Gay people are too responsible to be allowed to marry
That's the stand of the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the legal brief they provided to the Supreme Court.
Marriage should be limited to unions of a man and a woman because they alone can "produce unplanned and unintended offspring," opponents of gay marriage have told the Supreme Court...
Conservative attorneys did not argue that gays or lesbians engaged in "immoral" behavior or lifestyles. Instead they emphasized what they called the "very real threat" to society posed by opposite-sex couples when they are not bound by the strictures of marriage.
So opposite-sex couples are such a danger to society they need to be bribed or coerced into marriage, whereas same-sex couples don't? This is the most bizarre twist on the "But think of the children!" theme yet. (As opposed to the "Biological families are the only real families!" argument, which is merely disgusting.)
I get that they're looking at this from the point of view of public policy and encouraging the kind of behavior that benefits society. But setting aside that they're ignoring all the benefits of marriage that don't have anything to do with raising children, I'm having a hard time understanding why a same-sex couple who adopts one of those unplanned kids isn't entitled to the same rights as the feckless opposite-sex couple who made the baby in the first place.
If they mean that unplanned children need more of society's protection, shouldn't they be arguing that only people who forget a trip to the drugstore be allowed to marry? Or mandating shotgun weddings?
Marriage should be limited to unions of a man and a woman because they alone can "produce unplanned and unintended offspring," opponents of gay marriage have told the Supreme Court...
Conservative attorneys did not argue that gays or lesbians engaged in "immoral" behavior or lifestyles. Instead they emphasized what they called the "very real threat" to society posed by opposite-sex couples when they are not bound by the strictures of marriage.
So opposite-sex couples are such a danger to society they need to be bribed or coerced into marriage, whereas same-sex couples don't? This is the most bizarre twist on the "But think of the children!" theme yet. (As opposed to the "Biological families are the only real families!" argument, which is merely disgusting.)
I get that they're looking at this from the point of view of public policy and encouraging the kind of behavior that benefits society. But setting aside that they're ignoring all the benefits of marriage that don't have anything to do with raising children, I'm having a hard time understanding why a same-sex couple who adopts one of those unplanned kids isn't entitled to the same rights as the feckless opposite-sex couple who made the baby in the first place.
If they mean that unplanned children need more of society's protection, shouldn't they be arguing that only people who forget a trip to the drugstore be allowed to marry? Or mandating shotgun weddings?