The funny thing about the gay marriage debate is that it really only natters if the 'negativists' are right - what I mean is, if as I understand it roughly 8% of the population is gay and let's say about half that minority cares about being able to marry like the straight majority do [given my own anecdotal experience, having worked with a lot of gays, I'm guessing the number is much less than half, but let's say half] then, should gay marriage become a general reality, the quality of life for about 4% or less of the population will be marginally improved and by and large in ways only vaguely different from the benefits offered by 'civil unions'. Of course the MSM loves to talk up gay marriage as if the very fate of Western Civilization hung in the balance, as if some grievous injustice was operating here and failure to address it would taint the value of all human life - but that's a raving absurdity ripe with the rot of political agendas - I'm guessing the attitude towards gay marriage of most heterosexuals who have read something other than the bible can be summed up with a shrug of the shoulders and a sarcastic guffaw along the lines of "sure, go ahead, what the fuck do I care" - and that most of them, should gay marriage become a reality, will simply stop paying attention.
The point being, if the advocates of gay marriage are right, that it's a harmless correction of a slight injustice against a small minority [my language of course - the advocates' diction would wax decidedly more animated here], then that's a rather insignificant thing as a measure of the implied impact on the common weal of the majority. Somewhat paradoxically the issue only becomes important, significant, if the nay sayers are the ones who are right - that is if those who see the existential imperative of marriage as a fecund vehicle for the propagation and maintenance of a vibrant and healthy society threatened, if they're right in believing this sustaining and necessary social convention is being hollowed out into near meaninglessness by those who insist on reducing it to a mere manifestation of sentimental 'amour', only then does the outcome of the debate become significant. Certainly one cannot deny that those who defend gay marriage do so with arguments that only make sense if one accepts that marriage is about love first and foremost and not procreation - the only way you can maintain that there's no difference between homosexual and heterosexual love is by removing the eucharistic imponderable of fecundity - therefore gay marriage can only make sense if you make all marriage simply an expression of abstract androgynous 'love' and not a solemnization of the mystery of procreation that is a unique function of heterosexual praxis.
Now, I'm not saying the 'negativists' are right - it's a complicated argument and one can make good points either way - I'm only saying that how one views gay marriage only truly matters if they are right because only then are the consequences significant relative to the common weal - but you would never guess that if ones opinion on this issue was forged in the liberal furnaces of CNN and the New York Times.
