A little on Gay Marriage

I know I don't talk about it much, but I feel that when a perspective I find interesting is voiced, it's worth listening to. This is an excellent entry on that very loaded subject.

The blogger quotes an old column that I'd like to quote a paragraph from.

Quote:
It would be far easier to take these claims seriously if gay-marriage critics spent as much energy denouncing irresponsible heterosexuals whose behavior undermines traditional marriage. Among prominent Americans, such misdeeds are increasingly ubiquitous.

The blogger himself also provided a fresh point of view.

Quote:
If gay marriage supporters actually want to change peoples’ minds, they need to stop insisting that marriage is a right and refusing it to them is outright discrimination, and instead try to convince the public that gay marriage helps society. And “well, it doesn’t really hurt anyone” just isn’t going to cut it. It’s absurd to say that gay marriage will have absolutely no effect on marriage itself. Indeed, the only question that should be up for debate here is “how.”

It's nice to find someone asking sane questions.

I remember that back before he tilted away from being a voice of moderation, Andrew Sullivan made the point that the spread of HIV and STDs was a problem of promiscuity. Yes, AIDs is a bigger problem in the gay community. But the answer then is not to stop being gay, which Sullivan argued can't be done (and I personally believe, and ask the readers to grant for the sake of argument) but rather, to bring the traditional ethics of marriage to help impose structure on the gay community.

If this could be done, then the argument quoted above could be picked up as well--that legitimizing marriage in the gay community would help promote marriage in general.

Seems to me that that's the argument people should be making. The whole "because I wanna!" argument gets a little tiring.