Idaho, Nevada, North Carolina, West Virginia… So much has happened in the past week on the gay-marriage front you may not have even heard about the latest example of judicial tyranny. On Sunday U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess, a George W. Bush appointee, declared Alaska’s constitutional marriage amendment unconstitutional.  Alaska was the first state to pass a constitutional marriage amendment in 1998 and it was passed with the support of 68% of Alaska voters.

Judge Burgess’s reasoning for overturning the will of the people of Alaska is telling:

Refusing the rights and responsibilities afforded by legal marriage sends the public a government-sponsored message that same-sex couples and their familial relationships do not warrant the status, benefits and dignity given to couples of the opposite sex.

Apparently there is nothing wrong in Judge Burgess’s mind in “refusing the rights and responsibilities afforded” to the people of Alaska to decide issues such as these for themselves. We have to wonder if Burgess and the other revisionist federal judges redefining marriage have ever read the 10th Amendment. The Constitution does not say anything about marriage (and the 14th Amendment doesn’t say anything about it either).  Ergo, this is a State issue. No federal judge has the right to declare it unconstitutional.

Essentially what Burgess fails to understand, however, is that our rights and dignity are not “given” to couples by the state. Our dignity follows from our human nature, from who we are as persons. Our fundamental rights are unalienable and can neither be given nor taken away from anyone without due process of law. Marriage follows not from the laws of men but is an institution rooted in our human nature that predates nation-states and their constitutions.

But what rights do people have with respect to marriage? How about the right for children to be raised by a mom and a dad? Rather,children are given to experimental family arrangements with gay couples. Kids do best with a mom and a dad. Just take studies on parental impact on a child’s educational outcome as an example. In intact families with a mother and a father, kids score higher on standardized tests, are more likely to complete college, are less likely to be suspended or expelled from school, to be involved in delinquent or disruptive behavior, or have a low grade point average, and are less likely to drop out of school. It is not enough for children to merely have two parents. Supportive fathers impact children’s cognitive development, language capacities, and emotional regulation. Absence of the father negatively impacts daughters as increased absence correlates to an increased incidence of teenage pregnancy. When separated from their mothers, infants display behavior and physiology of an agitated nature (i.e. changes in eating and sleeping habits, aggressive behaviors, increased heart rate, crying) and show signs of depression when reunified. This trend is present even when infants are attended to by their biological fathers for the duration of the separation.

Unelected judges in legalizing gay marriage have in essence changed the definition of marriage. In this way, they have sent “the public a government-sponsored message” that natural families are no different than any other human arrangement and that any consensual relationship based on the way people feel about one another ought to be called marriage. The complementarity of men and women has been pushed aside in favor of whatever “feels” right. Marriages are no longer rooted in biology and human nature. The possibility of bringing children into the world and raising them is no longer unique to marriage. Because children have been divorced from their mom and dad, marriage is no longer about permanent relationships between a man and a woman for the sake of their children and each other. It is only about how spouses feel about each other.

It is also significant to note that for the gay lobby’s insistence that gay marriages are just like heterosexual ones gay couples are much less likely to remain faithful than heterosexual couples. In a study of fidelity among gay couples, of the sixty percent of couples in the study who expected sexual exclusivity, not a single one had remained faithful longer than five years.

If marriage is separated from biology, where logically does it stop?  What if three gay men want to get married? What about polygamy or polyandry? What is to prevent multiple partner “contract” marriages or other such arrangements? Most would correctly argue that incestuous relationships are harmful to their children. But what if the incestuous partners were sterile? If we allow gay marriage, there really is no reason for us to be “judgmental” in marginalizing these alternative marriage arrangements. We should ask ourselves, if we are willing to separate marriage from our biological nature, where does it end?