The proposed Federal Marriage Amendment reads like this: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”
It seems like pretty clear language to me, but there are already disputes about the language being unclear regarding civil unions. Another argument I see on the horizion that our culture must grapple with is the definition of the terms “man” and “woman.” While any third-grader could tell you the difference, many in the postmodernist community grow out of such youthful ignorance by the time they reach English 101 in college.
Take the transsexual community, for example. Transsexuals insist that their “software” doesn’t match up with their “hardware,” and that one’s chromosomes (XY for male, XX for female) or genitals should not be the arbiter of a person’s sex. I watched a Dateline last weekend where a man decided to have a sex change operation at 50 years old. The man’s wife of 30 years kept slipping up on what how to address him/her, as did Dateline’s reporter.
The marriage amendment is not directly aimed at transsexuals, but there is a danger that the once concrete terms, “man” and “woman” have become obscure in the eyes of so many. If I decided to call myself a woman, does that make me a woman? The answer is no, of course, but one can certainly imagine a world where a homosexual could blur the line just to get around the law. The gay “weddings” in San Francisco are full of women dressed as men, and vice-versa.
So, does this mean that we should write in the amendment that man is a person who was born with XX chromosomes, and a woman someone who was born with XY chromosomes? No—that would be a bit overboard, but we should be ready for such challenges ahead. I hope it never reaches such a point, but the current blur of androgyny in the culture indicates that the worst is yet to come.
My wife had that Dateline on as well, and I caught glimpses of it. The “guy” in effect abandoned his wife. It was quite sad, and yet we were supposed to somehow feel sorry for him.
By the way, the author of the Marriage Amendment has even said it doesn’t prohibit civil unions. All it does is 1) define marriage (the first sentence) and 2) prevent any federal or state court from imposing marriage or civil unions (the second sentence). It doesn’t prohibit a state legislature from creating civil unions.