Home > Perspective > Our Position

Our Position on Gay Marriage and on Amending the Constitution on This Issue.

by Conservativity Staff,
Originally Posted: 11/4/2004

Conservativity.com believes in minimal governmental interference in the lives of the people, from whom the government derives all of its powers (cf. Declaration of Independence).  We have noted that the people, however, have in 11 states already decided this issue and unanimously have declined to allow gay people to marry each other.  President Bush supports the notion that marriage is a sacrosanct institution and reserved to the union of a man and a woman; his position was ratified on November 2.  For us, that presents something of a tension between core beliefs and the will of the people.  We have already set forth our position that gay people ought not to be denied the right to serve in the military, citing equal protection concerns.  Those same concerns inform our position in this matter.

President Bush has decided to support a civil union scheme in order to allow gay people to formally unite.  The people have precluded marriage.The people have spoken and we are not entitled to dispute their wisdom.  We therefore oppose actual marriage between gay people.  That said, we support a formal civil union with all of the rights and responsibilities of marriage, including the right to check off "married or civilly united" on a tax return other other document, the right to ceremonally solemnize the union, and the responsibility to obtain divorce to dissolve the union.

As to amending the United States Constitution to enshrine this distinction, we strongly oppose this.  The reasons for our opposition are:

1. The Constitution has generally been amended only to restrict the government or enshrine the power and rights of the people.
    
2. The only time that the Constitution was amended to restrict the rights of the people was the unmitigated disaster of prohibition.  That is the end result of legislating a wholly religious doctrine into law, especially the highest law in the land.  Let’s hope we learned our lesson.

That concludes our position paper on this issue.