The National Organization for Marriage
(NOM) objects to gay marriage because it's mostly about making
couples feel “a certain way.”
The explanation comes from Dr. Jennifer
Roback Morse, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, a project
of NOM, the nation's most vociferous opponent of marriage equality.
“If you look at same-sex couples,
both at what they say and their behavior, neither permanence nor
sexual exclusivity plays the same significant role,” Morse told
Salvo
Magazine. “In other words, if you're in a union that's
intrinsically not procreative, sexual exclusivity is not as
important. Once you start thinking like that, you'll see that
everything people offer as reasons why same-sex couples should be
'allowed' to get married – all of the reasons are private purposes.
Sometimes it's nothing more than how it will make them feel. It's
not the business of law to make people feel a certain way. When you
see that redefining marriage is going to, in fact, redefine the
meaning of parenthood, removing biology as the basis for parenthood
and replacing it with legal constructions – then you see that there
is quite a lot at stake in getting the definition of marriage right.”
Think
Progress' Zack Ford commented: “Morse is arguing that any
couple that can not biologically reproduce is incapable of monogamy
or life commitments to each other, a characteristic that applies to
many straight couples as well. This argument neglects both the
important legal protections of marriage and the fact that many
same-sex couples raise families.”
(Related: NOM
claims gay college resident advisers are pressuring students on gay
rights.)