By Robert H. Knight,* Family Research Council

April 1996 – The Hawaii Commission on Sexual Orientation recently voted 5-2 to recommend that same-sex couples be granted identical legal status now conferred on married couples. The majority report declared that the denial of the “benefits” of marriage “purely on the basis of gender” is a violation of “basic human rights” enshrined in Hawaii’s constitution.

While the Commission’s recommendation is non-binding, it coincides with other pro-homosexual activity in the judicial and executive branches of Hawaii’s state government. If these efforts succeed, the institution of marriage will not only be affected in America’s 50th state, but in the other 49 as well.

In making its recommendation, a majority of the Hawaii Commission on Sexual Orientation concluded that denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples deprived applicants of legal and economic benefits, including: 1.  joint parental custody; 2. insurance and health benefits; 3. the ability to file joint tax returns; 4. alimony and child support; and 5. inheritance of property and visitation of a partner or child in the hospital.

The majority also concluded that legalization of same-sex “marriage” would be an economic boon to Hawaii, as homosexuals would flock there to get married. (Apparently, they ignored the possibility that traditional honeymooners may choose another destination, and that more than 97 % of the population is heterosexual.)

The Commission’s minority report took issue with virtually every assertion made by the majority, and cited medical, social, historical and legal authorities to make the case that same-sex “marriage” would encourage homosexuality and therefore aggravate health problems associated with homosexual behavior, hurt the island state economically because of possible boycotts, and undermine the moral fabric of Hawaiian society. The report charged the majority with bullying witnesses, altering the official record of meetings, rudely interrupting minority members and generally suppressing information.

The minority concluded that granting marital status to homosexuals would imperil marriage itself and bring Hawaii into conflict with the other 49 states. Its recommendations:

A. The Legislature should adopt a Constitutional Amendment preserving marriage and the marital partnership as between one man and one woman as husband and wife.

B. The legal and economic benefits conferred on married couples in the state of Hawaii should not be extended to homosexual and/or “common law marriage” couples because the cost is too great.

C. The legal and economic benefits conferred on married couples in the state of Hawaii should not be extended to homosexual couples for all the same reasons these benefits are not extended to unmarried heterosexual couples engaged in “common law marriage” in Hawaii.

D. Rather than extend marital benefits to homosexual couples, the legislature should modify statutes defining family to include all those who share a household, which would include homosexual couples as families. However the cost of doing so must be analyzed.

E. The legislature must create a very broad religious freedom exemption covering religious institutions and individuals who have religiously motivated objections to treating same-sex partnerships as marriage-equivalents.

The latter recommendations seem to be fall-back positions in case the state goes ahead with some sort of change in family status. Recommendation “D” is an unwise move toward redefinition of family, and is surprising in light of the minority’s conclusion that “homosexuality is a psychological pathology and should not be encouraged.”

Commissioner Lloyd James Hochberg, Jr., who voted in the minority, told The New York Times, “Why would we want to take a pathological condition and make it the equivalent of heterosexual marriage as a goal that society is teaching children? Once homosexual marriage or domestic partnership is permitted, the schools are going to have to teach that it’s equivalent.”

Background
In May 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled 3-1 in Baehr v. Lewin that the state’s exclusion of same-sex couples from marital status may be unconstitutional because it amounts to discrimination. Two homosexual men had applied for a marriage license, were denied, and then sued the state. The case eventually made its way to the state Supreme Court, which remanded it to a lower court with instructions to the state to prove “compelling state interests” for limiting marriage to opposite sex couples.

The lower court is expected to rule on the case in July 1996. If the State of Hawaii loses the case, and the court thereby legalizes same-sex marriage, it can appeal to the state Supreme Court. But that is unlikely because the governor and the lieutenant governor are on record as favoring same-sex marriage and/or domestic partnerships (legal equivalency of marriage without the term “marriage”).

In April 1994, the Hawaii legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill (21-4 in the Senate and 36-12 in the House) reaffirming the traditional one-man, one-woman definition of marriage. If the lower court rules for same-sex marriage, it would strike down this state law. A likely reaction would be a voters’ drive for a constitutional amendment to replace the stricken statute. Meanwhile, other states are already moving to protect the traditional definition of marriage.

Majority v. Minority Reports
The minority report begins with a wry observation: “The irony of this ‘minority’ report is that its conclusions actually reflect the view of a majority of Hawaii’s residents.” Indeed, a series of polls revealed that two-thirds of Hawaiians disapprove of same-sex “marriage.”  Even so, many observers expect the liberal Hawaii courts to mandate gay “marriage.”

Hawaii has earned a reputation for being on “the cutting edge” of social experimentation. It was the first state to legalize abortion (1970), the first to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (1972) and the fifth to offer special employment protections to homosexuals (1991).

The majority report, mimicking arguments used by homosexual activists, compares the same-sex quest for marital status with the civil rights struggle by black Americans. Most prominently cited is an interracial couple’s victory in Loving v. Virginia. In that historic case, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws preventing marriage between people of different races as violating the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

But the court never came close to redefining the institution of marriage itself, which is what would have to occur for same-sex relationships to be accorded marital status. The false equation of a benign, non-behavioral characteristic such as skin color with an orientation based precisely on behavior finds no support within the law. Perhaps it is no wonder that the majority equates all sexual behavior. At the very first meeting of the commission the majority voted to ban all discussion of homosexuality because some members might find it offensive or inflammatory. Thus, the truth about homosexual behavior was deliberately kept out of the proceedings.

The majority report also cites a number of flawed studies to give the impression that homosexuality and heterosexuality are essentially no different and have no implications for health or for the well being of children. The report provides no medical data to sustain its assertion that “testimonies stating [that] the extension of benefits to same-gender couples would threaten public health are inaccurate.” The report also states that “there is no evidence that children of gay and lesbian parents develop any differently than [sic] the children of opposite-sex parents.” In making this point, the report ignores considerable evidence that children are more likely to experiment with homosexuality or identify as homosexuals when raised in a homosexual household.

The majority expresses an odd understanding of the role of morality and the law when it states, “[W]hile each person has the right to practice their individual religious and moral beliefs, they do not have the right to impose those on others.” Making gay “marriage” legal would impose it on all the citizens of Hawaii, and perhaps even on people in the rest of the United States.

The majority goes on to state, “Under our constitutional government the fact that some religious [sic] or churches condemn same sex marriages does not mean that those religious beliefs can be imposed on others.” In the very next paragraph, the report notes, “The Buddhists asked the Commission to support stable relationships between loving people regardless of whether those people are the same gender.” So, while saying that no religion can impose its beliefs on others, the report openly and unselfconsciously adopts the Buddhist position. Incidentally, the commission itself was formed, then regrouped, only after two representatives from the Catholic Church and two Mormons were expelled on grounds of “separation of church and state.”

Societal Implications
In the 1970s, homosexuals unsuccessfully challenged marriage laws in Minnesota, Kentucky and Washington state. In the Minnesota case, the state Supreme Court noted, “The institution of marriage as a union of man and woman, uniquely involving the procreating and rearing of children within a family, is as old as the book of Genesis....This historic institution is more deeply founded than the asserted contemporary concept of marriage and societal interests for which petitioners contend.”

Other relationships have not been accorded the same status as marriage because they do not contribute in the same way to a community. To put it bluntly, societies can get along quite well – in fact, better – without same-sex sexual relationships, but no society can survive without marriages and families. In fact, because the term “heterosexual marriage” is redundant, the term “marriage” will mean in this essay what it has always meant: the social, legal and spiritual union of a man and a woman. Gay “marriage” is an oxymoron, an ideological invention designed to appropriate the moral capital of marriage and family toward the goal of government-enforced acceptance of homosexuality. As such, the term gay “marriage” is a counterfeit and a fraud. It would undermine support for marriage by ending marriage’s unique legal and cultural status. It would also undermine support for natural families, whose foundation is marriage.

Same-sex “marriage” threatens not only the integrity of the marital definition but also religious freedom. Although the majority report recommends that religious institutions not be forced to perform same-sex ceremonies, it offers no defense for the conscientious Christian, Jew or Muslim (or Hindu or atheist, for that matter) who will not legally recognize same-sex “marriage.” Law carries the potential use of force against those who will not abide by it. If a businessman declines to extend marital benefits to same-sex couples, the law would open him to lawsuits and state coercion. Schools would be forced to teach the acceptability of gay “marriage” in family life courses. Homosexuals’ efforts to adopt children would be made easier if marriage is stripped of its unique status.

All institutions except specifically religious ones would be subjected to state enforcement. That would include Christian book stores, radio and TV stations, and other nondenominational businesses owned by religious people. And religious institutions themselves may enjoy immunity only for a short time. “Religious exemption” implies that the policy itself is at odds with the moral order, but when push comes to shove, the state often prevails. For example, the Supreme Court swept away Bob Jones University’s tax exempt status because the college, citing religious reasons, prohibited interracial dating. The justices said that the state’s compelling interest in ensuring equality overrode the college’s religious views. Almost all Christians would view the university’s stance as unbiblical, but the point is that religious freedom is at the sufferance of the courts, which are acting increasingly like lawmakers instead of law interpreters. Religious freedom can be curtailed anytime a court decides the state wants to do so for “compelling” reasons. Religious exemptions, therefore, are most likely a temporary step on the way to total acceptance of homosexuality.

Other States Fight Back
A constitutional conflict looms should the Hawaii court legalize gay “marriage,” because under the U.S. Constitution’s full faith and credit clause, states must accord reciprocity to other states in such matters as marriage and drivers’ licenses. So, theoretically, a homosexual couple could marry in Honolulu, move to California and demand that the Golden State recognize their “marriage.” Because states do vary in their marital requirements (such as minimum age), the general rule has been to apply the law of the state where the marriage was performed to determine a marriage’s validity, unless it “violates the strong public policy” of the state in which the couple reside.

Observers in some states have already moved to bolster this common law protection by making the point more explicitly.

➤ In March, 1995, Utah’s legislators voted to deny recognition of any out-of-state marriages that do not conform to Utah law.

➤ In South Dakota, a similar bill (H1184) passed the House of Representatives but failed by one vote to get on the Senate calendar.

➤ In Alaska, a bill was introduced in early 1995 to make clear that “marriage is a civil contract entered into by one man and one woman.”

➤ In Minnesota in 1993, a bill (H3016) which specified that “a marriage contracted between persons of the same gender and recognized as valid in another state is not valid in this state” failed in a House committee.

➤ In New Hampshire in 1994, a bill (SB557) failed in a Senate committee that would have barred recognition of marriage “between persons of the same gender.” Even this might have proved ineffective given the ongoing drive by feminists at United Nations sponsored conferences on women to redefine gender into no less than five categories (male heterosexual, female heterosexual, male homosexual, female homosexual and transsexual/bisexual).

➤ In early 1996, marriage protection bills were introduced in several state legislatures, including California, Idaho and Washington. Legislators in others states, such as Alabama, Virginia and Georgia, were preparing bills.

The Importance of Definition
In all cultural struggles, a primary battleground is the use of language. Compromising the integrity of a term or phrase can advance a particular agenda, or, at least, sow confusion and uncertainty. A term such as “marriage” can either lose the power of its original meaning or be commandeered to mean something entirely different. In 1828, Noah Webster defined “marriage” as:

The act of uniting a man and woman for life, wedlock; the legal union of a man and woman for life. Marriage is a contract both civil and religious, by which the parties engage to live together in mutual affection and fidelity, till death shall separate them. Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, for domestic felicity, and for securing the maintenance and education of children. “Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled. Heb. xiii.”

A more recent (1981) Webster’s definition retains the essential elements of the earlier version:

Marriage\ a. the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife b: the mutual relation of husband and wife: wedlock c: the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family.

No jurisdictional unit in the United States – town, city, or state – recognizes same-sex couples as “married.” In 1975, Boulder, Colorado, granted a marriage license to a same-sex couple, but it was struck down by a federal court in 1982. Protections favoring marriage are built into the law and the culture because of the central importance of the family unit as the building block of civilization. In 1888, the U.S. Supreme Court described marriage “as creating the most important relation in life, as having more to do with the morals and civilization of a people than any other institution.”

However, some jurisdictions are moving toward redefining the family to include same-sex relationships, and there is a movement within the legal community to overhaul the definitions of marriage and family. A note in the Harvard Law Review in 1991 advocated replacing the formal definition of family with an elastic standard based “mainly on the strength or duration of emotional bonds,” regardless of sexual orientation. The note recommends redefining the family through “domestic partner” or family “registration” statutes that go beyond the limited benefits now conferred by existing domestic partnership laws so as to “achieve parity” between marriage and other relationships.

In 1990, San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos appointed lesbian activist Roberta Achtenberg (later Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Clinton) to chair the Mayor’s Task Force on Family Policy. The final report of the task force defines the family this way:

A unit of interdependent and interacting persons, related together over time by strong social and emotional bonds and/or by ties of marriage, birth, and adoption, whose central purpose is to create, maintain, and promote the social, mental, physical and emotional development and well being of each of its members.

In this definition, which could reasonably be described as a formulation by homosexual activists, marriage is no longer the foundation for families but secondary to “strong social and emotional bonds.” This definition is so vague that multiple-partner unions are not excluded, nor any imaginable combination of persons, including a fishing boat crew. The whole point is to demote marriage to a level with all other relationships.

To place same-sex relationships on a par with marriage destroys the definition of marriage altogether. When the meaning of a word becomes nonspecific, the exclusivity that it previously defined is lost. For instance, if the state of Hawaii decided to extend the famous –and exclusive – “Maui onion” appellation to all onions grown in Hawaii – even on, say, Oahu–the term “Maui onion” would lose its original meaning. Consumers would lack confidence in buying a bag of “Maui onions” if all onions could be labeled as such. The same goes for any brand name. Wine from California could be falsely labeled as wine from Bordeaux, France, thus destroying the uniqueness of both appellations. If “marriage” in Hawaii ceases to be the term used solely for the social, legal, economic and spiritual bonding of a man and a woman, the term “marriage” becomes useless.

A key point to remember is that no one of marriageable age is prevented from marrying in Hawaii provided they don’t marry blood relatives, underage persons, non humans or more than one person. Homosexuals are not denied the right to marry; but they have to fulfill the requirements like any one else. They cannot call a same sex relationship “marriage,” since it lacks a basic ingredient – an entire sex. The joining of the two opposite sexes in permanence is the very essence of marriage. Once the “one man, one woman” definition is abandoned, there is no logical reason for limiting “marriage” to two people or even to people. Why not have three partners? Or why not a man and his daughter? Or a man and his dog?

The logical reason to extend “marriage” to homosexual couples has nothing to do with marital integrity, but only reflects the fact that homosexuals want the same status regardless of its real meaning. Anything less, they say, is a denial of human rights. If so, then a threesome or a foursome seeking marital status can similarly claim that their sexual proclivities must be recognized by society and the law as the equal of marriage or they are facing discrimination.

The Real Agenda
Homosexual activist Tom Stoddard acknowledges that “enlarging the concept to embrace same-sex couples would necessarily transform it into something new.…Extending the right to marry to gay people – that is, abolishing the traditional gender requirements of marriage – can be one of the means, perhaps the principal one, through which the institution divests itself of the sexist trappings of the past.” In other words, while many homosexual spokesmen say they want only to be left alone to enjoy the benefits of marriage, Stoddard rightly sees the expanded definition as a way of attacking the institution itself.

In 1992, organizers of the homosexuals’ 1993 March on Washington met in Texas to draft a platform of demands. Known as “the Texas platform,” it was later toned down to make it more palatable to a mass audience. The original section on “family,” however, is revealing as to the intentions of the movement. In addition to Demand No. 40, “the recognition and legal protection of all forms of family structures,” the writers make Demand No. 45, “legalization of same-sex marriages,” and Demand No. 46, “legalization of multiple partner unions.”

An enormous body of research indicates that monogamy is not the norm for the average homosexual. But even when it is, the result is not necessarily healthier behavior. A study published in the journal AIDS found that men in steady relationships practiced more anal intercourse and oral-anal intercourse than those without a steady partner.

In other words, the exclusivity of the relationship did not diminish the incidence of unhealthy behavior that is the essence of homosexual sexual activity. Curbing promiscuity would help curb the spread of AIDS and the many other sexually transmitted diseases that are found disproportionately among homosexuals, but there is little evidence that “monogamous” homosexual relationships function that way. An English study also published in the journal AIDS found that most “unsafe” sex acts occur in steady relationships.

Former homosexual William Aaron explains why “monogamy” has a different meaning among homosexuals: “In the gay life, fidelity is almost impossible. Since part of the compulsion of homosexuality seems to be a need on the part of the homophile to ‘absorb’ masculinity from his sexual partners, he must be constantly on the lookout for [new partners]. Consequently the most successful homophile ‘marriages’ are those where there is an arrangement between the two to have affairs on the side while maintaining the semblance of permanence in their living arrangement.”

Sexual Revolution: A War on Families
As the research of the late Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin reveals, no society has loosened sexual morality outside marriage and survived. Analyzing studies of cultures spanning several thousand years on several continents, Sorokin found that virtually all political revolutions that brought about societal collapse were preceded by sexual revolutions in which marriage and family were no longer accorded premiere status. To put it another way, as marriage and family ties disintegrated, the social restraints learned in families also disintegrated. Societal chaos ushers in tyrants who promise to restore order by any means.

Self-governing people require a robust culture founded on marriage and family, which nurture the qualities that permit self-rule: deferred gratification, self-sacrifice, respect for kinship and law, and property rights. These qualities are founded upon sexual restraint, which permits people to pursue long-term interests, such as procreating and raising the next generation, and securing benefits for one’s children.

In the 1981 Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II summarized the importance of marriage-based families this way:

The family has vital and organic links with society since it is its foundation and nourishes it continually though its role of service to life: It is from the family that citizens come to birth and it is within the family that they find the first school of the social virtues that are the animating principle of the existence and development of society itself.

According to sex outside marriage the same protections and status as the marital bond would destroy traditional sexual morality, not expand it. One can no more “expand” a definition or moral principle than one can continually expand a yardstick and still use it as a reliable measure.

Marriage-based kinship is essential to stability and continuity. A man is more apt to sacrifice himself to help a son-in-law than some unrelated man (or woman) living with his daughter. Kinship entails mutual obligations and a commitment to the future of the community. Homosexual relationships are a negation of the ties that bind – the continuation of kinship through procreation of children. To accord same-sex relationships the same status as a marriage is to accord them a value that they cannot possibly have. Marriages benefit more than the two people involved, or even the children that are created. Their influence reaches children living nearby, as young minds seek out role models. The stability they bring to a community benefits all.

Conclusion
Some people in Hawaii are beginning the process of fashioning a constitutional amendment to protect their state’s law on marriage, should the courts radically redefine it. Other states are taking action to defend their laws regarding marriage. If more states strengthen their laws, they would also strengthen the marriage defenders in Hawaii, who can cite the “compelling state interest” of heading off a constitutional crisis.

At the federal level, Congress may well consider legislation mandating the one-man, one-woman definition of marriage for all federal purposes, including the military, federal benefits, federal agency employment policies, and the law in federal territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam.  

* Robert H. Knight is Director of Cultural Studies at Family Research Council. FRC Research assistant Ken Ervin also contributed to this article.