Empirical evidence establishes an undeniable fundamental truth: heterosexual monogamy is the key survival strategy of the human species. Traditional marriage, therefore, is much more than a civil right.

In 1967, in Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning interracial marriages violated the Fourteenth Amendment because marriage is a civil contract and all Americans have the right to enter into contracts. Same-sex activists are using this decision to prove that they, too, have the right to marry. But their claim has no historical foundation whatsoever and may have little legal merit.

While Loving v. Virginia was the right decision, dismantling a vestige of slavery, it also reduced marriage to the status of a civil contract and stripped it of its great historical and social significance. Marriage, indeed, involves a contract between a man and a woman, long established before the U.S. Constitution was even conceived. But marriage is much more than a contract.

Even if one thinks of it strictly as a civil contract, marriage is vastly different from all other civil contracts: (1) marriage involves only two parties; (2) of different genders; (3) who cannot, by law, be blood relatives; (4) in several states, can be minors with the consent of their parents; (5) and, in some states, have to submit to a blood test. Clearly, should civil contracts be subjected to the same restrictions as marriage, America would not be a land of commerce.

Americans have accepted those restrictions because they have helped define marriage for generations. The Founding Fathers’ conception of marriage was virtually identical to what we call the traditional marriage today. Had they wanted to change that standard, as they wanted to radically alter their society, the Founders would have expressed their views of marriage in writing as they did with respect to taxation, government and basic rights.  The word “marriage,” however, is not even mentioned once in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution.

Clearly, the Founders did not want to change the nature of marriage, which was then what it is now. The Founders were educated men who knew about polygamy, polyandry, incest, homosexual unions and other archaic practices.  They did not write one word about the desirability of these practices being lawfully introduced into the United States. They knew that previous generations had terminated them for good reason.

Humans rejected incest because it contaminated the gene pool and, therefore, threatened their survival. Most human civilizations rejected polygamy and polyandry for economic reasons and because these practices caused social tension by reducing the availability of mates. Christianity eradicated polygamy because it treated women as property. The few societies that permitted same-sex marriage eventually discontinued it because same-sex marriage is sterile and unsustainable.

Reducing marriage to just a civil contract without paying attention to history will open the doorway not only to same-sex marriage, but also to polygamy and to incest. This is not an extreme view. The process by which this will take place has already been established.

Loving v. Virginia rightly overturned bans on interracial marriage.  It is worth keeping in mind that the banned marriages in question were traditional ones, involving a man and a woman. Same-sex marriages are not banned in America. They have simply never been recognized as legal. Consequently, in the case of same-sex marriage, Loving v. Virginia is not being used to overturn any ban; it is being used to change the composition of the couple being married. A ruling that allowed traditional marriages to take place regardless of race is now being used to change the very definition of marriage.

From a purely legal standpoint, unfortunately, the distance between legalizing same-sex marriage—which played no role at all in the evolution of humanity and the development of civilizations, and consensual polygamy—is not a quantum leap. Indeed, if marriage is simply a civil contract, then it will eventually include more than two parties, as lots of civil contracts do. If Loving v. Virginia can be used to overturn the age-old gender requirement of marriage, it will soon overturn the numeric requirement as well. 

Even incest can be made legal. Humans prohibited incest because of the resulting genetic damage. If contraception can prevent that genetic contamination, the age-old objection to incest is removed. And Loving v. Virginia can be used to legalize incestuous marriage in the same way as it is being used to legalize same-sex marriage.

The relegation of marriage to the status of a civil contract will destroy marriage and introduce sexual practices that have historically already been outlawed because of their harmful effect. Of course, same-sex marriage is the El Dorado of those who oppose the traditional family. Ultimately, it is the glorification of sterility.