Todd Benoit writes in favor of cleaving the sacred and the secular in his March 10 column, “Make marriage’s benefits accessible to more people.” He allows that churches should be free to create whatever marriage rules they want, while the state – a thoroughly secular institution – should simply create a “legally binding civil contract neutrally available for heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals and noncommitalsexuals.” He says this is a conservative ideal.

He suggests that the legally binding civil contract that will replace the traditional definition of marriage in this brave new world will improve society. He suggests that the possibility of a civil contract will lead to family cohesiveness.

Benoit’s argument is seductive because it envisions the possibility of a peaceful public square. Everyone will enter the public arena silent about their most deeply held beliefs as they relate to the common good, and everything will run along just fine.

Scandinavia, and much of Europe, has moved further down this road of moral relativism than the United States. It is, therefore, possible to put Benoit’s ideas to the test.

In 2004, writer and researcher Stanley Kurtz observed, “Marriage is slowly dying in Scandinavia.” Kurtz did extensive research on Norway and Sweden before writing his now-famous article “The End of Marriage in Scandinavia.”

Kurtz reported sadly that most children are now born out of wedlock in those countries. A fair reading of the Kurtz finding does not allow one to conclude that a legally binding civil contract is going to lead to family cohesiveness. Just the opposite is what actually happens. Willful ignorance of the real definition of marriage (one man, one woman, one lifetime) destroys family, devastates children and ruins society.

While Benoit’s Orwellian redefinition of terms has hurt the Scandinavian family, Kurtz believes that it will devastate America. “In the American context,” he writes, “this would be a disaster. Beyond raising middle class family dissolution, a further separation of marriage from parenthood would reverse the healthy turn away from single-parenting that we have begun to see since welfare reform. And cross-class family decline would bring intense pressure for a new expansion of the American welfare state.”

Ominously, Kurtz concludes his report, “By the time we see the effect of gay marriage in America, it will be too late to do anything about it.”

This year Maine has another chance to begin pushing the camel’s nose out of the tent to avoid reaching the point of no return. A bill to expand the reach of Maine’s bizarre definition of domestic partnerships is bottled up in the Labor Committee. To avoid the ire of 47 percent of Mainers who saw through the lies of sexual orientation theorists in the 2005 vote over marriage, the Roman Catholic Chancery and Maine’s most radical homosexual rights group have teamed up to promote domestic partnerships again. They created a same sex registry in 2003, and now they are promoting an expansion of the homosexual partnership definition they enacted that year.

The Chancery, and Maine, is between a rock and a hard place. The Chancery is promising to fight same-sex marriage. I’m not sure what their position is on civil unions. The radical homosexual lobby owns the Maine Democratic Party and a good chunk of the Maine Republican Party. This gives the so-called gay lobby a lock on the State House.

It appears that political forces within Maine’s largest religious group, the Roman Catholic Church, and Maine’s most powerful immoral group, the homosexual lobby, struck a deal. Everyone wanted to avoid a political war over same-sex marriage after 2005’s brutal ordeal. To avoid the fight, the Catholic Chancery and the gay lobby decided to become domestic partners.

Don’t believe me? Read the press release from the misnamed radical pro-homosexual group “Equality Maine” (They think children should be raised without a mother in some cases, and with a father in others. That obviously has nothing to do with equality). They saved the best for last in their list of endorsements of their highest priority this year – LD 375, An Act to Amend the Family Medical Leave Act. They list the Roman Catholic Diocese last in their list of endorsees.

Maine’s binding civil contract called marriage will continue to be defined as one man, one woman, one lifetime or Maine will lose family cohesiveness. Benoit wants society-wide family cohesiveness, and the opportunity for everyone to live however they want sexually. Europe shows that won’t happen. I want family cohesiveness and sexual normalcy. While we can easily have both, those who want same-sex marriage will have to choose one or the other.

Michael Heath is executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine.