Second Amendment and Natural Marriage? Something Big in Common

The Second Amendment and natural marriage have a lot in common. Does this surprise you? Let me walk you through it.

Do you remember Melissa Harris-Perry’s remarks that she made in April 2013?

… we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children … We haven’t had a very collective notion of ‘these are our children.’ … we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.

I was grateful to see conservatives condemn these remarks, but some of these same conservatives support same sex marriage. They must not realize that same sex marriage and same sex parenting are helping us get rid of our “private notion of children.”

Contrary to Melissa Harris-Perry’s remarks, under natural marriage (defined as one man and one woman) and socially conservative sexual ethics, we already had a public notion of children. It went like this:

Kids are entitled to their own mom and dad.

When tragic or unforeseen situations arose, we had another public notion for children, one called adoption. This helped kids get the parents they needed: the mom and/or dad they were missing due to an unexpected tragedy. Natural marriage was our public way to acknowledge that kids had a natural right to their mom and their dad. By extension, it created a limiting principle on the number of parents children could have: two parents, one man and one woman.

Same sex marriage overwrites, for all children, the idea that they have a natural right to a mother and a father. This is because gender recognition is removed from marriage and family laws. By extension, this overwrites the limiting principle of two parents. “Multiple legal parents” are arising due to same sex marriage and same sex parenting. For example, if we have a lesbian couple where one of them conceives a child by sperm donation, both the women are considered parents, but sometimes courts are finding that the bio dad is a parent. See here and here for real life examples.

Masha Gessen, Vladimir Putin biographer and LGBT activist, is on the record for wanting as many as five legal parents in her particular situation:

I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally … I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby’s biological father is my brother, and my daughter’s biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father. So the five parents break down into two groups of three … And really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.

Somebody who is a Leftist or a socialist obviously will want to remove any nature-based limiting principles from state recognition.

So how is natural marriage like the Second Amendment? Let’s look at the Second Amendment: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Notice how it says, “…shall not be infringed.” The Second Amendment pushes back against the state, forcing it to acknowledge and even defend its citizens’ natural right of self defense.

It is the same with natural marriage. A right to two parents, one’s own mom and dad, is an unalienable right and self evident truth, granted by “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” Natural marriage pushes back against the state, forcing the State to recognize the limiting principle of TWO parents for kids, one man and one woman. Here are other reasons natural marriage is good for kids and society.

It seems logical that a legal system accommodating an ever-expanding number of legal parents is a path to collectivizing kids. I call on all libertarians and conservatives to defend the public institution of natural marriage, and to find other ways to meet the taxation and other policy needs of LGBT adults.

Jennifer Thieme is the Finance Director for the Ruth Institute.

Image: Courtesy of: http://www.practicalpedal.com/photographcfo/Bride-with-Shotgun-Cake-Topper.html