The Witherspoon Institute produces an online publication Public Discourse edited by Ryan T. Anderson. An article published April 21st contains important information not well known:
Fewer than 9 percent of the countries belonging to the United Nations have redefined marriage to include same-sex relationships—and only one of those did so via its judiciary. A judicial redefinition of marriage would make the United States an extreme outlier on the global stage.
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There is no “emerging global consensus” for same-sex marriage. In fact, same-sex marriage in any form has been adopted by only 17 of the 193 member states of the United Nations—a mere 8.8 percent. . . . All of the rest—176 sovereign nations— retain the understanding of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. That is, taking the 193 member states of the United Nations as the reference point, over ten times as many countries disallow same-sex marriage as allow it. Additionally, more nations have constitutional provisions defining marriage as the union of a husband and a wife—47, as of last month—than have recognized any form of same-sex union. Many other countries have adopted legal protections of same-sex unions that stop short of changing the definition of marriage.
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The list of the twelve tribunals in two foreign organizations and nine nations that have upheld male-female marriage against claims of discrimination reads like a Who’s Who of progressive, liberty-loving democracies: the European Court of Human Rights, the UN’s Human Rights Committee, and national courts in Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Finland, Italy (both the Constitutional Court and the Court of Cassation),Ireland, Chile, and Colombia. Even though these bodies and countries have strong and deep support for LGBT rights (and a few have legislatures that have gone on to legalize same-sex marriage), the courts have rejected claims that same-sex marriage should be judicially established as a fundamental or constitutional right.
Read the whole article.