Does Same-Sex Marriage Concern only Homosexuals?

You May Hear Proponents of Same-Sex Marriage Argue... "Same-sex marriage should be allowed because it only concerns homosexuals. Others should either support same-sex marriage for homosexuals or mind their own business. Same-sex marriage affects no one but homosexuals and is unrelated to anyone else. Common decency requires that those with no interest in same-sex marriage simply avoid interfering. Same-sex marriage should be approved because opponents have no stake in resisting."  But this argument is wrong.

You Can Graciously Refute This by Saying... Changing the public significance of marriage will weaken an institution that is essential to social survival and perpetuating the race. The man-woman structure of marriage is essential to raising well adjusted children—children able to form families favoring procreation by bridging the male-female divide. While singles and groups of one gender or the other can raise children, no society can survive without favoring fathers raising children with mothers. Changing marriage to allow same-sex partners will harm the public value of marriage for everyone in three ways. First, it will shift the focus of marriage from assuming responsibility for having and raising children to indulging individual desires. Second, it will cease encouraging fathers to cooperate with mothers in raising children. Third, it will produce fewer members of future generations who understand and respect the value of marriage favoring procreation by bridging the male-female divide. Recent experience in Scandinavia shows that when a society approves same-sex marriage, interest in marriage drops throughout the population, existing families are more likely to dissolve, and fewer families form at all. Same-sex marriage harms everyone by reducing general interest in marriage, eroding cooperation of fathers with mothers, weakening support for what is good for children, threatening social survival, and hindering perpetuation of the race.

The Truth Is...
Same-sex marriage is wrong because it undermines public interest in favoring relationships required to perpetuate the race.

Excerpts from Why Not Same-Sex Marriage? a forthcoming book by Daniel R. Heimbach, Professor of Christian Ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.