In this article in the Summer publication of The City, a publication of
Houston Baptist University, Ryan T. Anderson, a William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and a Free Society in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religions and Civil Society at
The Heritage Foundation, examines three crucial questions: What is marriage, why does marriage matter for public policy, and what would be the consequences of redefining marriage to exclude sexual complementarity? Upon examination, he presents the following twelve theses:
1. Marriage exists to bring a man and a woman together as husband and wife to be father and mother to any children their union produces.
2. Marriage is based on the anthropological truth that men and women are complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the social reality that children need a mother and a father.
3. Marriage as the union of man and woman is true across cultures, religions, and time. The government recognizes but does not create marriage.
4. Marriage has been weakened by a revisionist view of marriage that is more about adults' desires than children's needs.
5. Government recognizes marriage because it is an institution that benefits society in a way that no other relationship does.
6. Marriage is society's least restrictive means of ensuring the well-being of children. Marital breakdown weakens civil society and limited government.
7. Marital breakdown costs taxpayers.
8. Government can treat people equally-and leave them free to live and love as they choose-without redefining marriage.
9. We reap the civil society benefits of marriage only if policy gets marriage right.
10. Redefining marriage would further distance marriage from the needs of children and deny the importance of mothers and fathers.
11. Redefining marriage would put into the law the new principle that marriage is whatever emotional bond the government says it is, weakening the importance of monogamy and exclusivity.
12. Redefining marriage threatens religious liberty.
The article can be found in its entirety
here.
Stand firm in Christ,
Chase