Social Developments in Massachusetts and Elsewhere Ensuing Upon Same-Sex-Marriage Initiatives

Abstract

This article consists of testimony presented on October 20, 2005 to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights of the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate. It concludes that the social consequences of legal developments promoting same-sex marriage (SSM) be extensive, as indicated by developments to date in Massachusetts (and in other jurisdictions which have traveled similar road). Educational practices are affected. Citing the leading SSM court decision as a historic moment, the Superintendent of the Boston Public School has established zero-tolerance policy for speech which may create climate of intolerance, effectively chilling discourse adverse to SSM and similar initiatives. Also citing that decision, teacher in suburban school teaches her eighth-graders about sex toys. Parents who object are shut out of the decision-making system. The definitions of marriage and the family become confused and blurred. [C]ivil marriage, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health announces, is an evolving paradigm. The barriers between marriage and cohabitation collapse. The Ontario legislature, under the prodding of judicial mandate, has gone so far as to redefine spouse to include people who are not married. Nonmarital cohabitation has become more acceptable and has increased in frequency. In America and other countries, cohabitation often leads to family turbulence and parental separation, leaving the children to be raised by reconstituted couples, preponderantly by their biological mother and her new partner. These arrangements have been shown to lead to higher level of physical and sexual abuse. The article maintains that developments such as these support the adoption of the Federal Marriage Amendment to the United States Constitution.