Thanks for that post, Stanya. Those were two of the more thoughtful, honest pieces I've read about the issue. Admittedly, though, I have not paid much attention to the debate for a couple years.
Personally, I would oppose gay marriage. I won't defend this position fully, now, but I will say that government certainly has a legitimate interest in marriage considering the effects of out-of-wedlock births and welfare policy. The last thirty-some years have been a failed experiment in undermining marriage, the family, and empirically beneficial social mores for the sake of feminism, sexual liberation, and radical individualism amounting to license. We have increasingly undermined the legitimacy of social moral pressures, obliterating any notion that our freedoms carry corresponding duties and responsibilities to our families, communities, and society. I think it possible that activist homosexuals, not homosexuality per se, have contributed to this. I don't know for sure that gay marriage will further undermine the social fabric, but I am skeptical of those that are pushing for it.
If those in favor of gay marriage can sell it to legislatures, they have that right, and I don't begrudge it. Perhaps they will prevail and it will prove not to harm marriage substantially or even prove to be beneficial in some way. If allowed and proved harmful, hopefully, it may be reconsidered or repealed.
What I do find intolerable, however, are courts extracting the issue from the political process as was the case in Massachusetts. The Constitution certainly does not speak to the issue despite judges' wrangling to impose 'enlightened' views on the rest of us. States may make laws with the impetus of moral dissapproval. That motive aside, they certainly should be able to make laws concerning marriage and social welfare considering the costs arrangements such as out-of-wedlock births and other sexual/marriage-related issues impose on society.
