February 18, 2004

Dear Sir,

I tend to read Michael J. McManus? column on Religion and ethics with some pleasure.

His recent column on same sex marriage, however, was far below his usual standard of clear thinking and resonated with statements that prevaricated or were just plain not true. He quotes the Massachusetts legislature?s House Speaker as waxing ?eloquent? when saying: ?Every society, every culture, every nation in all of recorded history, including Massachusetts, has up until this point at least defined marriage as one man and one woman.?

Eloquence is a matter of opinion. The Speaker?s statement, however, is clearly wrong. Through much of the Bible polygamy was common, as it once was in Utah. It remains common in much of the Islamic world. Same sex marriage is legal as near at hand as Canada and across the Atlantic in Belgium. In many other countries in Europe a legal ?marriage equivalent? for same sex couples is the norm.

McManus? main argument that children ideally ?need a mum and a dad? is, of course, understandable and his first three points can?t readily be refuted. The same percentage of children in such stable ?traditional? families nevertheless grows up homosexual as of children from less traditional families. His next three points, however, rest on very shaky ground indeed and there is as much or more evidence to show the opposite of the Witherspoon Institute?s extremely biased ?research? and sweeping generalisations. Gay men certainly don? t need the same ?domestication? as Witherspoon speculates may be needed by their heterosexual brothers. It isn?t even clear that heterosexual men need this ?domestication?. For the most part they don?t. If some do, the wife will probably fail because the damage was done in childhood, more often than not in those same ?traditional? families. The entire argument is based on socially constructed gender expectations that have no validity in scientific research or, indeed, in reality.

The truly amazing Witherspoon claim is that same sex marriage ?would probably undercut the norm of sexual fidelity in marriage?. What norm of sexual fidelity? About one third of all children are born to single mothers out of wedlock. Half of all marriages end in divorce. Less than a third of all heterosexual unions thus even pretend to be based on sexual fidelity. The true norm, quite obviously, is one of fornication and adultery, not fidelity. How same sex unions can be held to potentially further undermine such a miserable record is impossible to fathom.

The bald fact is that millions of same sex unions exist without any effect on heterosexual marriage whatever. Giving those unions the same legal rights and obligations as those given to heterosexuals would have no effect whatever on sex discordant marriage either.

What is really surprising about the McManus polemic is that it is also un-American and unchristian. It is un-American because it seeks to impose religious opinions by law on the entire country. It also seeks to deny equal protection of the law to some couples but not to others.

It attacks the constitution. It is unchristian because it is so mean spirited. McManus fails dismally in following Christ?s commandment to love his neighbours ? many millions of them, in fact.

President Bush?s notion and the notion of many others that there is a ?sanctity? about marriage is wrong. Marriage is a civil contract. This is clearly proved by the simple, if glaringly obvious fact that the church cannot legally marry anyone without the licence of the state. The state, however, can and does legally marry anyone without involving the church at all. It can and does legally marry divorced Roman Catholics despite the strong opposition of that church to such remarriages. The state can and constitutionally should without prejudice marry any couple on an equal footing. The ferocious opposition of religious conservative to same sex marriage is a barefaced attempt to force their religious tenets into the law contrary to the constitutions of both the United States and of Bermuda.

To go one step beyond McManus? false arguments, there is statistical evidence that gay male couples are more willing to adopt children with handicaps than are heterosexual couples. It is in the matter of adoption that the arguments of the religious conservatives take the worst beating.

Every adoption by a same sex couple gives a home and loving care to a child who would otherwise be left to the ?care? of state child welfare agencies. The recent record of such child welfare agencies, particularly in Florida and New Jersey, is so appalling that you would expect Christians to applaud same sex couples who are willing to ameliorate the problem. Once again the Christian charity of religious conservatives is exposed as sadly wanting. They would sooner see a child in hell rather than adopted by a same sex couple.

The anti-gay vituperation of the Roman Catholic Church becomes more and more strident by the week. The Pope regularly spews out scientifically discredited opinions masquerading as fact to justify his church?s hatred of gay people.

He is thus willing to lie in his attempt to scapegoat homosexuals in a tawdry effort to divert attention from the reeking stench of the huge paedophile scandal that permeates his church from top to bottom. From an already morally bankrupt organisation this is hypocrisy taken to a new low.

In Bermuda, equal protection of the law is still denied to gay people in almost every possible way. Merely for being gay they can be evicted from their rented homes. They can be fired from their jobs. Their partners cannot benefit from their health insurance as can married couples. They cannot leave their property to their partners untaxed as can married couples. They cannot make medical decisions for their partners. They cannot even make funeral arrangements for their dead partners. The list is almost endless.

Not only is the notion that our ruling party is ?progressive? ridiculous, it is actually far behind the norm for civilised western countries, even the United States.

That this should be the case is not only shameful, it is astonishing. Our PLP government must have the highest proportion of gay members of any government in the world. Why they do nothing to alleviate the extent of discrimination against themselves is a mystery. Perhaps the solution to the mystery lies in the unchristian anti-gay prejudice rooted in the politically powerful AME church.