Bill Bennet On Homosexuality

From This Week, 11/9/97

WILLIAM BENNETT: Now it's my turn. Now it's my turn. But because we hold the relationship between man and woman in marriage to be special and sacred. We also hold it to be the grounds of continuation of society and we've ruled other things out.

Now, on what grounds do you say two homosexuals should be able to marry, but not a homosexual and his sister, or not some guy and four women? If it's a matter of, as I've heard and read in your documents, two adults who love each other, why not five adults who love each other? You have failed to provide a principled difference.
...
WILLIAM BENNETT: We don't know. I think the best state- of-the-art science right now is the belief that some people are hardwired this way. Some people make the choice. And there are a lot of people in the middle.

If there are a lot of people in the middle, if there are a lot of waverers, we should be sending signals of what - of what society needs to prefer. And it needs to prefer heterosexuality.

ELIZABETH BIRCH: Why?

WILLIAM BENNETT: Well, for a lot of reasons. One, it needs to continue, and this is the way we continue. Second, by their own testimony, homosexuals are very unhappy. If you read...

ELIZABETH BIRCH: So you think people should only be able to marry to procreate?

WILLIAM BENNETT: Let me finish. You asked a question. Let me finish.

ELIZABETH BIRCH: Just to procreate?

WILLIAM BENNETT: Let me answer. No, no. Let me answer. They're very unhappy by their own testimony.

ELIZABETH BIRCH: Oh, that's not true.

WILLIAM BENNETT: Third, death. Death in this community - - the loss of life, the misery brought on by this life -- is a fact which you may wish to deny, but is a fact.

SAM DONALDSON: She says she's not unhappy.

ELIZABETH BIRCH: You know, Mr...

WILLIAM BENNETT: She says she isn't. But read the homosexual literature. This is the argument they make about genetics. They say if we weren't hard wired this way, we wouldn't choose it. No one in his right mind would choose to live the life they
are leading.

...
WILLIAM BENNETT: Well, it depends on how you ask the question. I mean, as the president said last night, you know, your mechanic, the guy who's doing your balanced budget, is he gay or not? You don't care. I mean, I ran these federal agencies.
We had tons of gay employees, perfectly fine with me.

But if parents say, look, we have some concern about a scout master or we have some concern about adoption by gay couples, that's perfectly reasonable. When you put it to a vote actually, as they did in the state of Washington last week, people
in the state of Washington did not come out the way Mrs. Birch says. So if you -- as Ms. Birch says.

If you ask the question, you know, are you in favor of not discriminating, all of us are in favor of not discriminating. But if you're saying should we be indifferent as a society to whether people are gay or not, the answer to that has to be no.