By Jessie Fillingim, Columnist
People do some crazy things to have a family. American couples outsource to India for surrogates so they don’t have to pay up to $50,000 in the United States. Celebrities collect babies. Michelle Duggar of “18 Kids and Counting” is about to have her 19th. I can’t even get on Facebook without seeing an advertisement offering to pay me for my eggs.
Recently, one woman in Maryland took “baby crazy” to a new level when she tied up, gagged, and cut open the stomach of a pregnant homeless woman to get the baby. The Maryland woman’s 17-year-old son helped restrain the pregnant woman while she performed the crude operation.
Forcefully cutting out a baby is probably not the Hallmark card picture of family that most of us long for, but we wouldn’t mind hurting someone who prevented us from having our ideal family. Just look at any child custody battle.
We don’t just want a family, though. We want the best family. We want to have the kind of family that everyone else wants to have. We gain an advantage by limiting the playing field, only legitimizing families that look like ours. The more we restrict the class of people entitled to a legitimate family, the better we look in comparison. In other words, restrictions on family are like Ivy League schools. Harvard students probably would not want to let more students in, even if equally qualified, because they enjoy more prestige with more restrictions.
These elitist restrictions fuel abortion law worldwide. Last week, the Ukrainian government denied Elton John’s request to adopt an HIV positive boy. The 62-year-old, though wed in a civil union, is considered unmarried and too old under Ukrainian law. Nonetheless, Elton John will support the child financially. Not only does the musician have to submit to a bastardized version of marriage if he wants anything resembling his ideal family, he can only be a father financially to the child he loves.
The Ukraine isn’t the only place that prevents certain groups from having legitimate families. Yeah, New York, I’m talking to you. The bill that would have legalized gay marriage passed in the New York Assembly only to fail in the state Senate. The battle continues in New Jersey next week, when the state Senate will debate a similar measure. Although New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Jon Corzine says he would sign the bill, he leaves office next month. Corzine will be replaced with Republican Chris Christie, who has sworn to veto such a measure.
Gay marriage opponents justify restrictions with the “sanctity of marriage” argument: that in some way, allowing homosexuals to marry will ruin marriage for everyone else. This argument implies the ridiculous idea that marriage and family are pure and wholesome. Family has its benefits, but it certainly isn’t immune from greedy, “baby crazy” motivations.
Maybe extending who can marry will indeed make marriage worse for everyone, but it’s not because we’re extending a right to homosexuals. Part of marriage’s power is that not everyone is entitled to it. The more people able to marry, the less elite marriage is, no matter who gets the extra entitlement.
When we restrict the behavior of one group, we suggest that there is some rational reason for the distinction. A voter need not ask if a bill allowing homosexuals to marry will erode the sanctity of marriage—the issue is whether making the right to the family ideal contingent on homosexuality or heterosexuality represents the best interest of the nation as a whole. Is it really better for the world to deny unwanted children a family than to give them two moms or dads?
