One of the hottest debates today is the issue of gay marriage. Because I’m a writer and because my day job has me working at a university (where my office is sandwiched between the office of my gay boss on one side and a lesbian co-worker on the other), I hear a lot about this issue.

Should the United States recognize gay marriage? I say no.

Look at the society of the classical Greeks. Homosexuality was common practice in that culture, at least among the men. Some scholars argue that homosexuality was preferred among the men to the point that the female sex organ was an object of fear, possibly inspiring the famous image of snake-headed Medusa who would turn men to stone if they looked at her (see “The Glory of Hera” by Philip E. Slater as an example).

And yet, even in this culture in which it was expected of older men that they take younger men as protégés and lovers, marriage was a union between a man and a woman. Men did not marry their preferred lovers because they recognized that such a union did not fulfill the purpose of marriage.

What is the purpose of marriage? What do you promise in your wedding vows?

Besides promising to love, honor, cherish and sometimes obey, you promise to forsake all others. Does that forsaking mean you ignore all your friends, co-workers and family from that moment on? No, it means you promise to be monogamous with the person you are marrying. So marriage is a sexual agreement.

What is the purpose of sex? While the temporary euphoria of orgasm is nice, the purpose of sex is propagation of the species. God, or Mother Nature, or whatever you choose to name the force that pulled humans out of the sludge and through the process of evolution, probably didn’t give much thought to how good sex feels to us – sex was necessary to create more humans.

Can homosexual unions produce children? No. If gay sex cannot fulfill the natural purpose of sex, why should gay marriage be recognized when that marriage will not propagate the species? Why recognize a sexual covenant that has no chance of fulfilling the real purpose of sex?

By arguing for gay marriage now, are we progressing beyond the beliefs held by the Greek society from which our Western civilization evolved, or are we simply stating that what feels good is more important than what nature intended?

What feels good to a minority of individuals is not always good for the nation, or our culture. And that’s why I say we should not recognize gay marriage in the United States.