Is there a “Right” to be Gay?

The recent federal court ruling which overturned California's prop-8 came as no surprise. Never mind that a majority of people in CA want to define marriage as being the union of one man to one woman; this one judge believes the law deprives gays of their “rights.” I've always been curious, where do these liberal judges believe “rights” come from? Please show me where it is written that there is a “right” for gays to marry. Is there some holy script somewhere that reveals this to us? One thing I've noticed about liberals is that they are very noble-sounding and puffed-up when talking about protecting people's right but they are rather vague on explaining how these people came to have these rights.

It's not discussed as often anymore but our Founding Fathers believed that our rights are given to us by God. This fundamental principle is expressed overtly in our Declaration of Independence. To quote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Note carefully that they are not trying to defend this idea but rather believe it is “self-evident” and needed no further explanation.

Liberals, on the other hand, scoff at such a notion. They're all about “separation of church and state” so to say that rights come from God is an affront to their sensibilities. So I ask again, where do rights come from if not from God? Some might answer that rights are determined by society. OK, if that's true then why should gays have the right to marry when a majority of people have already voted against it? Others will say that our rights are given to us by the government. Well, the government is not really a sentient being by itself but is merely just a body of people. Government officials are supposed to represent the views of the people who elected them so this is simply another case of rights determined by society. Finally, some people will appeal to some cosmic sense of “fairness.” Rights are somehow universal and simply belong to humanity. This is a very subjective standard. Are these cosmic rules absolute? Where can I go to find them? Show me this universal right to be gay because I don't believe it exists. I suggest that these enigmatic human rights that are supposed to exist are really the ideals of the few liberal elitists that hold them. They “know” what these rights are even though there is truly nowhere we can turn to compare their opinions to an absolute standard. Whatever constitutes a “right” is exactly what a liberal believes is a right and they are appalled when anyone else wants to violate these imagined rights.

If any absolute standard exists, then I say it must be the standard of the Bible. If our rights are endowed by our Creator, it seems fairly certain that something specifically prohibited by God in the Bible could never be considered a God given right. When asked about marriage, Jesus specifically defined marriage as being between one man and one woman (Mark 10:6-9). This sounds strikingly similar to the definition voted on in Prop 8 – the same definition the federal judge says violates the un-enumerated rights of gays.

Let's suppose for a moment that rights aren't given by God. The only remaining objective standard is that rights are defined by society. We need not even appeal to the Bible. I've already pointed out how the law being struck down was already endorsed by a majority of voters. Doesn't a society have the “right” to decide for itself what constitutes marriage? How does the unidentified rights of a minority of gays trump the right of society as a whole?

Marriage is a centuries long tradition practiced everywhere in the world. Some cultures have allowed polygamy but, to my knowledge, no culture has ever recognized gay marriage prior to the last decade or so. In other words, heterosexual marriage is the assumed model. We are not trying to upset the applecart and suddenly ban gay marriage. We are trying to protect the centuries old tradition. It's the gay marriage crowd that wants to change the laws and allow the thing that has never existed in history past. On what grounds do they ask this? Is it only on the shifting grounds that there is a “human right” to be gay? How strange it is that knowledge of this right has eluded all the nations of the world for the entire history of civilization. I say instead that the opposite is true. There is no right to be gay.

Further reading: Is there a Religious Case for Gay Marriage?