The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday that same-sex couples are legally entitled to wed under the state constitution thereby striking down a state ban on same-sex marriages. The court said the state was violating its own state constitution by denying the "legal, financial and social benefits of marriage" to people of the same sex who wish to marry.
In response to the ruling, the Family Research Council released a statement that said, "... if we do not amend the Massachusetts State Constitution so that it explicitly protects marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and if we do not amend the U.S. Constitution with a federal marriage amendment that will protect marriage on the federal level, we will lose marriage in this nation."
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Peter Sprigg, director of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies at the Family Research Council, was online Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 4 p.m. ET to discuss the ruling.
The transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Ringwood, N.J.:
When people say, in reference to this case, "we will lose marriage in this nation" ... what do they mean? For example, I am married (to my female wife). How will our marriage lose its legality or its significance if gays are allowed to enter into marriage or, as what I think is a reasonable compromise, civil unions?
Peter Sprigg: If one of the essential characteristics of marriage--that it is an institution which unites male and female--is deleted from the law, then the institution will cease to be marriage in any meaningful sense. It is the potential that a man and woman have for reproducing the human race which gives marriage its status as a public institution, not merely a private relationship. If marriage simply depended upon the existence of a private, intimate relationship, there would be no reason to prevent people from marrying a close blood relative, a child, or a person who is already married--restriction which the Court let stand today.
Furthermore, the short duration of most homosexual partnerships and lack of sexual fidelity among such partners (demonstrated by abundant research)are dramatically different from the average heterosexual marriage. If these relationships become part of the public image of what marriage involves, then both long-term commitment and sexual faithfulness as expected standards of marriage will suffer even more than they already have.
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Washington, D.C:
One potential strategy to prevent gay marriage in Massachusetts would be to encourage the legislature to pass civil union like protections for gays and also to initiate the constitutional amendment process defining marriage between a man and a woman. Seems like Gov. Romney supports that. Is that a strategy you would support? What are the chances of that being successful?
Peter Sprigg: We seek to protect the institution of marriage, not merely the specific word "marriage." Therefore, we oppose not only homosexual marriage but any other forms of counterfeit marriage such as domestic partnerships or civil unions. Society grants benefits to marriage not as an entitlement, but because of the benefits marriage grants to society. We are not convinced that homosexual relationship confer similar benefits. On the contrary, they impose significant harms upon society through higher rates of promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, mental illness, substance abuse, child sexual abuse, and domestic violence.
The Massachusetts court does not seem to have left open the option of civil unions as an alternative to marriage the way the Vermont court did. In one sense, we welcome this, because when the Massachusetts legislature votes on a constitutional amendment, they will know that they must choose between the natural definition of marriage, as being between one man and one woman, and full-fledged homosexual marriage--there will be no middle ground.
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Springfield, Va.:
Mr. Sprigg, it seems that the horse is already out of the barn. Legally, we can't ban gay "marriages". Why don't gay folks have the same legal right to marry (not talking about religious beliefs). Actually, civil unions will be the compromise, that's where we are headed on this issue.
Peter Sprigg: Legally, we can ban "gay marriages" by statute in any state except Massachusetts. And we can ban them there by amending the State Constitution, which we urge the legislators and voters of that state to do. We also believe that Congress and the states should protect the historic and natural definition of marriage by passing and ratifying a federal marriage amendment to that effect. Amending the Constitution is now necessary in order to insure that this decision is made through democratic processes, not through the arrogant usurpation of power by judges.
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Washington, D.C.:
Please cite some of the "abundant research" on homosexual infidelity, etc.
Peter Sprigg: A study published this year in the medical journal AIDS examined homosexual men in the Netherlands (the first country to legalize homosexual "marriage"), compared those in "partnered" relationships with those who were not. It found that homosexual men in a partnered relationship had an average of eight (8) "casual" sex partners per year, outside of the primary "partnership."
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Arlington, Va.:
If marriage is such a vaunted institution, why do 50 percent of them end in divorce? Further, would your group support a ban on divorce?
Peter Sprigg: We certainly recognize that not all of the problems facing the institution of marriage relate to the effort of homosexuals to re-define it. The Family Research Council is active in trying to strengthen marriage on many fronts. That includes supporting divorce reform to roll back the impact of "no-fault" divorce, which has put the government in the position of favoring the spouse who wants to abandon a marriage over the spouse who wants to maintain it.
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Washington, D.C.:
As more states like Vermont and Massachusetts allow some version of same-sex marriage, how do groups like yours plan to respond? Also, do you feel like the comparison between same-sex marriage and interracial marriages are valid? Does your group support interracial marriages?
Peter Sprigg: Comparing homosexual marriage with interracial marriage is not valid. Placing limitations on the race of one's marital partner did not preserve one of the fundamental characteristics of marriage. Instead, it burdened the institution of marriage with an irrelevant condition designed to serve an entirely different social purpose--namely to perpetuate a system of racial segregation.
Requiring a marriage to involve a man and a woman, on the other hand, is not tangential to the purpose of marriage, as race was--it is central to that purpose.
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Peter Sprigg: Thank you all for your questions. For more information on marriage and the Family Research Council's efforts to protect and strengthen it, please visit our website at:
Family Research Council
