Social conservatives argue that straight marriage in the United States must be protected under the law. Using a few scattered references to what they claim is straight marriage mentioned in the Bible, they justify it as what God wanted and as what is natural. James Daly, president of Focus on the Family, claims the Bible to be a, "...sacred text...true and inspired." (
source) Unfortunately for Mr. Daly and all followers of the Christian faith in the USA, the USA is not a Christian theocracy and there is no earthly reason that federal, state, or local governments should be legalizing or protecting the rights of straight people to marry. If marriage is a sacred religious practice, then that's where it should stay, in the realm of the religions and among the people that practice them. The time has come to do away with legal protections afforded to a religious construct that has proven to be nothing but a colossal failed social experiment in human behavior.
Modern statistics continue to show a consistent failure rate among straight marriages with over 50% ending in divorce with strong correlations between the ages of the straight people getting married and the duration of their marriages as well as success rates.
divorcerate.org One need only look to the political leaders of this country recent and past from new admissions by former Republican Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards to rumors and speculations of past leaders from times before media scrutiny became a national pass-time. What about adultery? Remember the grave admissions of New Life Church Ted Haggard who cheated on his wife with a male prostitute for years? Some statistics show as many as 22% of married men cheat on their wives and 14% of wives cheat on their husbands. (
source)
Meanwhile, divorce and adultery are just the first half of the problems with straight marriage. There's spousal abuse, domestic violence, and even spouses murdering each other. (
stats) Plus, who can forget Lorena Bobbett's revenge? The point is that straight marriage leads to grave levels of domestic discord from raging child custody suits to restraining orders to full-up shelters for battered women. All of this is a huge drain on the legal system and makes no one but attorneys rich. It also shows that pretty close to a majority of straight people can handle neither the Biblical covenant of marriage nor the legally protected aspects with the rights, privileges, and responsibilities afforded this special legally protected status under the eyes of the law.
Therefore, it is time to ban straight marriage altogether. If people want to get married in the eyes of any church that will let them, fine, but the government doesn't need to be involved, offering tax breaks, incentives, special laws, and protections. Straight Americans have not demonstrated they can even comply with the simplest elements of the laws regarding marriage so why build it and protections into the legal system?
Angry? Think this is idiotic? Think that straight marriage laws should be preserved? Think they serve a purpose? Willing to fight for it? Go look in the mirror and ask yourself how on earth, then, gay people aren't worthy the same rights. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot go on and on about the rights of straight people to marry and use the Bible as your only defense for why gay people should not be married. Sorry, but the Bible has no standing in US law any more than the Qur'an does. The US Constitution calls for a clear separation of church and state. Neither Biblical laws nor Quranic laws can be used to defend or formulate US federal law. Short of people's own personal prejudices and their religious faith, how on earth can gay people be denied the right to marry under US law? It's insane.
This piece was written in direct response to James Daly's, president of Focus on the Family, essay for FOXNews called
"Why the same-sex marriage experiment will not work". To Mr. Daly, how has the straight marriage social experiment worked?