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The Constitutionality of Legal Preferences for Heterosexual Marriage.

By csw, Section Arguments
Posted on Tue Oct 28, 2008 at 08:45:26 PM EST

Must the various legal preferences conferred on traditional marriage be extended to alternative partnership arrangements? The answer is no.

By: Richard G. Wilkins, J.D.

The legal lines that have been drawn to protect and encourage the marital union of a man and a woman are principled and essential to furthering society’s compelling procreative interest.

Indeed, once outside the union of a man and a woman, there is no principled constitutional basis for distinguishing between (or among) any form of consensual sexual behavior. Recognition of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, therefore, would open the door to legally mandated conferral of all legislative preferences now reserved for marriage upon any form of consensual sexual coupling, no matter how idiosyncratic.

Society should not encourage (nor perhaps could it endure) such an outcome.

Read the whole article at profam.org.

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