Gay Marriage - A Pro-Life Issue

The video below is from the March 26 episode of Piers Morgan's show on CNN. By now you may have already heard about this video where Morgan and his guest Suze Orman try to debate Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation on the issue of gay marriage. Anderson did a brilliant job of defending traditional marriage despite the fact that the whole event was a farce and staged against him. I don't want to rehash the whole debate, but if you want more details please watch the video below and then read this article: How not to have a debate about gay marriage.

What I want to discuss here is what happened beginning around the 11:25 mark in the video. It was both eye-opening and disturbing. Anderson attempts to explain how the true definition of marriage  is not just about uniting a man and a woman, but also about the procreation and raising of children.It was at this point that Orman and Morgan mocked him and encourage the studio audience to do so as well. Their point was that Anderson was wrong and that marriage has nothing to do with children and is only about whatever two consenting adults want.

I shouldn't be too surprised about this reaction. Our society has embraced death through the use of artificial contraception and abortion. The logical progression from there would be to separate marriage from openness to life. Blessed John Paul II in the Theology of the Body, described marriage has having two important aspects that can never be seperated, the unitive and procreative. Unfortunately, as Ryan Anderson tried to explain in the video, we began to change marriage and split those two aspects 40 years ago with the sexual revolution and widespread use of contraception and abortion.

The sad result of that is exactly what we saw in the video, our society does not see the importance of both the unitive and procreative sides of marriage. Instead it sees marriage as just a type of recognition of a sexual relationship between two people. If children and openness to life is not important in marriage, then it's no surprise that a growing number of people support same-sex marriage.

This is why this battle to protect traditional marriage is a pro-life issue. It all goes back to the central issue of life. Gay marriage will only further the split between marriage and children that began 40 years ago. Future generations will not see children as a blessing and part of the very nature of marriage, but instead as an incidental outcome or even a burden. The daunting challenge that we face is changing people's hearts to accept that sex is sacred, every life is a blessing, and participating with God in the creation of a new human life is at the very heart of marriage.