WAS ANDREW RIGHT? Maggie v. Mark

Mark, it may seem a subtle point to you. But what Andrew actually said is "A poll
this week for USA Today found that 67 percent of the 18-29 age group believe that gay marriage would benefit society."

That is flatly untrue. What the poll actually says is "67 percent of those ages 18 to 29 and 53 percent of those ages 30 to 49 say gay unions would have no harmful effect or might make society better." The majority in each of those demographic chunks believe gay marriage has no harmful effect, not that it has benefits.

This is part of Andrew's campaign to use what he might call the myth of progress and what I would call the argument from despair. You guys are just dinosaurs. I have won the young people. Roll over and give up folks cause the future belongs to me!

This is also the main argument of the "family diversity" crowd in general. Sure the traditional understanding of marriage as the key institution responsible for creating the future generation may have advantages. But the reality is we live in a different society and (this is the article of faith), it is impossible for anyone to change the social reality that marriage is finished. So we should just get over it and get on with the business of remaking our laws and policies (as the Business Week article suggests) so that marriage is no longer central but one of many equally valid and legitimate family arrangements. Let us all be "servile before fact" and therefore infiinitely pliable to what those who are busy re-imagining and re-creating our social order want.

In my view there has been no serious effort to take the marriage case to the next generation at all and a rather relentless propoganda campaign on behalf of gay marriage both in high schools and colleges.

This fight is not yet seriously engaged and Andrew desperately wants to declare it over.
posted by maggie at 12:02 PM | link

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