R-e-s-p-e-c-t: The next stage in litigating same-sex marriage.

by Robert F. Nagel
10/13/2008

Excerpt:
Proponents of same-sex marriage often claim that allowing gays to marry cannot damage heterosexual marriages. They ask rhetorically, "How will allowing us to marry affect your marriage?" The California Supreme Court itself asserted, "Extending access to the designation of marriage to same-sex couples will not deprive any opposite-sex couple .  .  . of any of the rights and benefits conferred by the marriage statutes." But the institution of marriage is not defined or sustained only by law. It is also defined and sustained by literature, by music, by religion, and-less grandly-by the terms of ordinary conversations and everyday interactions. If same-sex marriage advocates continue to rely on courts to change the legal definition of marriage, these cultural supports will come under intensified attack. And that will harm a vitally important but already beleaguered institution. the rest