I do think the divorce rate (which has gone down in recent years) should be lowered further – but not through sacrificing equality for same-sex families, which is both futile and unjust.

UK, that’s clever and all, but the interesting piece is not the “something big”, but the “both advocates and opponents of SSM see”.

SSM has become viable because of two very big changes in society – women’s rights, and gay rights. As marriage becomes less about “wives and husbands fulfill two separate, strictly-bounded roles,” the rule that only women may marry men and vice-versa has lost its basis. And as lesbians and gays become accepted as equal citizens, rather than perverts, denying same-sex couples substantive legal equality seems fair to fewer people. (I discuss this in slightly more detail here).

However, even though SSM could not happen without those two big changes to society happening first, SSM itself isn’t a big change to society (although it’s an important change to many lesbians and gays). And preventing SSM will not undo the large changes to society SSM reflects.

Attempting to lower divorce rates and single motherhood by blocking SSM is a genuinely ridiculous and futile position. The (until recently) increasing divorce rate – a trend that began long before no-fault divorce, incidently – is largely a result of the increasing legal and economic independence of women. That trend will not stop because SSM is blocked – or for any other reason, I hope.

The central thing is, I think, about SSM being, is for, her a further incremental step towards a change of family structures. She hasn’t proven that this would be bad, she hasn’t even shown that this is true (though I tend to think it is, and I’m a darned glad about it), or that there is a crisis, or that this crisis is common to all post-industrial free-market democracies. But she has claimed all that, gone off tangents and equivocated. She has made, or at least implicitly stated, even stronger claims, only to be thoroughly rebutted and even refuted a number of times with solid facts.

But once all the hyperbole and tangents are been stripped away what may well remain of her muddled slew of posts, for people who are receptive to it, is a niggling idea that there might be such a path that leads down to disaster, and that we’d better avoid advancing any further on that slippery slope. It’s easy for heterosexuals to say “no”: after all, they aren’t personally hurt. If in doubt, do nothing.

Given the weakness of the anti-SSM argument, this “drowning the fish” strategy looks to me like the single most promising one to pursue for those who are opposed.

She does get one thing right: That the question is whether the pro-SSM stance is about liberty vs. equality (as she says somewhere, whether it’s like race or abortion—that would better be like protection from racial discrimination or access to abortion). Of course, where she goes from there is laughable: it can’t be about equality, because that would mean she, as an SSM opponent, would be a bigot, and she isn’t. (Anyone need an example of a petitio principii?)

And I attenuate what I said about the Volokh blog: The commenters are impressive, so there is something good about it.

(I apologise for the over-long comment.)

Gallagher’s main point—as Thomas has pointed out numerous times above—is that a shift to SSM is not a minor change, it is a substantial redefinition of what marriage means to most people. This is simply uncontestable. And it is likewise true that if the primary purpose of SSM were to grant benefits (health care, visitation rights, etc) to gay couples, there would be a number of policy/legal mechanisms besides altering marriage that would accomplish this.

Gallagher has adduced no evidence that the shift to SSM would be harmful. It would likely be difficult, however, to adduce evidence that allowing polygamy, polyandry, or group marriage would be harmful. Maybe that means that the burden of proof is on SSM opponents, and likewise on opponents of polygamy; and so absent the controlled studies their concerns can be dismissed. But I think that’s a bit too easy. This, I think, is a nice introduction on how one might think about the risks of altering long-standing insitutions.

I love it!

You say: “If we legalize gay marriage, incest, bestiality and polygamy wil be next.”

We say: “No no, we’re against those things.”

Then you say: “See, you’re just as bigoted as the people who are against gy marriage.”

Whee!

Funny, I didn’t notice sidewalks ripping apart to reveal gateways to Gehenna. I looked, really. Not so much as a pothole.

As I said, if you want to argue that refusing to recognize SSM is discrimination, great. But don’t insist that, in that argument, I bear the burden of proof, because not recognizing SSM is discriminatory. That’s what we’re arguing about (or would be, if we were actually engaging the substance), so you can’t assume the answer to assign the burden of proof.

Why the scare quotes, Thomas? The man I have lived with for 10 years and I are deprived of access to the rights that accrue to married couples, solely on the basis of our shared gender. If one of us were a woman, we could get married—irrespective of whether we wanted children, intended to have children, or were physically capable of having children.

No slippery slope here: we’re both human beings, we’re both adults, we’re not blood relatives, and there are only two of us. But he’s a man, and I’m a man, so we can’t get married, even though we’ve shared a home and a life for 10 years.

What would prefer I call it, if not “discrimination,” Thomas?

Your suggestion that a “so far, so good” standard for judging the recent changes in the law isn’t supported by any argument at all

OK, I give up. Thomas, you’re the one suggesting that rather than judging gay marriage by looking at the places where it’s already happening, we should judge it on the basis of what Maggie Gallagher thinks might happen. If that’s the basis on which you want this argument to proceed, you can have it with someone else.

I certainly agree that the question whether something will happen (or “might”!) is separate from whether it is cataclysmic or otherwise. See my previous comment.

Your attempt to place the burden of proof in this case on opponents of SSM is, it seems to me, a bit incomplete. You haven’t told us why we should think that this is “discrimination” of the sort that we should be opposed to—in fact, assuming that it is seems to beg the question.

Your suggestion that a “so far, so good” standard for judging the recent changes in the law isn’t supported by any argument at all. Since there’s nothing in Gallagher’s position that would require her to say that we would expect immediate and cataclysmic results from the recent changes, what relevance do they have to what she’s saying? Any at all?