Pastor Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church -- the driving force behind the pro-Ken Blackwell Reformation Ohio and more recently The Center for Moral Clarity -- explains why same-sex marriage would be intolerable:
The legalization of same-sex marriages is far-reaching and has consequences that we have only begun to imagine. If same-sex marriage is legalized, then on what basis can marriage be denied to any other group or coupling? If marriage were a civil right, than what would stop group marriages or what would stop someone from marrying their pet?
(From The Center for Moral Clarity FAQ)
I would imagine the same thing that stops someone from marrying their daughter or the toddler next door.
Admittedly, that's the dumbest portion of Parsley's explanation, but the rest of it isn't much better. You'd think that if you were going to draw a line in the sand over an issue, you'd at least have a more compelling rationale than the slippery slope fallacy coupled with the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, wants to marry their poodle.
Actually, you could make a better Biblical case for chattel slavery than against gay marriage -- as a historian of 19th century America I've read some impressively argued proslavery tracts -- which leads one to the suspicion that this is just a cynical wedge issue. For many Republicans I suspect it is, but the wedge issue works only because there are true believers out there, and the conservative evangelical community is awash with them, even if they cannot articulate exactly why the issue of gay marriage is so vexatious. It operates, I think, mostly as an unexamined assumption that signals, at a gut level, a shift in the societal status quo they're not prepared to accept.
As much as one would like to dismiss them as a bunch of ignorant hicks -- and Parsley's argumentative gem certainly makes that a temptation -- the fact is, most of them are intelligent, decent people. I have a good friend, a dentist who twice a year travels to Honduras to provide free dental care to people in desperate need of it, for whom gay marriage or the ordination of gay clergy is a complete non-starter. You can't even have a conversation about it with him.
Others are willing to debate the issue but invariably fall back on all sorts of canards -- they'll proselytize our kids to be gay is a favorite, as is the idea that gays would somehow make bad parents whereas good ole heterosexual Joe Six Pack can ignore or verbally abuse his kids and it's nobody's business but Joe's. Ultimately it goes back to Gandhi's wise observation, "Argument follows conviction. Man often finds reasons in support of whatever he does or wants to do" -- or in this case, wants to think.
How to address this reality is a compelling concern for my congregation, one third of which is GLBT. Over the next couple of decades objections to gay marriage are likely to dissolve -- Bill Bennett conceded as much to Jon Stewart during a Daily Show interview -- but in the meantime loving couples are compromised in their ability to extend health benefits to each other, make medical decisions for one another in emergencies, and so on.
For a while I thought civil unions were an acceptable interim solution -- as I understand, even George W. Bush was reasonably cool with that -- but most of my gay and lesbian friends consider that a studied insult, a form of second-class citizenship. Once I mulled it over, I had to agree.
So this is one wedge issue -- unlike flag-burning amendments and trumped-up foolishness about whether to say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" -- that has real world consequences. And they have nothing to do with the threat that someone might ultimately honeymoon with Lassie in the Poconos. How do you chip away at this wedge issue without in fact exacerbating it and giving it more potency than it already has?