In the name of equality, activist judges at the New Jersey Supreme Court have ruled that marriage, that is, a stable union between a man and a woman in order to procreate and perpetuate the human species be placed on the same footing with relationships based on the homosexual act.
Although these judges allow the legislature to choose between the term “marriage” or “partnership” for homosexual relationships, they have ruled that both forms guarantee the same rights. This is tantamount to a de facto leveling of the two.
This is a curious contradiction. At the same time as the justices decree equality between homosexual acts and marital relations, the homosexual movement keeps insisting on respect for “diversity.” However, equality and diversity are two opposite concepts. What are diverse are different, not equal. And no matter how hard you try to twist words, no homosexual act will ever be identical to the conjugal act.
When the meaning of a word is changed, so is the concept it expresses. Marriage has always been understood as the stable union between a man and a woman and was instituted by the Creator himself in its present form through natural law, and confirmed by Revelation, for the perpetuation of the species.
Marriage is not a mere form of relationship such as a friendship or a business partnership. Nor is it the legalization of a passion. It is a mutual self-giving between a man and a woman for the purpose of raising a family. Even if, for a number of reasons, this union may not result in children, it still is the only institution that allows children to grow naturally and be raised in normal conditions for their psychological and moral development.
Although love is an important constituent of marriage it is not what determines the State’s protection of this form of relationship. Marriage is a special form of contract between man and woman in order to perpetuate human species, and from which there springs up a new family. The family is the basic cell of society. It is because of this social aspect that the State protects and support marriage.
Family precedes the State and, as a result of its social development, gives rise to the State. The family does not depend on the State in order to exist; it is the State that depends on the family to perpetuate itself. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the State to recognize the rights inherent to the family and to protect marriage in its sole possible form – between a man and a woman – rather than seek to change its nature through laws or juridical “interpretations.”
An institution can be destroyed in two ways: By issuing laws forbidding its existence; or by placing it on an equal footing with realities diametrically opposed to it and in so doing, emptying it of its meaning.
While concubinage – a free union between a man and a woman, whether stable or temporary – is a caricature of marriage, a relationship based on the homosexual act is the opposite of marriage. The reason is that procreation in concubinage is still possible, even though normal conditions for raising the offspring are absent. However, in a homosexual relationship, procreation is impossible and the offspring, when artificially created or adopted, lacks the minimal conditions of morality and affective-emotional normalcy required for their upbringing.
All this is plain common sense at the reach of anyone without need for any complex reasoning or intricate theories. It is sheer reality that simply stands out right before all eyes.
However, it happens that when man gives in to his disorderly passions, he scorns reality and feeds himself with fantasy which eventually leads to his destruction. We cannot replace reality with a dream without forsaking our own reason. Reason is the beacon that illuminates our steps and truth is not the adaptation of reality to our mind but the conformance of our mind with reality.
There is a perfect correlation between the exterior world perceived by our senses and the interior world dominated by our intelligence and will. We cannot deny the evidence of external reality without at the same time destroying the evidence of our interior world, that is, our rationality, certainties, and free acts of the will.
When man “wants to be like God” (Genesis 3:5) he denies external and internal reality and plunges into madness: “The Lord strike thee with madness and blindness and fury of mind. (Deuteronomy, 28:28)
Thus, the New Jersey decision is an act of radical egalitarianism that flies in the face of the most evident truth. It tries to equate two different acts and two different relationships. Moreover, it does all this through a judicial fiat that sidesteps any public discussion of the matter. If there is any doubt as to the necessity of traditional marriage amendments, this decision should settle the issue.
he court forces the legislature to insure equal rights to same-sex couples. The only freedom allowed the legislators is to decide what to call it. They should call it exactly what it is. It is not same-sex “marriage.” Call it court mandated madness.