National Review is running a guest column by Maggie Gallagher which is almost right on the issue of gay marriage when she says the following
For me, the first, last and most important question about gay marriage is: Will it help or hurt marriage as a social institution? Is it, in other words, a good idea?
The problem is that even this doesn't get to the heart of the matter. The quote assumes without demonstrating that marriage is good for society. Without the demonstration of why, exactly, marriage is good for society, you don't have the necessary building blocks to create a practical defense of the institution.
Gay marriage strikes at the foundation of a very old, very elaborate structure. We've assumed the foundation for so long we don't really know how to start from ground zero. We should be relearning how to do that no matter how the debate ends up because changing the foundation without knowing what you're doing is a recipe for hurting a great many innocent people with the greatest hurt being children. The people over at National Review ought to rerun their old issue focusing on polygamy. That would be a good start.
Posted by TMLutas at December 8, 2003 04:32 PM