Something like a star

Tomorrow, voters in California will determine whether traditional marriage will be written into the state constitution. Having heard and read much debate on the issue – both reasoned and heated – I find myself tiring of the arguments and feel drawn to the words of poets.

First, a portion of Robert Frost's Choose Something Like a Star.

And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

And a few lines of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Marriage, to me, is this kind of star – lifting our vision, helping us navigate stormy waters. Marriage serves a purpose that has been the same for ages, and will continue for ages to come: to bring children into the world and raise them in a family with a mother and a father each fulfilling their unique roles as equal partners. There is no suitable substitute.

The things that supposedly weaken marriage – divorce, infidelity, pre-marital intimacy, same-sex unions – do not weaken marriage itself, they only make the power of marriage unavailable to those who wander down these side roads.

I have no doubt that the real power of marriage will always be there for those who can find it. My concern is not that the star will somehow fall from the heavens, but that the clouds created by these diversions will obscure the true power of marriage for us and for our children.

I choose something like a star.