Log Cabin Republicans: Would Abraham Lincoln Support Gay Marriage?
Genderless marriage replaces the objective concept of biology from the way we describe marriage and parenthood, with “intentional parenthood”, an intrinsically subjective and malleable concept. We are embracing a mindset more characteristic of a slave society than a free society. The rich and powerful can purchase the legal right to ignore biological connections between family members.
To anticipate a possible objection: I am not opposed to adoption, which does not actually constitute an exception to this rule. Adoption takes the biological relationship between children and parents as the starting point: the parents must either surrender their rights or be found unfit. Adoption gives children the parents they need, in the exceptional situations in which the parents are unable to care for them.
“But those people cared for the children”
One objection to the slavery parallel is to say that in the modern day examples, the non-parents care for the children and want to be parents. But some masters cared about their slaves, and some slaves felt loyal to their masters. That did not justify allowing the government to disregard their marriages and their biological bonds to one another.
I have no doubt that many, many people in gay parenting situations are loving people. But this does not justify violating a child’s “unalienable rights” and self-evident truths to his or her own mother and father. All children are “created equal,” with the emphasis on “created”– created by way of a mom and a dad, whom they have self-evident and unalienable rights to be with, barring extraordinary circumstances.
Which side would Abraham Lincoln take?
Given all this, I believe that Lincoln would fight against legal changes that undermine the natural family. I believe he would object to how Lisa Miller and Isabella are being treated. I believe that no real conservative or Republican should support gay marriage policy. These policies shift power from the natural family to the government. They therefore do not reflect Lincoln’s legacy or Republican ideals.
History will treat the defenders of natural marriage policy far more kindly than the opposition realizes. Natural marriage policy is a defensive structure for families, one that thwarts state tyranny. The natural unit of mother, father and child can create itself and sustain itself independently of the state and its policies. Man woman marriage is the only family form that keeps the government out of the family.
Image: Screenshot from Roots; 1977; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7NABoP49gI
