Marriage Merits Exclusive Status Anti-Gay Matrimony Let’s Not Defile The Sacredness Of Marriage

It is with good reason that state laws elevate and protect marriage - and limit its privileges to the commitment between a man and a woman. Yes, there are other varieties of human sexual relationships, but none merits the shelter the law has built around marriage.

Marriage is the fragile nest on which human life and social stability depend. In marriage, children find security, nourishment, training and role models and adults find lifelong purpose and stability. Terrible things ensued, for young and old alike, when pop culture began to paint heterosexual marriage as a cheap, old-fashioned lifestyle option.

Marriage, as the two columns on this page attest, is endangered. As it always has been. That is why states define it, honor it, regulate it, shield it. Without apology, the law denies the rights of marriage to some, such as close relatives, adolescents and persons of the same sex. And the law shelters both marriage and children by granting spouses rights of community property, inheritance and insurance coverage.

Controversy has arisen because Hawaii’s Supreme Court has ruled Hawaii may not deny the legal rights of marriage to homosexual partners. If this ruling becomes final, other states may have to respect homosexual “marriages” licensed by Hawaii.

Even some gays oppose such a development, claiming it wouldn’t be fair to protect “married” homosexuals but not gay couples who’d rather not “marry.” So where do we draw the line? It is not necessary, or seemly, for those who respect privacy and freedom to bash homosexuals in the process of insisting that marriage be limited to the partnership of a man and a woman.

It is only necessary to say, without apology, that there is a fundamental social value at stake here, one that benefits both children and adults. Within heterosexual marriage, disease and abuse and infidelity and poverty and a host of other woes occur less often than they do in other sexual arrangements. Society is wise to reward these advantages with a unique, exclusive legal status.

Many states are moving to clarify their marriage laws so misguided rulings in another state cannot force them to grant privileges they wisely have chosen to withhold.

If we don’t have the moral courage to elevate this most fundamental of institutions, we truly have lost our bearings.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view see headline: Marriage merits fair play, justice

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = EDITORIAL, COLUMN - From both sides CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board