April 9, 2009

Gay Marriage: Killing the Republic

According to the notes of a fellow Constitutional Convention delegate, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, as he emerged from the sessions, what form of government America would have.

“A republic,” came the response. “If you can keep it!”

The libertine Franklin wasn’t exactly the poster boy for clean living, and I have never been much for this “early to bed, early to rise” stuff (as anyone who has received an email from me at 3 a.m. knows). But this assertion and his Poor Richard aphorisms show the famed Founding Father got the relationship between private virtue and public well-being: They go together like baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet and bailouts.

Which brings me back to the double body slam laid on marriage by the Iowa Supreme Court and the Vermont state legislature – in the worst week for values since Bill Clinton pondered the meaning of “is.”

The Iowa Supremes’ judicial flight of fancy included the following passage: “We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective.”

Multiple choice. The Court is:

a.       Smoking something other than cornstalks

b.       Galactically stupid

c.       Ideologically blinded

d.       All of the above.

I would tend toward “d.” But I’m certain at least of “c.” Affirming marriage to be what it is – the union of a man and a woman – does not “further any important government objective?” Hel-lo!

Contrary to the Court’s condescending elitism, opposing same-sex “marriage” is hardly a function of benighted religious belief. It’s about sound public policy.

Like preserving public health. Male homosexuals are massively more likely to get infected with HIV, sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis B and C and a wide range of icky gastrointestinal ailments.

What’s worse, gay health issues are spilling into the general population. AIDS has hit epidemic proportions in Washington, DC. A quarter of the cases are black women. Wonder why tuberculosis made a comeback and deadly MRSA is spreading? Exactly.

Any other behavior driving such nasty health “outcomes” – think smoking, consuming trans-fats or, heaven forbid, emitting carbon dioxide – would have legislators, regulators and courts falling over themselves to institute bans or at least utter discouraging words. A government seal of approval? Not on your life.

You say letting gays get married will promote stable relationships and safe sex? As if. The Food and Drug Administration – which can’t mess around when it comes to protecting the blood supply – notes: “To date, no donor eligibility questions have been shown to reliably identify a subset of M(en having) S(ex) with M(en) . . . e.g., based on monogamy or safe sexual practices . . . who do not still have a substantially increased rate of HIV infection compared to the general population.” The concept of gay monogamy is fiction.

But even that’s kid stuff compared to the effect of expanding the concept of “marriage” on family relationships and, in turn, on society-at-large. Yo. Want to reduce poverty, cut crime, put the kibosh on teenage pregnancies, suicides, obesity and drug abuse, and boost educational performance? Then promote intact, husband-wife marriage.

By definition, the special status and advantage of marriage is diminished by anything government does to elevate any other kind of living or coupling arrangement, be it same-sex unions or single parenthood. You’d have to be dense to the nth degree to escape the logic – or a state Supreme Court justice, which is pretty much the same thing.

And the indisputable public-policy benefits of matrimony are why suggestions that government get out of the marriage business – while well-intentioned – get it completely backwards.

For that reason, to pick up on my previous column, creating same-sex marriage – even if the dirty deed is done legislatively as in Vermont – will erode democracy. And not just because of the near-inevitability that the policies of a few liberal states will eventually be foisted on the nation via the courts and the coming demise of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Sexual license is already joining with other moral lapses – like lying to mortgage brokers – to produce social breakdown and economic disaster. Which in turn have opened the door wide for government to step in with misguided, heavy-handed and counterproductive strategies that rob freedom and reward the morally bankrupt at the expense of the principled and productive.

To coin a phrase, with great freedom comes great responsibility . . . to do and be good. And governments that go beyond condoning to favoring irresponsible and evil behavior will not keep our republic. They’ll kill it.