Marriage Protection Week Overlooked
By Cieran Rockwell
Contributing Writer

The week of October 12 was very exciting for Pomona College, primarily because of the arrival of Michael Moore and the onset of Fall Break. In the excitement surrounding those two events, I think it was generally overlooked that the week had also been declared National Marriage Protection Week by President Bush, a week dedicated to “preserving the sacred institution of marriage from those who would define it as ‘a group of any size or mix of sexes’.” It was mentioned briefly by Michael Moore but, I think, largely missed by the Pomona community.

The language of the Marriage Protection Week proclamation on the White House website is fairly innocent, discussing the importance of strong marriages for strong families, concluding that “we must continue our work to create a compassionate, welcoming society, where all people are treated with dignity and respect,” suggesting that homosexuals, though unfit for family life, should still be treated with respect. The website www.marriageprotectionweek.com is a little more blunt about its feelings: “Their [proponents of same-sex marriage] efforts are intended to force, by law, 97% of Americans to bow down to the desires of the approximately 3% who are homosexuals.” Though efforts to allow civil unions between same-sex couples have been going on for many years, anti-gay-marriage forces have been slower to mobilize (mostly because there had been no need to do so) and were shocked into action in June 2003 by Canada’s extension of marriage to same-sex couples. With Bush in office and a constitutional amendment being proposed to Congress to define marriage as one man and one woman, Marriage Protection Week and its associated ideas represent a step backwards for gay rights, and are a reactionary and misguided effort.

The ideological trick of Marriage Protection Week is that it is a ‘pro’ rather than a ‘con’; it is ‘pro-marriage’ not ‘anti-gay,’ which makes it far more palatable to social moderates (the same idea applies to the terms ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’). Ironically, same-sex couples are clearly pro-marriage, or they would not be trying so hard to be married. Yes, the idea of Marriage Protection Week is an excellent one in an age when over half of all marriages end in divorce. However, the goal of this week is not to protect marriage as the union of two people who love each other and want to be recognized as a couple; it is to make sure that only men and women who love each other can be recognized as such, both religiously and legally. There are completely understandable arguments about marriage traditionally being between a man and woman, but that tradition comes from societies where homosexuality was not publicly recognized or was considered an immoral condition. There is still a debate in our society about the morality of homosexuality (most recently sparked by the ordination of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay archbishop in the Anglican Church), but Marriage Protection Week is just a front for people who are too intellectually cowardly to openly condemn homosexuality and instead sputter that they want to “preserve marriage,” a project that has “nothing to do with gay people.” It is that dishonesty that is such a slap in the face to same-sex couples: “We respect you as people, you are just not the right type of people to be in a family and raise children.” Supporters of the proclamation have had the audacity to say that it is only against same-sex couples, not gay people per se, and that it in no way prohibits gay people from getting married, just not to a person of the same sex. Additionally (and insultingly), the language of Marriage Protection Week focuses on the idea that proponents of same-sex marriage actually want marriage to mean “a group of any size or mix of sexes,” which incorrectly lumps the domestic desires of same-sex couples with the extremes of human sexual behavior. This would be a fair statement to make if there was a significant portion of the population agitating for “group marriage,” but there is not, and if there was, that would be a completely different debate. To include it in the debate about same-sex couples is to patronize and belittle their struggle for equality.

By normalizing and promoting heterosexual marriage as the ideal condition, Marriage Protection Week is also an affront to single-parent families, couples who choose not to get married, and straight people who support same-sex marriage. Linked to the Marriage Protection Week website is a variety of essays about why same-sex marriage is bad, including its damaging effects on children and society. Though the material is debatable at best, Marriage Protection Week is not a debate about homosexuality; it is an underhanded way to stifle and mask that debate, instead using same-sex relationships as a scapegoat for domestic problems in America. It is also designed to be a stepping stone to a constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man and one women. That amendment (if it ever passed) would ultimately backfire on its supporters: it would not make homosexuals and their desire for equal rights ‘go away,’ it would do nothing to address current problems with heterosexual marriages in this country, and worst (or best) of all, it would give human rights groups a solid piece of legislation against which to rally.

Marriage Protection Week is bad for everyone: those who want to ban same-sex marriage and those who support it. The nation would be far better served by solving actual problems that contribute to failed marriages; for example, the fact that marriage has been reduced to a prize for television contests, like Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire? and The Bachelor. What does more to damage the institution of marriage: a same-sex couple who simply want to be legally recognized as such or a heterosexual couple who married because of they went on a television show?