It’s a very, very difficult thing to win an argument against same-sex marriage pushers – particularly when so many conservatives have thrown up the white flag and completely turtled on the issue (yes, that includes you, Hon. Stephen Harper). But no one is going to convince me that it is simply “progress” that must be accepted. As I’ve said on the issue for years: why do we so rashly overturn an institution that has served our society so well for thousands of years, and why can’t we have a mature conversation about it without accusations of “homophobia” being tossed in as a debate-stopping grenade?
In the wake of the California Supreme Court’s 4-3 split decision last week overturning the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, Dennis Prager, perhaps the most clear-thinking, articulate social conservative in America today, dedicated his column this week to the topic, giving an eloquent but sharp explanation as to why the concept is simply wrong, and why it still needs to be fought. Worth a complete read; particularly if you are one of those “aw, it’s no big deal” types. Some excerpts:
Since the secular age began, the notion that one should look to religion — or to any past wisdom — for one’s values has died. Thus, the modern attempts to undo the Judeo-Christian value system as the basis of America’s values, and to disparage the Founders as essentially morally flawed individuals (They allowed slavery, didn’t they?). The modern secular liberal knows that he is not only morally superior to conservatives; he is morally superior to virtually everyone who ever lived before him.
…
The sexual confusion that same-sex marriage will create among young people is not fully measurable. Suffice it to say that, contrary to the sexual know-nothings who believe that sexual orientation is fixed from birth and permanent, the fact is that sexual orientation is more of a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. Much of humanity — especially females — can enjoy homosexual sex. It is up to society to channel polymorphous human sexuality into an exclusively heterosexual direction — until now, accomplished through marriage. But that of course is “heterosexism,” a bigoted preference for man-woman erotic love, and therefore to be extirpated from society.
Any advocacy of man-woman marriage alone will be regarded morally as hate speech, and shortly thereafter it will be deemed so in law.
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We have entered something beyond Huxley’s “Brave New World.” All thanks to the hubris of four individuals. But such hubris never goes unanswered. Our children and their children will pay the price.
Anticipating reactions to this column — as to all defenses of man-woman marriage — that it or its author are “homophobic,” i.e., bigoted and unworthy of respectful rejoinder, it is important to reaffirm that nothing written here is implicitly, let alone explicitly, anti-gay. I take it as axiomatic that a gay man or woman is created in God’s image and as precious as any other human being. And I readily acknowledge that it is unfair when an adult is not allowed to marry the love of his or her choice. But social policy cannot be made solely on the basis of eradicating all of life’s unfairness. Thus, we must love the gay person — and his and or her partner as well. But we must never change the definition of marriage. The price to society and succeeding generations will be too great.
And don’t forget the law of unintended consequences – no one knows the full scope of the problems that will be unleashed. And don’t tell me that “the sky didn’t fall in” here in Ontario; it’s only been a couple of years. Get back to me when a generation has been raised in a same-sex environment.
Flaggman's Canada 
“[A]n institution that has served our society so well for thousands of years” is a pretty glib euphemism–the same institution has produced its fair share of perverts, criminals, neurotics, even “modern secular liberals”–and the rest of your and Prager’s argument is based on a completely speculative and biased premise (same-sex couples are incapable of raising healthy-minded children) which, it seems to me, is why you’re inevitably accused of being homophobes.
Your reply is based on the assumptions that 1) it is monogomous male-female marriage that produces perversion, criminality, etc., and 2) that being against same-sex marriage is homophobic, and assumes that same-sex couples are incapable of raising healthy-minded children.
1) human pathologies are part of the human condition, and exist both within and without the instutution of marriage. This is neither here nor there.
2) Same-sex couples may well raise good children. However, it’s not the ideal. Society must promote ideals, and show compassion where it is not possible. The ideal way to raise children and sustain a population is through male-female nuclear families. Promoting worse alternatives, like fatherless families, motherless families, communal living, etc. is destructive, even if these situations do exist where necessary.
Finally, calling opponents of same-sex marriage “homophobes” is an ad-hominem attack tactic unworthy of serious debate. There are plenty of homosexuals who reject the concept of same-sex marriage.
“Suffice it to say that, contrary to the sexual know-nothings who believe that sexual orientation is fixed from birth and permanent, the fact is that sexual orientation is more of a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality.”
I don’t understand how the two halves of this sentence are connected. Why would the Kinsey scale preclude genetic homosexuality? (Aside from simply speaking to my gay friends and asking, I think the vast numbers of gay people documented throughout history in ages where they faced severe persecution, usually death, for their orientation is a pretty good indication that it’s not chosen. At least for men, who are the ones generally documented.)
If you believe same-sex couples can raise children fine, then what do you think the catastrophic consequences of allowing same-sex marriage will be? What’s this mysterious “price to society” that’s being alluded to? It is mentioned that having same-sex couples who are married, instead of just same-sex couples who are common-law spouses, will somehow create “sexual confusion”, whatever that is, in young people. (Is this a terrible thing? Hey, if more people were gay, our population might not be ballooning so inexorably and disastrously.) You say that the ideal way to raise children is in male-female nuclear families. Is that a fact? For what purpose is it ideal? Certainly, children will have different influences in other situations. But do they necessarily produce worse outcomes? Does denying the couple the ability to be married make the situation different in some way such that it is more ideal for a common-law same-sex couple to raise a child than a married same-sex couple?
That said I don’t entirely understand why gay people would want to be married under an old religious tradition, unless they are religious, and of course most religions condemn homosexuality, so it’s hard to reconcile those two, and since you can’t change whether or not you’re gay, most gay people tend not to be religious. Anyway, I still don’t understand the problem with allowing them the option.
Personally I smell a rat regarding the whole issue. As Prager said, there is a movement today to neutralize gender significance and the gay marriage debate is all about that, . If you are a stats-minded person, you see that in countries freer than ours, gays make up a miniscule percentage of marriages performed. In fact, in Norway and Sweden, it’s a whopping one per cent. Hardly a requiem for taking the debate seriously. I find it usually comes down to this. If you believe in a creator God, than you believe that morals and ethics come to us from His divine imperative. If you don’t believe in a creator God, than chances are morals are relative to the age you live in, to be determined by that particular culture alone. This last sounds nice in theory, but doesn’t work that way in reality. Just as affairs in marriage or in non-marital relationships will always cause trauma to the victim of the affair, so too certain sexual practices will always yield sorry and sad results to the indiviidual who insists on engaging in said practices. For me, when God declares that homosexuality is an aberration and not what He intended, I believe Him over the ever-changing whims of societies that can hardly be called bastions of stability. Same-sex marriage to me is merely a slight-of-hand designed to disguise the real issue, that of gender neutrality which ends up abolishing all relational distinctions. Hence, as in Rhode Island, it’s now a parent-child dance, and not a mother daughter. Hey, it’s a free country, do what you will, but there is biblical principle no-one can possibly argue against. “What you sow, you will reap.” Homosexual groups can bellligerently advance their own agenda, deriding anyone who opposes them as being bigoted and homophobic, but their sexual behavior, and I stress their NATURAL sexual behavior, will always do great injury to their bodies. If they want to live like that, that’s their decision, But don’t call me a ‘phobe just because i don’t agree with you.