What Would Dick Say?

Is Jeff Jacoby is propping up Willard Romney's failling campaign for President by trying to resurrect the argument against equal marriage? For most of the article he writes about Washington State's clever group, Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance, who is advocating a law requiring marrying couples to have children within 3 years of marriage or risk having their marriage unrecognized. The backers believe it will drive social conservatives nuts and, well, Jacoby takes the bait.

But Gadow and his fellow activists are assaulting a straw man. No mainstream opponent of same-sex marriage claims that having children is the sole purpose of wedlock. Marriages can serve any number of purposes -- cementing the bond between partners, guaranteeing financial security, having a legitimate sexual outlet, ensuring companionship, and so on. People get married for various reasons; the desire to raise a family is only one of them.

Gee Jeff, that's not what Romney was just saying. That's not what the New York's Supreme Court thinks either. Go over to Mass Family Institute's Vote on Marriage FAQs and see how many of their links mainly talking about marriage because of the children.

Back to Jacoby, he brings up the tired argument:

Because sex between men and women can result in children, and because children tend to do best when raised by their mothers and fathers, society has a vested
interest in encouraging long-term, monogamous, heterosexual marriage. Not all
married couples reproduce. But every opposite-sex marriage has the ability to
give a father and a mother to any child the couple creates or adopts. That is
something no same-sex couple can provide, which is one reason homosexual
marriage has never been a social institution.

But he adds a new one: "society has a vested interest in encouraging long-term, monogamous, heterosexual marriage." Sounds like same sex marriage would solve one of the problems Brian and Amy have with the gay community since they claim that gay people aren't monogamous. Jeff, did you forget that gay people can adopt or create a child too?

The thing I find the most offensive thing about this article:

• a man (who has a mom and a dad) started a war where over 3000 American troops have died,
• the world is getting steadily warmer and the ice caps are melting
• people are killing each other with guns everyday
• hurricanes and natural disasters are displacing thousands of people all around the world

And yet Jacoby still writes about the reason to take away or prevent loving same sex couples from marrying.