By Richard J. Dowling|March 16, 2008
The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act would legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland. The proposal presumes to invalidate religious opposition by exempting religious institutions from performing same-sex marriages - an unnecessary exemption, as no church can be forced to marry anyone. Proponents of same-sex marriage - as well as such marriage-equivalency arrangements as civil unions and domestic partnerships - claim that bills to legally create those relationships deal only with civil law and should be of no concern to people of faith.
Those assumptions ignore the contribution that religion offers to the public square, and the common interest of government and religion in marriage. That contribution is an understanding of the human person that compels a consistent defense of human dignity. That common interest is the acknowledgment that the union of one man and one woman is the only possible source of - and their married relationship the best possible environment for - the children who will become society's next generation.
The preservation of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is not a social prejudice. It is a fact of nature, the recognition of which precedes both church and civil law. As the Maryland Court of Appeals commented last year in upholding the state's marriage statute, "In light of the fundamental nature of procreation ... safeguarding an environment most conducive to the stable propagation and continuance of the human race is a legitimate government interest."
That interest extends to legal relationships - often called civil unions or domestic partnerships - that confer marriage equivalency on unmarried couples. Those proposals reduce marriage to simply one relationship among many and, like same-sex marriage legislation, ignore the unique capacity of one man and one woman to create life.
Whether a heterosexual couple chooses - or is even able - to have children is a private concern, beyond the purview of the law. Again, as the Maryland court noted, "the fundamental right to marriage and its ensuing benefits are conferred on opposite-sex couples ... because of the possibility of procreation," inherent in the physical nature of the relationship.
