November 1, 2005

Source: The North Carolina Conservative

It’s About Marriage not Gays! And most importantly it’s about Children!

The most recent census data on the changing American family revealed that less than 40% of families reflect a mother-father-child nuclear unit, statistics begin to show that up to 30% of children in mother-father households may not be the child of that father (about which he may have no knowledge but is legally bound to provide support), and the divorce rate soars. For some this is seen as justification for allowing gay marriages and allowing gay couples to adopt. Others argue that constitutional protections, civil rights and other mumbo jumbo are denied gay couples in not allowing them to marry. Hog wash.

Marriage per the Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary is defined as 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. The Defense of Marriage Act proposed that marriage should be between a man and a woman with which I have no problem. But marriages alone are not the sole definition of what a family is which per that same dictionary is a group related by common characteristics or properties.

As a family physician by training and a biology major in college, I find it incredulous that social reformers and engineers are willing to throw out an institution between a man and a woman which serves several purposes and deals with some biological imperatives in a logical manner.

Conveying a special status on the marriage between men and women is no different that giving Native Americans autonomy and sovereignty over their reservations and selves. Institutionalizing marriage offers children born in wedlock protections of name, genetic lineage, and prohibitions from consanguinity in sexual relationships that might otherwise be lost in translation.

No matter what social planners may think, there is a sense of wholeness that a male and female family provides that stem cell research and other genetic engineering has not as of yet removed. Every child wants to know whom his mother and father are, which is information more easily provided through marriage.

As a family physician I find it narrow minded that people think families only come in one flavor-mother, father and 2.3 children, when over 100,000 grandparents in North Carolina alone are now raising kids, single people may adopt, relatives and friends are taking care of others and communes and collectives exist formally and informally. All of these domestic arrangements beg protections to insure property and inheritance rights, as well as definitions of legal responsibilities, but this is not the same as a marriage. To call it such is to denigrate marriage between men and women. If we believe that anything and everything or any arrangement can be called a marriage, why then would men and women want to get married and have children within that union?

Why is it that whenever some one wants some rights they always compare it to civil rights or the needs to protect and take care of black kids as a justification, even when the harm may outweigh the good?

Where do children receive their gender identification? In a one sex couple, for very young children what are the messages being conveyed in terms of their sexual identification. For kids trying to discover their sexuality, does a one-sex union provide the range of options to be measured against?

There are approximately 10,000 hermaphrodites (children who are physically and/or genetically difficult to distinguish as male or female) born annually. What happens to relationships in which they may wish to enter?

So why marry? It’s about our children and their future development. Adults can and always have done what they wanted to do and felt they could get away with. It is for our children that role models of marital behavior must be displayed.

Domestic Arrangements with legal protections may be made available for those who cannot marry or should not marry but are a family. I do not know what course others may take but as for me, I believe that marriage is between a man and woman even though I’ve been waiting for more than forty years for my prince to come along.

Dr. Ada M. Fisher is a licensed teacher for secondary education in mathematics and science, previous elected school board member, physician and was a Republican candidate for the 2002 NC US Senate and 2004 NC US 12th District Congressional race. Contact her at P. O. Box 777; Salisbury, NC 28145, telephone (704) 637-6134, DrFisher@DrAdaMFisher.org.

The North Carolina Conservative can be found at http://www.northcarolinaconservative.com.