GAY MARRIAGE IS A DISTRACTION

They joined Barack Obama and a rising tide of political opportunists from both parties who are bending over backwards to be on the “right side” of gay marriage.

Which is neither surprising nor troubling. In this country, we have long since abandoned the idea that politicians work from any sort of core values. Or that they have any interest whatsoever in truly addressing the country’s challenges.

Instead, they hop from issue to issue, pimping them each, saying whatever their pollsters and their campaigns tell them to say.

So we argue about gay marriage and guns and birth control and illegal immigration, and all the while we are completely blind to other issues, big-ticket issues, that threaten our society and nation.

Gay marriage is a very passionate and contentious issue. Its supporters say it is a civil rights issue. Its detractors say it is an attack on the family.

If you round up, gay people are 2 percent of the population. Gay marriage is rubbed in the public’s face, like every other part of the gay agenda, but the real practical impact of gay marriage is zilch.

Yes, it is – my faith teaches me – a perversion of man’s natural desire and a devilish attack on family structure and family values.

But in terms of devilish attacks on family structure and family values, it’s pretty small potatoes.

The family is under withering attack. The family is in deep crisis. Its very existence may be in peril.

But that’s not because homosexuals want to get married. It’s because heterosexuals don’t want to get married.

The death of the family isn’t because of the gays, it’s because of the rest of us. If they’re 2 percent of the population, we’re 98 percent of the problem.

As much a mockery of real marriage as gay marriage might be, the real, immediate and devastating threats to traditional family structure are out-of-wedlock births and delayed and avoided heterosexual marriage.

The majority of women under 30 have their children out of wedlock. For women whose highest education is a high-school diploma, 58 percent of them have their children out of wedlock. Women with a college diploma tend to have their first child two years after marriage. Women without a college diploma tend to have their first child two years before marriage – and usually with a man other than the one they will eventually marry.

In some lower-income and racial-minority neighborhoods, the out-of-wedlock birthrates can range from two-thirds to three-quarters.

Out-of-wedlock births would seem to be pretty exclusively a heterosexual problem.

Sure, it’s nice to be able to point your finger at somebody. Having a scapegoat always makes life easier. But to blame your problems on somebody else, you’ve typically got to lie.

Marriage is the cornerstone of the family. The family is the cornerstone of society. Bearing children is the capstone of marriage and the purpose of the family.

We delay or avoid marriage, and we delay or avoid having children. And when we do have children, we increasingly have them out of wedlock, thereby all but dooming them and the society in which they will live.

Gay marriage is a distraction. Those who support it will donate to and vote for Democrats. Those who oppose it will donate to and vote for Republicans. Both parties bang the drum in order to whip up frenzy, so that they can garner contributions and votes.

The president is in favor of gay marriage. Hillary Clinton is in favor of gay marriage. The guy from Ohio is in favor of gay marriage. And they’ve all said so publicly.

Nothing encouraging real marriage. Nothing spotlighting the cancer of out-of-wedlock birth. Nothing about nothing at all.

The fundamental issue with regard to "gay marriage" is not whether a person should be allowed to say he's "married" to whomever or whatever he wants, but whether such an individual can use the power of the state to compel every person, business, or institution that recognizes any marriage to recognize his "marriage".

The fundamental argument to be made against gay marriage is that it is fundamentally not about what gay people do in the privacy of their own home, but rather the extent to which gay people can force others to acknowledge their union. If the issue were really about things like tax status, inheritance, etc. then civil unions should be just fine; it's unclear that the state shouldn't recognize unions of couples who are ineligible to marry. Indeed, I would posit civil unions should be available for people like siblings who could not marry without committing incest, but who may have good reasons for forming joint households (e.g. if two siblings are widowed, both have kids, and circumstances are such that it would make sense for them to establish a common household, a civil union would seem a logical way to clearly establish property interests, rights of survivorship, guardianship, etc.)

Historically, the concept that a woman should form a nominally-exclusive lifetime mating relationship with one man is probably the closest thing to a universal behavior. Different societies have varied and do vary considerably in the means by which a pairing is established, the means by which it might be revoked, the extent to which an established pairing compels a man to mate exclusively with one woman, the extent to which adultery is tolerated or punished, etc. but almost every society that exists or has ever existed, has grown to non-trivial size, and has lasted for more than a couple generations, has recognized some form of pairing that comprises exactly one male and at least one female. Mathematically, a "gay marriage" cannot have exactly one male. As such, it represents a relationship which is very different from the universal behavior which has been observed from time immemorial.

Namely, bisexual marriage. After all, who are we to say that a man who loves a man who also loves woman should not allowed to marry.

Presently there is nothing illegal about a gay man getting married if he or she can find a woman (gay or straight) who wants to marry him. There is likewise nothing illegal about a gay woman getting married to a man who wants to marry her. I'm not sure what bisexuality would add to the mix unless one allows multiple marriage. In that scenario, a man who married two bisexual women would represent a relationship that was less of an aberration than a relationship which involved two men and zero women, or two women and zero men.

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