Time for a Constitutional Amendment:
Civil Unions Must Never be Defined as Marriage
Toni Meyer, Sr. Research Analyst, NJ Family Policy Council

When the Legislature yielded to the Supreme Court granting all the state’s rights and privileges of marriage via civil unions on February 19th, they did an end run around the proper legislative process – and did so without the consent of the people at the ballot box. While polls showed New Jerseyans to be somewhat supportive of the idea to grant benefits to same-sex families via civil unions, those same polls clearly show they support a constitutional amendment and had no intention of redefining marriage. Yet same-sex activists and a disproportionate number of media outlets have bemoaned the legislature’s decision to not define these unions as “marriage”, and activists vow to gain the title “marriage” within two years. At this juncture, the only way to preserve the definition of marriage in New Jersey is to pass a state constitutional amendment, and “Let the People Decide” this critical issue which would indeed affect all of society.

There are monumental reasons why society must reserve the title “marriage” for the union of one man and one woman only, and why that union must be encouraged and upheld as the highest ideal. The institution of marriage is a public virtue that responsibly regulates human sexuality, brings two parts of humanity together in a co-operative and mutually beneficial relationship, and it delivers mothers and fathers to children for the proper development of the next generation. A same-sex couple can never become a man and a woman to provide the same unique complimentary influence to children –

and to one another – that marriage affords. It can never be equal to marriage and therefore should never be called marriage. Male/female, mother/father, husband/wife really does mean something. Once you remove one gender from marriage you will destroy the institution that natural, spiritual, and physical law has verified throughout virtually every culture for thousands of years, and at the same time open the doors for further redefinition of marriage.

As for same-sex unions, what public virtue if any, would they bring to society? There is no comparison to marriage. Same-sex unions intentionally subject children to a motherless or fatherless family – for no other reason than to satisfy adult desire. In addition, a 2006 study published on same-sex unions in Scandinavia, shows that not only are same-sex “marriages” relatively rare, they are also remarkably fragile – ending in divorce significantly more than heterosexuals. The statistics reveal that “the divorce risk for partnerships of men is 50 percent higher than for heterosexuals and that the divorce risks for partnerships of women is about double that rate. Society must never equate same-sex relationships to marriage.

Society must however, encourage and maintain a functioning traditional marriage culture, not only because it gives children the best opportunity for healthy successfully lives, but also because it serves to protect political liberty and fosters limited government. In the Netherlands, legalizing same-sex marriage has not only failed to promote marriage among most same-sex couples, it has sent the message to society that marriage is no longer the ideal. Therefore unmarried cohabitation has increased. This is bad news for children and the government, because research shows that cohabiting couples break up at a higher rate, and the fallout increases the tax burden to fiscally provide for more families.

With regard to political liberty, in the Netherlands and Canada where same-sex “marriage” is legal, the result has been numerous civil rights violations of the public at large. Business owners have been heavily fined and even lost their businesses for not supplying products and services that promotes homosexual behavior. The public airwaves have been censored to remove all criticism of homosexuality, many have been denied free speech for speaking out publicly on the issue and even pastors have been hauled into court for teaching about the Bible’s precepts prohibiting homosexual behavior.

Perhaps the most important place outside the home where children are taught the pre-eminent virtues of marriage is in school. But in Massachusetts, due to the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples, children even from the earliest grades are now being taught that same-sex unions are equal to marriage. Even worse, when parents recently sued their school for not facilitating opting their children out during such teaching a federal judge ruled they had no political liberty here because the issue was really diversity; not human sexuality.

Same-sex couples now have the same rights and benefits for their families through civil unions. Therefore society must not cave in to the false premise that marriage should be redefined in order to assuage the emotions of same-sex couples; the damage done to society will be irreversible. In the case of reserving the definition of marriage for one man and one woman only through a state constitutional amendment, the needs of the many far outweigh the demands of the very few.