A while back, long before the spotlight had been cast upon him, I wrote a blog post about Newt Gingrich, who had said that gay marriage was a passing fad. That didn’t really fly with me, and I don’t think it should fly with anybody.
Newt’s ascendance as a no-nonsense conservative and an unlikely champion of family values requires that his words be revisited. Here they are:
I believe that marriage is between a man and woman. It has been for all of recorded history and I think [gay marriage] is a temporary aberration that will dissipate. I think that it just fundamentally goes against everything we know.
I made all the arguments I need about this specific case in the old post, but I still struggle to wrap my head around the fact denying gay people the right to get married qualifies as a “family value.”
My goal for this post, admittedly, was to write something preachy and grating in defense of gay-this or gay-that, but why should being gay require defense at all?
Not everywhere, but in too many places, gay people are stereotyped and stigmatized, called a threat to wholesome family life and denied basic rights. Why should anybody be made to answer baseless, blanket accusations?
(Don’t worry, this will still be preachy and grating.)
The burden of proof should lie with the people who accuse gays of debasing this sacred institution or that sacred institution. The default setting should not be “gays are bad, tell me where I’m wrong”, but should instead be “gays are pretty much just like regular people, tell me where I’m wrong.”
If gay people are corrupting your children or devaluing your marriage, prove it.
If you say gay households are bad for children, prove it.
After all the old arguments have been exhausted, as upsetting as it may be to some, gay people are pretty much just regular. No secret gay agenda exists to undermine Christianity or take over society, nor do door-to-door Gayvangelists roam suburban streets trying to lure your sons and daughters into a life of homosexual debauchery.
No evil, no blasphemy, no bad juju. Just a bunch of folks who would be immeasurably better off if they were afforded full legal and social equality.
Given the option of extending equal treatment under the law and equal avenues to personal happiness and fulfillment, there’s only one appropriate question to ask:
Why not?
