In short, marriage has evolved, usually in ways that prove so congenial we forget it was ever otherwise. Extending marriage to same-sex couples would be just one more step. For some advocates of gay marriage, this is the end of the argument. But others sense the need to clarify something further: not just that change is part of the tradition, but that tradition will be part of the change. Chauncey chronicles three stages of the debate. In the 1950’s, gay spokesmen stressed conformity and ”their desire to restrain the public behavior of other homosexuals who did not share their assimilationist intentions.” In the 1960’s and 1970’s, gay liberationists turned toward promiscuity as a means of pleasure and ”self-exploration.” In the 1980’s and 1990’s, AIDS inspired a movement back to monogamy, with conservative writers like Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Rauch preaching marriage as a way to mainstream gay culture.
The conservative faction offers a broadly persuasive case for same-sex unions. Most Americans think family law should favor permanent, monogamous commitments. They also oppose discrimination on the basis of immutable characteristics like race. The path of least resistance, then, is to persuade them that gay marriage is a permanent, monogamous commitment and that sexual orientation is immutable. Among Americans who think sexual orientation can be changed, fewer than one in five supports gay marriage. Among those who think orientation can’t be changed, a plurality supports it. This strongly suggests that the most effective way to change beliefs about gay marriage is to change beliefs about immutability.
Saletan concludes: “None of this radicalism, confusion or fear is necessary. We can absorb gay marriage into our society not because it’s gay but because it’s marriage. It’s compatible with the moral distinctions we already understand and treasure. We don’t have to honor every lifestyle we tolerate or treat cohabitation like marriage. It’s the enemies of gay marriage who want to make this debate an all-or-nothing, order-or-chaos proposition. Let’s not help them.”
Yet this statement does not follow from his arguments. He says: “We don’t have to honor every lifestyle we tolerate…” But why? Simply because he says so? The arguments for gay “marriage” tear down every reason for limitation. He knocks down the stop sign and then states that people will stop anyway. Sorry it simply doesn’t follow.
Marriage is and only can be between one man and one woman otherwise everything is permissible.
Well, he’s right about one thing: Marriage really has changed (I’m not sure “evolved” is the right word), secular forces have taken it over and made it something else, and that truly has made gay marriage the logical next step for these forces. IMO, the failure of religion to thwart the changes makes it complicit and crying foul now is useless. The only thing they can do is divorce themselves (pun intended) from legal/secular marriage but I doubt that they will.