John Sico

Same-sex marriage

Yesterday I asked what the supposed consequences of permitting same-sex marriage were. The response from the peanut gallery was almost overwhelming—but I did get one serious response. SDS wrote, “I think the state has a moral and economic incentive to encourage the institution of heterosexual marriage.” It’s an argument made in good faith—even if it’s not a particularly persuasive argument, even if it were true. The state has a moral and economic incentive to encourage the consumption of vegetables—but this is not a persuasive reason to outlaw beef.

Today I watched the National Organization for Marriage’s new ad, featuring Miss California, (who thinks that this is a great country because you can “choose” same-sex marriage or “opposite marriage” so long as your marriage is between a man and a woman). It lists the “consequences” of same-sex marriage:

(Note that the ad includes some self-referential wallowing about the negative response to the groups previous ad. Sorry, NOM, freedom of speech does not mean that everybody is required to agree with you.) So what’s the best reason against gay marriage that NOM can come up with? “Gay marriage could create widespread legal conflicts.” Really? That’s it? A tweak in the marriage law could create widespread legal conflicts? Because allowing gay marriage could eliminate a lot of legal conflict as well. But either way, the legal conflict isn’t that big of a deal. “Changing the law is hard” isn’t a very good reason to change the law. I expect prohibitions on same-sex marriage will start falling fairly quickly—because their proponents have pretty much run out of ideas. Inertia won’t keep them there forever.

Actually, I did get one other good response to my question on the consequences of gay marriage. Jeff Miller wrote,

Perhaps Obama can tell us the consequences, since [he] and Miss California seem to be on the same page.

I’ll write to Obama and ask. If enough of us do, maybe he’ll either come around or be forced to defend his increasingly awkward stated position.