same-sex marriages 'illogical'

By Jon Qwelane (Source: News24.com)

October 4, 2006: Our country is once again at a crossroads and there are serious decisions facing us around the question of legislating same-sex marriage. Hopefully it will all be resolved sensibly.

And at the outset, I might as well state it loud and clear that I am not at all in favour of the mooted same-sex marriages which the constitutional court has ordered parliament to enact, and which would thereby place homosexual unions on exactly the same footing as heterosexual marriages.

I may as well admit that my stand will, needless to overstate, place me in the firing line for being allegedly “backwards” and “homophobic”. But I will not mind the inevitable vitriol and condemnation as I have weathered much worse in the past, and this is a point I stand by.

My arguments in objection to same-sex unions are a repeat of what I have said countless times before.

To date, I have not encountered logical and sensible counter-arguments by those who maintain that a woman should be allowed to marry another woman, and a man be allowed to marry another man.

All that I have been subjected to so far by these people has been emotionally-charged arguments which often degenerate into personal vilification and insults, but with nothing worthwhile to argue.

My starting point on this matter is that everyone, including gays and lesbians, is a biological consequence of male and female intercourse. And such intercourse is itself therefore the logical consequence of how nature behaves. In other words, male is meant to mate with female for the procreation of the species.

'It's unnatural'

From this simple point and observation, it is rather illogical for same-sex unions to exist, as such arrangements fly in the face of nature.

Even die-hard lesbians and homosexuals will be hard-pressed to contradict that statement. I have often heard attempts by gays to justify their homosexuality as being repeated elsewhere in the animal kingdom, to “prove” that nature tolerates homosexuality.

I have heard of certain rams within a type of breed of sheep, and some birds, that do this sort of thing, but this is unnatural and it is not what our constitutional court should be wanting parliament to legislate.

The second argument against this type of thing is scriptural: not a single religion anywhere condones and accepts homosexuality.

Some Christians will, obviously scraping at the bottom of their scriptural barrels, meekly point to the tale about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah to “prove” that homosexuality was practised even in biblical times, but the story will not be complete if they end it there.

Lot actually did what I doubt any sane and normal father would do. However, so great was his fear of God’s retribution if his visiting male guests were to indulge in homosexuality in his home that Lot offered his virgin daughters to the men to ravage at will. There’s no guessing what common decency, and especially our learned judges of the constitutional court, would rule if they were confronted with a case such as Lot’s, but it does also show how great a sin homosexuality is in God’s eye!

'I like homosexuals'

All this in no way says I do not like or respect homosexuals and lesbians as individuals; on the contrary, I do.

Emotional rubbish such as: “Ja, but what would you say if your son or daughter turned out to be gay? Would you condemn them?”

My answer is that my offspring are not gay and, so far, neither are any of my nephews and nieces. And a big YES, I would condemn and disown them if they turned out to be homosexuals.

A very interesting question was asked in one of the letters in the newspapers the other day: “Would married homosexual men be allowed to adopt a girl child, as the law wants them to be accorded every single right enjoyed by heterosexual couples?” Would this girl child be deprived in some way?

The parliamentarians of South Africa must have enough balls to stand up to this sort of nonsense, and refuse to pass such a law.

The separation of powers enshrined in the constitution ensures that parliament is a distinct entity from the judiciary; so the lawmakers can at least tell those justices to go fly kites, or indulge in homosexual unions of their own - but leave the rest of us alone.

Jon Qwelane's column is published each week on News24, courtesy of Jon Qwelane and the editor of Sunday Sun, which originally carried the article.