Legalization of Same-sex Marriages: Social-civilizational Consequences

Legalization of Same-sex Marriages:
Social-civilizational Consequences


Shchelkin A.G.

Dr. Sci. (Philos.), Prof., leading researcher of the Sociological Institute of FCTAS RAS, St. Petersburg, Russia evropa.ru@gmail.com

ID of the Article:


For citation:

Shchelkin A.G. Legalization of Same-sex Marriages: Social-civilizational Consequences. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2019. No 11. P. 152-160




Abstract

The article studies a growing large-scale phenomenon – the legalization of same-sex marriages in many modern countries. At a time it seemed that the struggle of gay people against the criminal prosecution of homosexuals gave its results – homosexuality is decriminalized, same-sex partnership is not prosecuted by law. But the LGBT movement did not stop there. The goal is to legitimize at the government level same-sex marriages and the right to adopt children into them. The phenomenon is unprecedented, breaking the continuity of the entire civilizational process: children without a full pair of parents; uncontrolled explosion of the reproductive technologies market; conceptual chaos in the dictionary of family relations. And the most important claim of the LGBT movement is the «equalization» of the constitutional and legal status of homosexual and traditional marriages. The heterosexual majority starts vigorously to oppose the explicit demands of gay activists. Today the main strategy of LGBT activists is to rely not so much on public opinion and referendums, as on appealing to the political establishment of their countries.


Keywords
gay marriage; gay lobbyism; anti-gay protests; constitutional definitions of marriage; the mechanism of legitimizing gay marriages

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Content No 11, 2019