Gay Marriage Is Good for the Family

When people who are against gay marriage try to explain themselves, they always go back to arguing for the importance of the family. They argue that families are the basic unit of society, are necessary for the raising of children and providing a safety net for people during hard times. To undermine the family would mean more crime, alienated children and an increased need for government welfare programs.

I actually agree with them on all of these points. The illogical conclusion that they come to is that any change in what they consider the traditional family will undermine and destroy it. They believe that "traditional" sexual morality is what is necessary for the family to exist. This is why they are against gay marriage. However, does gay marriage really undermine these things?

There are three reasons marriage in general is good for society:

- The first is that it is an incentive for people to settle down and get a real job. If a guy wants to get married and have kids, he's got to show the women who want to get married that he's committed to raising a family. The same is roughly true for women. This motivates people to seek out more financial stability and deters them from anti-social behaviour. Having wanted children has also shown to make people more cautious and responsible, at least in general.

Since this is the case, why would you want to exempt homosexual couples from this? Why would you want people who would not otherwise marry to remain bachelors and spinsters? Even if you believe that homosexuality can be "cured" the statistics show that the majority o people who claim to be cured are actually just celibate. The celibate are not responsible for a family, and do not have the same motivation to seek financial and personal security, and as such are still a potential liability to society.

- The second reason is that marriage is a good environment in which to raise children. People who are against gay marriage believe that a same sex couple raising a child subject that child to obligatory motherlessness or fatherlessness. They believe that having a male role model and a female role model is best for a child. They may have a point, but given that homosexual couples rarely ever end up with unplanned children, while heterosexual couples frequently do, the stability of same sex parenthood would more than make up for the lack of a mother or father.

There may very well be disadvantages to growing up with two mothers and no father or two fathers and no mother, but they can't possibly be as bad as growing up with one mother and no father or one father and no mother, or with both parents who were financially and psychologically ill-prepared for parenthood. More homosexual couples would be a net benefit for children.

- Marriage's third benefit to society is the fact that it creates extended families and kinships. This was an important function of marriage in the middle ages. Royal families would marry their children off to the children of some other royal family in order to cement allegiances between kingdoms. Today, extending kinships means having a greater pool of people you can fall back on in the event that you hit hard times. This is good for society because it means there are fewer people dependent on government programs.

It is especially baffling that conservatives, who normally encourage people to go to their families instead of depending on tax-payer funded programs for their social safety net would sabotage a homosexual's ability to form an extended family through marriage. They don't seem to realize that they are just keeping many of them dependent on a big government nanny state.

So marriage in general lowers crime, is better for children, and reduces dependency on big government. All of these functions would be enhanced by extending the ability to marry to gay couples. Why would any conservative in their right mind be against that?