must be limited to two people? Why not triumvirates (two women and a man, or two men and one woman) or polyamory

if its just rights, uncontrolled by moral principle, why not exercise a right to marry a child, or one's daughter, mother or sister?

The fact is that rights have to be exercised within some moral parameters and within certain limits of appropriateness.

This is also why confining marriage to heterosexual categories is not unfair discrimination against gays. The reality is that marriage has always had certain properly discriminatory boundaries of appropriateness around it, as for example prohibiting a man from marrying his mother, or sister, or daughter, or a woman from marrying a young boy. Forbidding marriage to people of the same sex is likewise a valid, important and appropriate discriminatory procedure.

In this regard South African society must register that unless these sorts of moral boundaries and social limits of appropriateness are maintained, the opening Pandora's box will make the sexual revolution of the 1960s and '70s look like a Sunday school outing. Once these wheels are set in motion, the road to a dark and dysfunctional marital future is embarked upon. And even heterosexual marriage, which is already under considerable duress in our morally and religiously confused society, will be perilously put under further pressure.

Beyond all that, religious freedom and conviction will be wrongfully constrained to give way to constitutional law. In reality what will happen, as is already happening for example in Canada, is that with church and religious groupings outside the new constitutional norm, the stage is set for endless legal disputes, collisions, and conflicts between church/religions and the state. To deny, actively oppose or refuse to cooperate with the new norm, on grounds of conscience or conviction, will be to deny people their new constitutional rights and be in breach of the law. For Christian pastors to preach against homosexual behaviour or SSM, if that is their understanding of the Bible's teaching, will be hate-speech punishable by law. A Swedish pastor recently went to prison for preaching against homosexual behaviour. And that most certainly is a breach of religious freedom.

Likewise, courts can punish dissenting non-conformist schoolteachers who refuse to teach gay sex or gay marriage as required in school curricula. So too parents refusing to let their kindergarten children be introduced at school to gay teaching about sexuality will be legally punishable and held to be intolerant, discriminators, or homophobic. Thus can unprecedented "sexual dogma" for children become acceptable, or even mandatory, in a nation's schools, while so-called "religious dogma" or instruction be ruled out. This is perilous social engineering as unacceptable as anything the apartheid years produced.

Incidentally, on all these grounds above, court cases are currently underway in Canada and Scandinavia. South Africa would surely follow suit. Church and state will be set for endless conflict, collision and even a new era of civil disobedience. And if people of religious conviction protest enough, then religion could finally become the enemy to be taken down or suppressed in some way or driven from the public square.

We should note also that the attack on traditional family marriage will surely escalate. Professor Pierre de Vos, professor of law at the University of the Western Cape, in calling for people to move away from heterosexuality as "the normative basis for policy formulation", writes that those institutions which maintain this must be put "under attack". Adds De Vos, "a prime candidate for reinvention or reconstruction must surely be the institutions of 'marriage' or 'the family'." This alerts us to the fact that if SSM comes in, the attack on traditional marriage and the family will be ongoing and relentless. And children, who have a profound right to both a mum and a dad, will be among the ultimate casualties.

That's why, for all these reasons, the time is now for the church, for civil society and for both the state and its courts, to say "No" to same-sex marriage and preserve that which, in spite of failures and weaknesses, has stood the test of multiple millennia of time from creation until now.

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(the following article is from the Gay perspective – so that you can know their arguments)

For Same-sex Marriage

This article was published in the South African daily newspaper, ThisDay, on the 28th July 2004.

A decade into our hard won democracy lesbian and gay people in South Africa are often thought of as one of the groups within society that have achieved the most in asserting their rights.

We have, however, not yet achieved the equality we seek. Individuals who wish to marry a person of the same sex, close blood relatives and the mentally disabled remain as the only adult groups that the law will not allow to marry a person of their choice.

The majority of lesbian and gay people are now demanding the right to choose whom they marry. On July 9 this year the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project along with Triangle Project, the Durban Lesbian and Gay Health Centre, Johannesburg’s Forum for the Empowerment of Women, Pretoria’s OUT and seven same-sex couples filed an application with the Johannesburg High Court to declare the common law definition of marriage and the prescribed marriage formula in section 30(1) of the Marriage Act 25 of 1961 unconstitutional. The effect of these two provisions is to expressly prohibit same-sex couples from entering into the institution of civil marriage.

In our view, there are two main arguments why we as a society should now reject this continued oppression.
The first is historical. The argument for the equal right to marry can only be understood in the context of an inclusive and rights-based definition of family, rooted in an understanding of the oppression of our apartheid past.

The National Party government showed scant regard for family life. Along with African, Muslim and Hindu families, same-sex families were regarded as offensive to the morals and the laws of South Africa. White Christian families with a man, his wife and their children were regarded as the only acceptable

representation of marriage and family.
In the perverted attempt to maintain the “racial purity” of “God’s chosen people”, the Group Areas Act and the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act divided families and communities throughout the country.

Many racially integrated communities, such as District 6, had vibrant gay cultures for decades. The oppressive regime of the past created its own laws to end diversity in communities and undermine customs and traditions. Along with African, Muslim, Coloured, Indian and other groups, lesbian and gay people were explicit targets for oppression.

Indigenous culture in South Africa has always possessed a greater degree of diversity, community and togetherness than the oppressive culture imposed under apartheid.

This indigenous respect for diversity included respect for and accommodation of individuals with an alternative sexual orientation. For example, women are allowed to marry among people of Lobedu descent. Both women are regarded as the parents of the children in such a union and one of the women would be accorded the same rights as fathers.

The concept of family, marriage, custom, but most of all, of community and togetherness extended far beyond the imagination of apartheid lawyers, lawmakers and the oppressive classes. Marriage has always represented so much more than a union between two people. It represents, in fact, a union between families, communities and even peoples.

Now that South Africa has rejected the legal prohibition on customary and religious marriages it is surely time for us to also reject, with the same contempt, the prohibition on marriages between people of the same sex.

The second very important reason why same sex couples should be able to marry relates to the nexus between poverty and broken families. For the vast majority of poor people, marriage allows families and communities to recognise the relationships of their family members and provides a framework for mutual assistance.

In the absence of a welfare state, support from the extended family and the community is crucial to the survival of poor families. This principal applies equally to same-sex families. It is a popular misconception that lesbian and gay people are as a rule wealthier than others. The majority of lesbian and gay people are poor, black and rural.

Moreover, whereas some remedies may exist in the common law that allow wealthy lesbian and gay people to institute claims against each other when a relationship comes to an end, this type of legal action is inaccessible to the poor. Poor people are thus left without any protection when a relationship breaks down.

Same-sex partners are, for most purposes in the law, not even recognised as family of each other. This means that partners are often denied the right to attend on each other when one is seriously ill and almost always denied the right to make medical decisions for each other.

Many other provisions that apply to protect the joint estate and mutual welfare of married couples are not available to same-sex couples. By example, when a person in a same-sex relationship dies intestate, the surviving partner will inherit nothing.

Good social policy would not allow this. It is in the interest of both the state and the people to prevent the creation of further demands on the state by poor and homeless people whose situation is frequently exacerbated through not being able to marry.

Of course, despite the objective logic of these arguments for same-sex marriage there are those religious and reactionary elements in society who would conjure up reasons why logic should not prevail. They will argue that our aim is to impose certain moral beliefs on people. They will also argue that same-sex marriage is un-African.

These arguments should be rejected with the contempt they deserve. Lesbian and gay people seek only formal legal recognition of their relationships without insisting, in this instance, on any religious institution to approve or perform such marriages.

Furthermore, homosexuality is not un-African. It is, interestingly, only the oppression of homosexual people that is foreign to pre-colonial Africa. Prior to the arrival of colonial powers in Africa there are no known examples of African cultures oppressing homosexual people. In fact, many lesbian and gay people occupied important positions in society, including as traditional healers.

The comparative gains achieved for lesbian and gay equality in South Africa since liberation are achievements not only for lesbian and gay people but for an African society, an African constitution and a proud African people, which we should proudly claim and celebrate as Africans leading the world.

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Focus on Family calls for Constitutional Court to affirm marriage between a man and a woman only

Today, 17 May 2005, the Constitutional Court is hearing argument on whether marriage should be re-defined to include same-sex unions. Focus on the Family Southern Africa supports the Marriage Alliance and the government in their defence of the traditional definition of marriage between a man and a woman only.

Apart from moral reasons, the state needs to protect marriage because it uplifts society. Studies show that children with both a mother and a father are more successful. They do better at school, are healthier and have less risk of getting into crime and other problems that are costly and difficult for the state to solve. Millions of South Africans have been helped by Focus on the Family Southern Africa's various projects to strengthen marriage and families. Government has also supported initiatives like Moral Regeneration and the 10th Anniversary of the Year of the Family.

Calling something 'marriage' which is not, undermines respect for real marriage. Less respect means fewer people get married; more divorce and more children are born outside of marriage. The Netherlands, the first to recognise so-called 'same-sex marriage', has doubled births outside of marriage since court cases began. Unlike Holland, South Africa doesn't have comprehensive state social services and is struggling to cope with the AIDS epidemic. Re-defining marriage would worsen this. It is a dangerous social engineering experiment, which like apartheid, will fail with disastrous results.

In Holland, Sweden and Canada religious freedom and free speech has already suffered, as homosexual militants try to silence opposition and redefine morality as discrimination. The South African 'Gay Rights Charter' states the goal of making teaching against homosexuality by churches illegal. In both Sweden and the Netherlands pastors have been sentenced to jail for Bible teaching against homosexuality. The case is currently on appeal in Sweden. In Canada a Christian group is currently being sued by homosexuals for refusing to allow their hall to be used for a homosexual wedding. Ordinary moral people have also suffered, for example, as bed & breakfast businesses are forced to close if they don't allow homosexual couples. A Constitutional Court ruling to change the definition of marriage may mean, for example, that state schools would no longer be able to teach true marriage as better than 'living together' or homosexual unions.

We therefore call for the Constitutional Court to affirm the true definition of marriage as between a man and a woman only.

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There is a lot of myth and fallacy surrounding homosexuality. Much of this has only helped propagate the lifestyle as normal, healthy and variant. Unfortunately, while the myth has fascinated thousands, most are unaware of the terrible risk involved.

Of great concern is that AIDS and sexually transmitted disease�s (STDs) are extremely rife in the homosexual community. These diseases represent the primary reason that the life spans among homosexuals is far shorter than average. At present, gay men have a life expectancy of thirty-nine, while many lesbians won�t reach the age of forty-five. Suicide is three times more likely and rape is four times as rampant. Sadly, statistics show aggressive sexual behaviors much more common among homosexuals as well, and that thirty percent of children brought up by a gay parent report being raped and molested.

Also of concern is that homosexuality has been promoted and "normalized" by the media without mention of statistics and scientific facts . Many wonder where this fictional, sympathetic viewpoint originates. Some feel the media has embraced homosexuality because of the theory that it is a genetically inherited condition and is not a matter of choice. This common misperception defies both logic and science. This fictional "gay gene" would have been out bredlong ago due to the fact that homosexuals hardly ever have children of their own. Also, this gene would be recessive by definition because t he homosexual lifestyle is too dangerous to be considered biologically beneficial . Yet instead, the homosexual population has not been stagnant or diminishing, but has rather grown rapidly.

Many homosexuals speak of homosexuality as a learned reaction of either being abused as a child, or being seduced. One homosexual explained that, "In Gay radicalism I met a large stream of desire that disarmed and seduced me...". Many feel it is a learned reaction and a choice one makes. Please feel free to read some of the material below, email, or call DFL to discuss these points and/or to seek assistance.

Helpline + 27 (0) 82 407 39 29 - AIDS/Substance Abuse
Helpline + 27 (0) 73 22 49 221 - Abortion/Prostitution
Infoline + 27 (0) 82 23 67405 - AIDS/HIV
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