Civil unions, which offer same-sex couples the privileges that presently accrue to those who have been united in normal marriages, have been discussed by several legislators since the MassachusettsSupreme Judiciary Court ordered the state legislature to establish “homosexual marriage.”  The Massachusetts high court, under the dynamic (demonic?) leadership of Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, decreed that such a halfway covenant is totally incompatible with its understanding of the state constitution.  Civil unions would relegate homosexuals to the category of second-class citizens.  According to the court, opposition could result only from “residual personal prejudices,” such as those that have so often been held against other marginalized groups.  If anyone says, “But the Bible forbids this,” the answer would certainly be: “Believing the Bible is a residual personal prejudice.”

In decreeing that civil unions are no substitute for real marriage, Justice Marshall and her court have done us a favor.  The temptation, already expressed by a number of “conservative” writers—including some who favor a constitutional amendment—to compromise by creating civil unions, granting homosexual couples the financial and other benefits they desire but protecting the word marriage, is simply a way, shall we say, to praise by faint damns homosexual behavior.  Such a “compromise” would fail like so many others of the past, for it would only delay what it is intended to hinder—the institution of homosexual and other extrabiblical and unnatural varieties of marriage.

The proposed compromise in effect grants legitimacy to homosexual unions and the practices associated with them.  Although it is important to protect the word marriage, it is equally important to remember that to legitimize the proposed unions, by whatever euphemism we may use, is to spurn the entire Christian tradition and natural law.  Ever since men first began to listen to the Word of God or to think rationally about nature, homosexuality has been considered to be contra naturam and never, even in pagan antiquity, has it been deemed an acceptable “alternative lifestyle.”

“Civil unions” are no acceptable substitute for marriage.  The reasons Judge Marshall gives for her own decision and for her understanding of the motives of those who oppose it involve a total repudiation of every kind of human covenant and community.  She bases her understanding of the “right” to “gay marriage” on a principle of absolute individualism, as did the U.S. Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, when it accorded to each person the right to decide for herself the meaning of life.  Naturally, those who oppose homosexual marriage can do so only because of “residual personal prejudices”—in other words, because of their personal beliefs.  However, are not Mrs. Marshall’s own conviction of the equality of all forms of sexual expression and her rejection of the Bible and natural law also examples of residual personal prejudice?

The Bible, the Jewish and Christian moral traditions, and even Islam look on homosexual behavior as abominable.  Even pagan Greece, where homosexual conduct was, at times, romanticized, never accepted the “marriage” of two men.  Where pederasty occurred in an educational situation, it was assumed that it was a limited phase and that marriage and children should follow.  The awareness of natural law was too strong to allow it to be brushed aside and replaced by an unnatural way of life.  On the other hand, both “gay marriage” and “civil unions” effectively place unnatural sexual relations on the same level as those that are natural and cause right and wrong to be determined by personal preference, immune to any general principles of morality.

In any form, a Defense of Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is hardly likely to remedy the moral and social collapse that is under way.  Passing a new amendment will be an arduous and drawn-out task.  In 30 years of hard work, in which I took part, the right-to-life movement has essentially made zero progress in this regard.  And any value that an amendment fight might have for the moral climate of the nation is already attenuated by efforts to compromise in order to make the amendment less objectionable to homosexuals.  The plan of action that commends itself as both morally honest and, perhaps, rhetorically effective would be to answer the question from the marriage service of the Book of Common Prayer: “I now charge you, as ye shall answer on the great and dreadful day of judgment, if ye know any reason why these two may not be lawfully joined in marriage, ye do now declare it.”  The reason is that God says “No!” and nature silently concurs.  As the late Dr. Jerome Lejeune said in answering the question of whether AIDS represented a divine judgment of homosexual behavior: “Only God truly forgives, man sometimes forgives, nature never forgives.”