No Room for Compromise
Lending legitimacy to sex outside marriage is an abandonment of moral principle.

By Robert H. Knight, director, Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America.
August 9, 2001 11:25 a.m.

tanley Kurtz in "A Cultural Antidote: Why we need a Federal Marriage Amendment" insists that "reasonable people can disagree on the question of homosexual marriage" and that "reasonable people will differ on the subject of homosexuality."

Maybe not. Imagine Mr. Kurtz strolling by Moses and dropping those lines as Moses is about to present the Ten Commandments. Of course, not everyone might consider Moses a particularly "reasonable" guy.

But there is nothing "reasonable" about two men or two women having sex. There is something deeply wrong. The practice should be discouraged and resisted, not accommodated. One can love friends and relatives who have a homosexual problem without caving in to the politically correct campaign for mandated acceptance.

Lending legitimacy to any sex outside marriage is not a "reasonable" position but an abandonment of moral principle. It is a disservice to call the principled stand against any government promotion of homosexuality an "extreme" position, as Mr. Kurtz did in his follow-up column ("The Right Balance"). In fact, it is a sad day when National Review and National Review Online run columns that assail a respected institution like the Family Research Council for holding "extreme and untenable positions" and comparing them to the extremism of the radical Left.

It is also a disservice to those trapped in homosexuality, who suffer shortened lives (see the International Journal of Epidemiology) as well as astronomically heightened risk for body damage, disease, and domestic violence. Seeking "a rough sort of compromise" with homosexual activists, as Mr. Kurtz advocates, is not only impossible but is not "conservative," unless one defines conservatism as preserving incremental leftist victories.

Given what we have learned about the dangers of sex outside marriage, why aren't we talking about how to roll back the depredations of the sexual revolution instead of how to institutionalize them? Why aren't we treating homosexuality as preventable and treatable, which it surely is?

As for the Federal Marriage Amendment, it may be well intentioned, but it allows for legislatures to enact the rest of the homosexual agenda right up to civil unions and other forms of counterfeit marriage. As written, the amendment will give politicians cover while they promote homosexuality by other means. Just ask the front-line pro-family activists who are fighting domestic-partner legislation in California, Maine, and elsewhere. Marriage is too important to be defended in name only.

This is why CWA's Culture and Family Institute and other pro-family groups cannot support the amendment as written, nor the "compromise" positions articulated by Mr. Kurtz.