At this point I sometimes think I'm actually less against gay marriage itself than I'm against arguments in favor of it. With few exceptions I find them unpersuasive and ridiculous — like those childless employees who complain that family friendly company policies discriminate against time they'd like to spend with their pets or hobbies. An easy answer there is that other people's children will eventually pay your Social Security, so stop griping about minor perks like flex time for working mothers.
Which points to the essential problem with gay marriage: It's not procreative, so the state has no business getting involved. Yes of course there are childless heterosexual couples — but the state also shouldn't invasively withdraw recognition because of people's private sexual or reproductive situations. The basic blueprint of marriage is to assign responsibility for children that might be born from sexual arrangements. Whether children actually are born is another matter.
What agitators for gay marriage never address is why a homosexual domestic partnership should be more worthy of government approval (or employee benefits) than a myriad of other domestic partnerships. Why not two single moms who live together with their children, like Kate & Allie? Or a straight woman and her gay male best friend, like Will & Grace? Or two unmarried heterosexual sisters who live together and share all expenses — kind of an old-fashioned
arrangement, but certainly not extinct; I happen to be friends with a pair like this myself. Why can't they get a tax break?
Gay activists often point out various same-sex unions that have outlasted many heterosexual ones. But I don't see why sexual relationships of any stripe, if they're not at least inherently procreative, should trump all others.
