http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRI_EduPamphlet7.html
SAME SEX MARRIAGE:Til Death Do Us Part?
By Dr. Paul Cameron
Dr. Cameron is Chairman of the Family Research Institute of Colorado
Springs, Colorado USA. Click here for more information about this
organization. You may contact him at: Family Research Institute, PO Box
62640, Colorado Springs, CO 80962 USA. Phone number: (303) 681-3113.
Society has a vested interest in prohibiting behavior that endangers
the health or safety of the community. Because of this, homosexual
liaisons have historically been forbidden by law.
Homosexuals contend that their relationships are the equivalent of
marriage between a man and woman. They demand that society dignify and
approve of their partnerships by giving them legal status as
'marriages.' They further argue that homosexuals should be allowed to
become foster parents or adopt children.
The best scientific evidence suggests that putting society's stamp of
approval on homosexual partnerships would harm society in general and
homosexuals in particular, the very individuals some contend would be
helped.
A large body of scientific evidence suggests that homosexual marriage
is a defective counterfeit of traditional marriage and that it poses a
clear and present danger to the health of the community:
Traditional marriage improves the health of its participants, has the
lowest rate of domestic violence, prolongs life, and is the best
context in which to raise children.
Homosexual coupling undermines its participants' health, has the
highest rate of domestic violence, shortens life, and is a poor
environment in which to raise children. The Facts About Homosexual
Marriage Fact #1: Homosexual marriages are short lived.
When one examines homosexual behavior patterns, it becomes clear that
the plea for legal homosexual marriage is less about marriage than the
push for legitimacy. Most gays and lesbians are not in monogamous
relationships, and in fact often live alone by preference.
* In a study (1) of 2,000 U.S. and European gays in the 1960s,
researchers found that "living by oneself is probably the chief
residential pattern for male homosexuals. It provides the freedom to
pursue whatever style of homosexual life one chooses, whether it be
furtive encounters in parks or immersion in the homosexual subculture.
In addition, homosexual relationships are fragile enough to make this
residential pattern common whether deliberate or not." * A 1970 study
in San Francisco (2) found that approximately 61% of gays and 37% of
lesbians were living alone. * In 1977, the Spada Report (3) noted that
only 8% of the gays in its sample claimed to have a monogamous
relationship with a live-in lover. * The same year (4) over 5,000 gays
and lesbians were asked: "Do you consider or have you considered
yourself 'married' to another [homosexual]?" Only 40% of lesbians and
25% of gays said "yes." The authors noted that with "gay male couples,
it is hard to even suggest that there are norms of behavior. [One]
might expect to find a clear pattern of 'categories' emerging from the
answers to the questions about lovers, boy friends, and relationships.
In fact, no such pattern emerged." * In the early 1980s, a large
non-random sample (5) of almost 8,000 heterosexual and homosexual
couples responded to advertisements in alternative newspapers. The
average number of years together was 9.8 for the married, 1.7, for
cohabiting heterosexuals, 3.5 for the gay couples, and 2.2 for the
lesbian couples.

Variety Over Monogamy
Although gay activists often argue that legalizing homosexual marriage
would help make such relationships more permanent, the reality is that
most gays desire variety in their sex partners, not the monogamy of
traditional marriage.
* In 1987, only 23% of gays in London (6) reported sexual exclusivity
"in the month before interview." * In 1990, only 12% of gays in
Toronto, Canada (7) said that they were in monogamous relationships. *
In 1991, in the midst of the AIDS crisis, Australian gays (8) were
monitored to see whether they had changed their sexual habits. There
was essentially no change in 5 years: 23% reported a monogamous
relationship, 35% a non-monogamous relationship, and 29% only "casual
sex." The authors reported that "there were almost as many men moving
into monogamy as out of it, and out of casual-only partnerships as into
them." * In 1993, a study (9) of 428 gays in San Francisco found that
only 14% reported just a single sexual partner in the previous year.
The vast majority had multiple sex partners. * In 1994, the largest
national gay magazine'o reported that only 17% of its sample of 2,500
gays claimed to live together in a monogamous relationship.
Even gays who do have long-term partners do not play by the typical
'rules.' Only 69% of Dutch gays" with a marriage-type 'partner'
actually lived together. The average number of "outside partners" per
year of 'marriage' was 7.1 and increased from 2.5 in the first year of
the relationship to 11 in the 6th year. Why are homosexual marriages
shorter and less committed than traditional marriages?
At any given time, less than a third of gays and approximately half of
lesbians are living with a lover. Because the relationships are so
short, the average homosexual can anticipate many, many 'divorces.'
At any instant, about 10% of gays live together in monogamous
relationships. Their monogamy seldom lasts beyond a year. Perhaps half
of lesbians live together in monogamous relationships. These typically
dissolve in one to three years.
These same patterns appear in the scientific literature over the last
50 years, both long before and during the AIDS epidemic. This
consistency suggests a reality associated with the practice of
homosexuality, one unlikely to be affected by changes in marriage laws.

The Danish Experience
In Denmark, a form of homosexual marriage has been legal since 1989.
Through 1995, less than 5% of Danish homosexuals had gotten married,
and 28% of these marriages had already ended in divorce or death. (12)
The Danish experience provides no evidence that gay 'marriage' is
beneficial. Men who married men were three times more apt to be
widowers before the age of 55 than men who married women! Similarly, a
woman who married a woman was three times more apt to be a widow than a
woman who married a man. Fact #2: Studies show homosexual marriage is
hazardous to one's health.
Across the world, numerous researchers have reported that 'committed'
or 'coupled' homosexuals are more apt to engage in highly risky and
biologically unsanitary sexual practices than are 'single' gays. As a
consequence of this activity, they increase their chances of getting
AIDS and other sexually transmitted or blood-borne diseases.
* In 1983, near the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, gays in San
Francisco (13) who claimed to be in "monogamous relationships" were
compared to those who were not. Without exception, those in monogamous
relationships more frequently reported that they had engaged in
biologically unhealthful activity during the past year. As examples,
4.5% of the monogamous v. 2.2% of the unpartnered had engaged in
drinking urine, and 33.3% v. 19.6% claimed to practice oral-anal sex. *
In a sample of London gays (6) in 1987, those infected with HIV were
more apt to have regular partners than those not so infected. In 1989,
Italian researchers (14) investigated 127 gays attending an AIDS
clinic. Twelve percent of those without steady partners v. 28% of those
with steady partners were HIV+. The investigators remarked that "to our
surprise, male prostitutes did not seem to be at increased risk,
whereas homosexuals who reported a steady partner (i.e., the same man
for the previous six months) carried the highest relative risk." *
During 1991-92, 677 gays in England (15) were asked about "unprotected
anal sex." Those who had 'regular' partners reported sex lives which
were "about three times as likely to involve unprotected anal sex than
partnerships described as 'casual/one-night stands."' Sex with a
regular partner "was far more important than awareness of HIV status in
facilitating high-risk behaviour." * A 1993 British sexual diary study
(16) of 385 gays reported that men in "monogamous" relationships
practiced more anal intercourse and more anal-oral sex than those
without a steady partner. It concluded that "gay men in a Closed
relationship... exhibit... the highest risk of HIV transmission." * In
1992, a sample (17) of 2,593 gays from Tucson, AZ and Portland, OR
reinforced the consistent finding that "gay men in primary
relationships are significantly more likely than single men to have
engaged in unprotected anal intercourse." * Similarly, a 1993 sample
(18) of gays from Barcelona, Spain practiced riskier sex with their
regular partners than with casual pick ups. * Even a 1994 study (19) of
over 600 lesbians demonstrated that "the connection between monogamy
and unprotected sex,... was very consistent across interviews.
Protected sex was generally equated with casual encounters; unprotected
sex was generally equated with trusting relationships. Not using latex
barriers was seen as a step in the process of relational commitment.
Choosing to have unprotected sex indicated deepening trust and intimacy
as the relationship grew."

Why is homosexual marriage a health hazard?
While married people pledge and generally live up to their vows of
sexual faithfulness, participants in both gay and lesbian "marriages"
offer each other something quite different. They see shared biological
intimacy and sexual risk-taking as the hallmark of trust and
commitment. Being exposed in this way to the bodily discharges of their
partner increases the risk of disease, especially so if that partner
was 'married' to someone else before or engaged in sex with others
outside the relationship.
The evidence is strong that both gays and lesbians are more apt to take
biological risks when having sex with a partner than when having casual
sex. The evidence is also strong that gays disproportionately contract
more disease, especially AIDS and the various forms of hepatitis, from
sex with "partners" than they do from sex with strangers. There is also
some evidence (20) that gays with partners are more apt to die of both
AIDS and non-AIDS conditions than those without partners.
Like gays, 'married' lesbians are more apt to engage in biological
intimacy and risk-taking. However, there is insufficient evidence to
conclude whether disease or death rates are higher for partnered or
unpartnered lesbians. Fact #3: Homosexual marriage has the highest rate
of domestic violence.
Domestic violence is a public health concern. Among heterosexuals, not
only is it an obvious marker of a troubled marriage, but media
attention and tax dollars to aid 'battered women' have both grown
tremendously in recent years. What is not reported is the empirical
evidence suggesting that homosexual couples have higher rates of
domestic violence than do heterosexual couples, especially among
lesbians.
In 1996, (21) Susan Holt, coordinator of the domestic violence unit of
the Los Angeles Gay Lesbian Center, said that "domestic violence is the
third largest health problem facing the gay and lesbian community today
and trails only behind AIDS and substance abuse... in terms of sheer
numbers and lethality."
The average rate of domestic violence in traditional marriage,
established by a nationwide federal government survey (22) of 6,779
married couples in 1988, is apparently less than 5% per year. During
their most recent year of marriage, 2.0% of husbands and 3.2% of wives
said that they were hit, shoved or had things thrown at them.
Unmarried, cohabiting heterosexuals report (23) higher rates of
violence, a rate of about 20% to 25% per year. When the same standard
is applied to gay and lesbian relationships, the following evidence
emerges:
* In 1987, (24) 48% of 43 lesbian, and 39% of 39 gay Georgia couples
reported domestic violence. * In 1988,(25) 70 lesbian and gay students
participated in a study of conflict resolution in gay and lesbian
relationships. Adjusted upward for reporting by only one partner in the
couple (i.e., "only one side of the story"), an estimated 29% of gay
and 56% of lesbian couples experienced violence in the past year. * In
1989, (26) 284 lesbians were interviewed who were involved "in a
committed, cohabitating lesbian relationship" during the last 6 months.
Adjusted for reporting by just one partner, an estimated 43% of the
relationships were violent in the past year. * In 1990, (27) nearly
half of 90 lesbian couples in Los Angeles reported domestic violence
yearly. 21% of these women said that they were mothers. Interestingly,
of those mothers who had children living with them, 11 lived in
"violent" and 11 in "nonviolent" relationships. Thus, unlike
traditional marriage where parents will often forego fighting to shield
the children from hostility, there was no evidence from this
investigation that the presence of youngsters reduced the rate of
domestic violence.
Overall, the evidence is fairly compelling that homosexual domestic
violence exceeds heterosexual domestic violence. The limited scientific
literature suggests that physical domestic violence occurs every year
among less than 5% of traditionally married couples, 20% to 25% of
cohabiting heterosexuals, and approximately half of lesbian couples.
The evidence is less certain for gays, but their rate appears to fall
somewhere between that for unmarried, cohabiting heterosexuals and
lesbians. Fact #4: Homosexual domestic violence is a logger problem
than gay bashing.
Gay activists and the media are quick to assert that discriminatory
attitudes by 'straight' society lead directly to violence against
homosexuals (i.e., 'gay bashing'). In fact, evidence suggests that
homosexual domestic violence substantially exceeds, in frequency and
lethality, any and all forms of 'gay bashing.' That is, the violence
that homosexuals do to one another is much more significant than the
violence that others do to homosexuals.
In 1995, a homosexual domestic violence consortium conducted a study
(28) in six cities Chicago, Columbus, Minneapolis, New York, San Diego,
and San Francisco where reports of anti-homosexual harassment or same
sex domestic violence were tabulated.
The harassment incidents ranged from name calling (e.g., '*****,'
'queer') to actual physical harm or property damage. Homosexual
domestic violence, on the other hand, referred only to incidents in
which actual physical harm occurred or was seriously threatened (i.e.,
met the legal standard for domestic violence).
The results? Nationwide, (29) as well as in these cities, around half
of anti-homosexual harassment reports in 1995 involved only slurs or
insults, thus not rising to the level of actual or threatened physical
violence.
In San Francisco, there were 347 calls about same-sex domestic violence
and 324 calls about anti-homosexual harassment. In three of the five
other cities there were also more calls reporting same-sex domestic
violence than anti-homosexual harassment. The same ratio was reported
for the study as a whole.
Given that half of the harassment reports did not rise to the level of
violence, while domestic violence meant exactly that, if the data
gathered by this consortium of homosexuals corresponds to the
underlying reality, the physical threat to homosexuals from same-sex
domestic violence is more than twice as great as the physical threat
they experience from 'the outside.'
Rather than being a 'shelter against the storms of life,' as
traditional marriage is sometimes characterized, being homosexually
partnered actually increases the physical dangers associated with
homosexuality. Fact #5: Homosexuals make poor parents.
Fewer than 20 empirical studies have been done on homosexual parents.
These studies have been small, biased, and generally fail to address
many of the traditional concerns regarding homosexual parenting.
However, the limited evidence they have generated supports what common
sense would expect.
The largest study, (30) and the only one based on a random sample,
estimated that less than half of a percent of Americans have had a
homosexual parent. Those who did were more likely to:

1. report having had sex with a parent,
2. experience homosexuality as their first sexual encounter,
3. be sexually molested,
4. become homosexual or bisexual, and
5. report dissatisfaction with their childhood.

The various studies, (31) added together, suggest that the children of
homosexuals are at least 3 times more apt to become homosexual than
children raised by the traditionally married.
Further, there is reasonable evidence, both in the empirical literature
and in dozens of court cases dealing with the issue, (32) that children
of homosexuals are more apt to be sexually exposed to the homosexual
lifestyle and/or molested.
Finally, substantial evidence (31) suggests that children of
homosexuals are more apt to doubt their own sexuality, be embarrassed
by their homosexual parent(s), and be teased and taunted by their
peers. What Can We Conclude?
Homosexual marriage is a bad idea, While traditional marriage delivers
benefits to its participants as well as to society, gay marriage harms
everyone it touches especially homosexuals themselves. Not only does it
place homosexuals at increased risk for HIV and other sexually
transmitted diseases, but it also subjects them to an increased threat
of domestic violence and early death.
Homosexual marriage is nothing like traditional marriage. Homosexual
unions are not built around lifetime commitments, nor are they good
environments to raise children.
Those who support legalizing homosexual marriage include the same
compassionate people who championed the right of singles to become
parents. We know the results of that campaign: a third of the nation's
children do not have a father. We also know that children without
fathers much more often do poorly in school, get in trouble with the
law, and become dysfunctional parents themselves.
It would be foolish to tamper with something as vital to personal and
social health as traditional marriage in order the placate the same
troubled souls that pushed for our current cultural mess. References

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