Alliance For Marriage

But wait a second- why should taxes only be lowered for married families with children? Are those children more deserving than others? And why should the wellfare system (or what's left of it) privilege married recipients, as opposed to recipients with children? Maybe this group's agenda is not what it claims to be.

As our president's favourite philosopher tells us, actions speak more clearly than words. The first action of the Alliance For Marriage is to campaign for a constitutional amendment to the US constitution. The text of this proposed marriage amendment, in its entirety, reads as follows:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.

Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

And there you have it. The first priority of the Alliance For Marriage is not to call for passage of legislation towards implementing items one, two, three, four, five and six on its own political agenda, nor is it the adoption of any program or plan of action to promote items one, two, three or four of its social agenda. The first priority of the Alliance For Marriage is to outlaw something that has already been outlawed by nearly all states and by federal law, and is not likely to be imposed anytime soon by a conservative federal Supreme Court: gay marriage.

Would outlawing legal recognition of gay marriage on the constitutional level reduce "the epidemic of fatherless families in America"? No. Gay men do not father children and then run off, unless they are pressured by family or some religious "ex-gay" group into marrying some poor woman and having children with her. Fatherlessness, if it is a problem at all, is a problem of, by and for heterosexual people. Gay marriage has nothing to do with it.

The very idea that the problems heterosexual marriages are facing today are somehow related, or caused, by the desire of a few hundred thousand same-sex couples to have their relationship recognized by the law, is mind boggling. But that is exactly the idea that the Alliance For Marriage is promoting, though only by suggestion and innuendo. There is not a single statement on the website that even mentions homosexuality or suggests that it is in any way related to the problems and shortcomings of heterosexual marriage. Instead, the Alliance For Marriage simply promotes the lie that a "large and growing body of social science research indicates that the union of a man and woman in marriage is the single most beneficial social institution in the world".

There is no discussion of the selection bias of the studies in question - when only heterosexual couples are studied, the study can of course only make a statement about heterosexuals. It cannot show that heterosexuals are superior to homosexuals. A study that compares heterosexual married couples to heterosexual singles and finds that the married couples are happier, more productive and live longer, proves only the benefits of stable, commited and loving relationships. It does not show that the benefits are caused by the marriage license, or by the heterosexuality of the subjects. The "facts" offered by Alliance For Marriage are nothing but research taken out of context and twisted to suit a political agenda.

There is of course no reference to the small, but significant body of research that shows that commited, long-term same-sex couples are just as happy, healthy and productive as comparable married couples, and are in fact superior in some respects, such as communication and conflict resolution. There is also no mention of the social research that shows that same-sex couples do an exemplary job of raising children, even though they do not have the legal support structure provided to straight parents.

The strategy of blaming gays for the problems of marriage is an example of scapegoating - blaming or stigmatizing a relatively powerless minority for the problems of the majority. Hitler and his Nazi party were master at this game, and they convinced the German population that the Jews were to blame for every wrong, real or imaginary. Will the American people fall for the same trick, and, for the first time in their history, adopt a constitutional amendment that defines a class of people as legally inferior? Only time will tell. One thing is certain now: the Alliance For Marriage is not philanthropic in nature. If we didn't already know it, it would be abundantly clear from the evidence that the Alliance For Marriage is a Religious Right front group that was created for the sole purpose of writing an anti-gay amendment into the US constitution.

The website of the Alliance For Marriage reflects the latest advances in anti-gay campaigning that were pioneered by the California Campaign that passed the Knight Inititiative. Where the early anti-gay campaigns of the Religious Right were mean-spirited, downright vicious and full of incendiary rhetoric, the latest anti-gay campaigns do not even say who they are against. Just like the pro-Knight campaign, the Alliance For Marriage does not admit that its exclusive mission is to spearhead a right-wing effort to enshrine the second-class status of gay people in the constitution. Its website is decorated with pictures showing happy straight couples with children, some black, some asian, some hispanic, and some white (but none interracial), and contains little more than sugar-coated rhetoric praising the superiority of marriage between a man and a woman. The words "gay" or "homosexual" do not even occur.

California has once again proven to be the stepping stone to the nation. With the succesful passage of the Knight Initiative in California, the religious right has learned that the majority to outlaw gay marriage exists, or can be engineered as long as the appearance of intolerance or bigotry is avoided. The pro-Knight campaign maintained its poker face to the very end, cynically insisting that it was not promoting intolerance, but only trying to protect "traditional" marriage. Pro-Knight TV ads showed fluffy images of intact, happy, multigenerational and of course heterosexual families which were too seductive a fantasy for Californians to resist at the vooting booth. Now the Religious Right will try the same strategy on the national level.