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When she spoke at yesterday’s hearing, Maggie Gallagher had it exactly right when she said:

There’s something special about unions of husbands and wives that justifies the unique status in law and in society

At its heart, civil marriage is a contract between husband, wife, and the government. And like all contracts, it requires an exchange of value (consideration) in order to justify the agreement. While the mutual support promised between husband and wife acts as sufficient consideration between the two of them, let’s take a closer look at the exchange of value with the government. For therein lies an important difference between the traditional concept of marriage and the proposed concept of “same-sex marriage”.

Without a doubt, the government offers something of value in the package of special rights it confers upon the married couple. But what does the government receive in return? The exchange of value must exist in both directions to justify the contract!

And indeed, the government does receive a number of benefits in return through the traditional institution of marriage:

  1. A properly balanced family unit that is ideally suited for the nurturing of children, by raising and supporting them within the complementary structures of both male and female influence as intended by nature.
  2. The begetting of children, thereby ensuring the continued existence of civilization.
  3. The instilling of a role model for others within society, thereby encouraging them to form similarly valuable unions and promoting furtherance of each successive generation.
  4. The likelihood that marital faithfulness will reduce the incidence of children born into situations of uncertain parentage, which are disruptive to an orderly society.

The husband and wife implicitly agree to these conditions benefiting the public good of our society as a whole, and this is what constitutes the valuable consideration that would otherwise be missing from the equation with respect to the civil marriage contract. While it is true that in each individual case the married couple may not achieve all four of these valuable goals, they will always have the potential to contribute to at least some of these goals. And the trend as a whole across the traditional institution of marriage will be to support all four of these goals within society.

None of these benefits exist with the proposed concept of “same-sex marriage”. By its very nature, same-sex marriage would deprive a child of its inherent right to be raised by a father and mother with the naturally-intended balance between male and female influences. Likewise, same-sex marriages are incapable of creating successive generations, or of promoting such furtherance by other couples. Consequently we must ask, what are the benefits to society that would arise from sanctioning same-sex marriage?

I believe that you will find no such compelling reasons that would justify conferring the special benefits of civil marriage upon same-sex couples. And this is because civil marriage is about more than the profession of love between two people. It is about an institution that benefits the public good, as it has done for thousands of years from generation to generation.

20 Responses to “The Social Rationale for Civil Marriage”

  1. on 27 Mar 2007 at 10:27 amGenghis Conn

    So… what? Does that mean that if I don’t have children and further civilization, the government should revoke my marriage because I’m not holding up my end of the bargain? And I don’t remember a vow to society or to the government being in my marriage vows. My vows were to my wife, not to the state or to society in general.

    The contract, in fact, is between two people, and not between a couple and the government. The government only restricts marriages in cases where it believes society or individuals will be harmed in some way by those marriages–such as in the case of polygamy or close relations. If gay couples getting married don’t actively harm society or individuals in any way (which they don’t), the state has no business standing in the way.

    You also keep claiming that gay marriage will harm children. This is, first off, nonsense, but if we’re to follow this argument, shouldn’t the state also be in the business of not allowing psychopathic monsters from marrying and reproducing? Shouldn’t the state evaluate each and every person applying for a marriage license for how well they’ll do at raising children? Naturally not–this is insane.

    Seriously, your arguments keep getting weirder.

  2. on 27 Mar 2007 at 12:50 pmDave

    Genghis,

    Marriage vows are either a private matter or a religious matter. Consequently, while they may have deep personal and spiritual significance, they are not pertinent to the nature of marriage as a legal contract. As I said, a husband and wife implicitly agree to these conditions; this is by virtue of our society’s common-sense understanding of marriage between one man and one woman. Let me ask you this – did you and your wife apply to get a marriage license? If you did, then you asked the government to get involved; and by doing so you essentially asked for society at large to sanction your union as man and wife. Whether or not you articulated any of these implied commitments as part of your wedding ceremony, you were very much stepping into a role within society that is well understood by many centuries of tradition.

    Regardless of whether you and your wife have children, the two of you instill the traditional role model of husband and wife as potential creators of new life, and as the complementary gender influences ideally poised to nurture children if you should choose to do so. You are already “upholding your end of the bargain” by virtue of standing together as man and wife. By holding faithfully to your wife, the two of you are already satisfying conditions 1, 3, and 4 as I enumerated them. Whether circumstances and willingness will ever permit you to raise children is something none can presage.

    You say that the state has no business standing in the way of same-sex couples who wish to marry. And it doesn’t. Couples desiring to express their commitment to one another in private or religious ceremonies are in no way barred from conducting such gatherings. The 1st Amendement to the US Constitution guarantees your religious freedom, and past decisions by the US Supreme Court have discovered the right to privacy lies implicitly within the 9th Amendement. So call it what you want privately or within left-leaning religious circles. Who are we to judge one’s actions within these spheres of activity?

    What the state has every right to regulate is the special benefits that accrue to the civil right of marriage, which is distinctly separate from any private or religious recognition of a relationship. And it is in this context that the question of the societal value of such relationships takes center stage. Marriage, as it exists between one man and one woman, implies benefits to society that are worthy of being rewarded with a package of special rights. The proposed concept of “same-sex marriage” in no way provides equal benefits to society, and therefore is not worthy of being rewarded with equivalent special rights. Advocates of SSM try to gain leverage with their “marriage equality” propaganda, but equal rights are merited only if the two institutions provide equal societal benefits. They do not, and cannot.

  3. on 27 Mar 2007 at 1:37 pmDave

    Moreover, there is a historical background to my rationale. Our judiciary has said:

    “The State makes itself a party to all marriages” – Dennis v. Dennis, 68 Conn. 186, 196 (1896).

    “Marital status, of course, arises not from the simple declarations of persons nor from the undisputed claims of litigants … It is rather created and dissolved only according to law.” – Hames v. Hames, 163 Conn. 588, 592-593, 316 A.2d 379 (1972).

  4. on 27 Mar 2007 at 4:31 pmTrueBlueCT

    So if a gay couple has children they should be treated as bastards? Why punish the child for the sins of the parents?….. Whoops that was your argument for why a woman should carry a rapist’s baby to term!

    Honestly, wouldn’t you all be better tasked if you turned your sights on “divorce artists” like Giuliani & Gingrich? America’s astronomical divorce rate is doing much more damage to the institution of marriage than a handful of gays ever could.

  5. on 29 Mar 2007 at 9:01 amDave

    TrueBlueCT,

    It is your choice to use such derogatory language to describe children born out of wedlock, but that is language that I myself would never use. All children are worthy of love and compassion; none of them bear responsibility for the circumstances of their birth.

    Within a historical context, illegitimacy has typically been rooted in the deliberate actions of a parent in disavowing responsibility for a child – by refusal to provide necessary support, and exclusion from property rights such as inheritance. In the majority of cases, this is about a man’s failure to take proper responsibility for a child that he fathered. This flows from a consequence of biology, as recognized by the Latin maxim “mater semper certa est” (motherhood is certain). Uncertainty in parentage is therefore most often an uncertainty in identifying the father. Other contributing factors have been outright refusal by the true father to take responsibility for his actions even when his identity is known, and in some cases a deliberate choice by the mother to deny the father an opportunity to participate in the upbringing of a child.

    Whatever the reason, when a child is so deprived of its natural right to both a father and a mother, the resulting circumstance is lamentable. Moreover, it is particularly unfortunate when the absence of a parent could have been avoided, were it not for the selfish decisions of adults who could have acted otherwise.

    In discussing this issue, it is not my intent to stigmatize those who are raising children under less-than-ideal circumstances. In the spirit of love and charity, we should all lend support and encouragement to parents of whatever circumstance in raising their children.

    Nevertheless, we are debating the family model which society has long upheld as the ideal, and which our laws acknowledge as especially worthy of recognition and special value. The union of a husband and wife creates a family unit that is ideally situated for nurturing children, in a manner that is consistent with the order preordained by nature itself. Children do have a natural inherent right to both a father and a mother, and traditional marriage is a structure that supports that right like no other.

    As it relates to SSM, the illegitimacy factor does not really weigh very heavily into the debate. This is because illegitimacy pertains to the circumstances of a child’s birth, rather than its present day family circumstance. To the extent that a gay couple may have children, they will either be children from another opposite-sex relationship or else adopted children, not children born to the same-sex couple (which is a biological impossibility). These children are no more or less illegitimate than the children of divorcees, or unmarried single mothers. But a sad corollary to this is that every child in a family unit led by a same-sex couple will by definition be deprived of its natural right to either a father or a mother.

    I agree that divorce is another serious problem facing the institution of marriage, and I would prefer to see political candidates that better exemplify traditional family values, but that’s a topic for another thread altogether. Keep in mind that the topic of SSM was placed on the table and made the issue-du-jour by those seeking legislative action. SSM will therefore remain in focus. However, there are commonalities between these two threats to family values … selfish decisions by adults and the concomitant needless suffering of children. Truly the deeper problem is that too many within the ‘Me’ generation seek their own personal gratification above the consideration of others. As a society, we have lost the moral value of selflessness. And that is at the heart of so many problems today.

  6. on 29 Mar 2007 at 9:13 amopal

    Ghengis,

    Interestingly enough your argument is being used in the Pacific Northwest. A gay group is advocating changing the laws in either Oregon or Washington, I forget which one, to state that the state must annul all marriages that do not produce children in the first three years of marriage. It is pretty obvious by their shady attempts to destroy marriage that the gay people involved don’t actually care about marriage at all or the social implications for society or children.

    And while run away divorce is definitely an issue that has caused this gay marriage problem, the solution is not to let gays get married since we heterosexuals can’t seem to do it well. The solution is to discover what is causing our divorce problem….could it be that we raise our kids to be so self centered that they are incapable of commiting and sacrificing for their spouse. Could it be that our self esteem education has warped our brains so much that we feel it necessary for everyone including our spouse to bow down and do exactly what we want all the time. Could it be that we, women, spend so much time killing ourselves doing it all-falsely being the head of the household, full time work, full time mom, and staying sexy and fit, that we have no time to work on our marriage (see the Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf-even a feminist acknowledges this point). Or maybe it is because we have no self control-if we can’t control our passion for sex before marriage how do we actually expect to control it in marriage.

    Opal

  7. on 29 Mar 2007 at 10:58 amGenghis Conn

    You argument is still insane (and a little insulting), but let me tackle it head on. You say:

    “Marriage, as it exists between one man and one woman, implies benefits to society that are worthy of being rewarded with a package of special rights. The proposed concept of “same-sex marriage” in no way provides equal benefits to society, and therefore is not worthy of being rewarded with equivalent special rights.”

    Certainly it does. Same-sex parents can provide stable households for children, even though they cannot physically have children that are genetically related to both, they can adopt or raise the child of one of the partners. They can provide good, stable, two-parent homes for children who may not otherwise get them. This is a societal benefit equal to any that a different-sex married couple might have.

    The American Academy of Pediatrics says that children benefit from two-parent homes, and it doesn’t matter whether the parents are of different or the same gender. There is plenty of scientific and anecdotal evidence to suggest that children raised in these households do just as well as children from traditional families. Life for them is certainly better and more stable than it might be if they were being raised in a single-parent household.

    A social benefit. According to your rather cold calculus, they deserve to be rewarded by society with marriage.

    Plus, it’s obviously the right thing to do from the standpoint of civil rights and basic human decency.

  8. on 29 Mar 2007 at 12:35 pmDave

    Genghis,

    This isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. Just because you claim to show that some degree of societal benefit may result from instances of SSM under certain circumstances, that doesn’t prove equivalent or comparable value. You imply that, by showing *any* degree of public good, SSM ought to receive entirely the same recognition and special benefits as marriage. This is a bogus argument; your logic is faulty.

    I will admit the possibility that some alternative aspects of the public good may be served by some type of recognition for same-sex couples. But it ought not to be deemed as equivalent to marriage, because same-sex couples lack the generativity that is an essential quality within the institution of marriage. They also lack the gender balance which nature itself preordains as the optimal environment for nurturing and raising a child. Therefore, same-sex couples are different. How can you view something so different as equal? And in light of these fundamental differences, how can you justifiably ask for “equal rights” when the underlying premise of equality has been flatly disproved?

    It is abundantly clear that the majority of Americans believe SSM is not “the right thing to do”. If it was as obvious as you have claimed, then we wouldn’t need to be having this discussion.

    Same-sex relationships really are different. It’s not just a matter of perspective; it’s an acknowledgement of reality.

    I would be in favor of granting some degree of special benefits to any custodial parent of a minor child. But that’s not what’s being asked.

    Are all people, whether gay or straight, worthy of respect? Yes.

    Should same-sex partnerships be granted some type of legal status? Perhaps, if the legal status is available to all persons ineligible for marriage, rather than being narrowly construed upon the basis of sexual orientation.

    Should same-sex partnerships be granted equivalent status to marriage? No, because they lack fundamental qualities essential to marriage.

    I know we disagree, but I truly feel that society is fully justified in separately recognizing the normative model of marriage between a man and woman. Only this model contributes to the furtherance of each successive generation. This is an inequality dictated by the laws of nature and human biology, not by malice or bigotry. And you cannot make it otherwise simply by trying to redefine what words mean. At its heart, marriage is what it is, not what you would transform it to be.

  9. on 29 Mar 2007 at 4:44 pmmatt

    If there was a constitutional amendment proposed banning non-procreative marriage, would you guys support it?

    Perhaps legal benefits of marriage could be withheld until the happy couple produces a child.

    Of course, the gray area then is whether or not marriage benefits should apply to couples where the woman is unable to carry a child to term: sure, sperm might meet egg, but there’s a real danger to society if we sanction non-reproductive relationships with the title of marriage. We should encourage fertile men and women to seek relationships that will yield a productive harvest of children. If we allow sterile people to marry fertile partners based on “love” rather than traditional child-bearing productivity, surely within just a few generations, the world will be full of sterile children, and the human race will be in grave peril.

    </snark>

    You can tell Lawlor and McDonald are nice guys because they didn’t propose this first to shame marriage equality opponents into repenting their failed logic publicly. A joint “Marriage Equality” / “Reproductive Marriage” judiciary hearing would have been a real treat to witness firsthand.

  10. on 30 Mar 2007 at 1:10 amPhil

    Maggie Gallagher’s arguments are surprisingly Darwinian; essentially she is suggesting that society must propogate itself at all costs, and that society must provide stability for the “strong” who will spawn at the expense of all others.

    However, Gallagher provides no evidence that the children currently raised in same-sex households would be raised in mixed-sex houses under other circumstances. In fact, if she had her way in suppressing gay relationships, it’s likely that those children would never have been born. The opposite of a child being raised by a gay couple is not “a child raised by a straight couple,” it is “no child.” As such, Maggie Gallagher is a modern-day eugenicist. She identifies a family situation that she predicts will lead to future citizens who are deficient in some undefinable way, and she says, “Let’s nip those children in the bud before they happen.”

    But if, as Maggie says, those who oppose same-sex marriage are not bigots, let’s look at some of their non-bigoted arguments. For instance, this post suggests that one benefit that society gains from marriage is:

    “The instilling of a role model for others within society, thereby encouraging them to form similarly valuable unions and promoting furtherance of each successive generation.”

    No one is suggesting _mandatory_ same-sex marriage (every possible policy suggestion in this country has focused on optional same-sex marriage.) So what are we really saying with this? That mixed-sex marriage provides a role model to encourage gay men and women to marry someone of the opposite sex? _That’s_ a great social benefit? Or is the fear that legal same-sex marriage will inspire young heterosexual adults to enter into gay relationships?

    Isn’t it more likely that legal same-sex marriage will provide a healthy role model for young homosexual persons who have far fewer role models to look up to than do their heterosexual counterparts?

    If Maggie Gallagher really isn’t a bigot (and I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt for now) she needs to talk sincerely about what she thinks gay people should do. Right now, her rhetoric positions gays and lesbians as “other.” I’ve yet to read encouraging words from her to the young gay people whose rights she wishes to permanently restrict.

  11. on 30 Mar 2007 at 7:50 amDave

    Matt,

    Yes, we have heard the WA-DOMA argument before, and discussed it earlier on this blog.

    FIC has made it clear about the type of constitutional amendment that we seek – the unequivocal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

    If you feel that a proposal like “Initiative 957” is warranted, nothing stops you from independently organizing for it. But as the WA-DOMA folks have discovered, their combative “sour grapes” attitude has only helped to galvanize public opinion against the homosexual agenda.

  12. on 30 Mar 2007 at 7:51 amDave

    Phil,

    In her testimony and writings, Maggie has made it very clear that she does not universally oppose legal recognition for same-sex couples. She only opposes equating such relationships to marriage.

  13. on 30 Mar 2007 at 12:14 pmPhil

    Dave,

    I suppose it depends what you mean by “universally oppose.” Gallagher has written that civil unions are “one bad step away” from a marriage culture, and she has written to oppose inclusion of civil unions in Massachusetts’ constitution (citation below.)

    More to the point regarding her stated lack of bigotry, is her rhetorical treatment of gays and lesbians. She writes about them as if they are a problem for heterosexuals and for society, but she doesn’t write _to_ them as an audience. Andrew Sullivan, a gay marriage supporter, clearly has heterosexuals in mind when he writes some of his columns. But with Gallagher, gay people are an “other.”

    If I’m going to take seriously claims from Gallagher and similar pundits that they aren’t bigots, I need to hear, not just their critique of gay marriage, but their alternatives for gay people. Maggie Gallagher has yet to write “Okay, so you’re gay and you want to get married. Here’s what I think you ought to do instead.” My suspicion is that she avoids this subject because her actual views would sound an awful lot like bigotry, but I’m willing to consider whatever she suggests–if only she would suggest it.

    Link:
    http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/gallagher200403010854.asp

  14. on 30 Mar 2007 at 2:05 pmDave

    The reason for Maggie’s criticism of civil unions in that particular case is because they are deemed as equivalent to marriage in all but name. She writes, “I did not, and do not, think a federal marriage amendment should try to ban civil unions. But constitutionalizing civil unions as the eternal equivalent of marriage is a wholly different, and much worse, proposition.” And as she argues it, such a situation will ultimately invite the court to erase any distinction between marriage and civil unions.

    As to what gay couples ought to do, if not eligible to marry, Maggie has written on this as well. I suggest you read her June 06, 2005 article “Is There a Fourth Option?” in National Review Online, which can be found here:

    http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/gallagher200506060804.asp

    The true problem is that SSM advocates will not accept any compromise, and press onward inexorably towards redefining marriage.

    If you cannot accept that marriage between opposite-sex couples ought to receive preferential treatment under the law, then you will probably always see people like us as “bigoted”. Moreover, by labeling us in this way, you will continue to alienate many people who might otherwise be willing to support some kind of alternative legal status for same sex couples. Essentially SSM advocates are deliberately choosing for themselves to make this into an all-or-nothing struggle.

  15. on 30 Mar 2007 at 5:53 pmPhil

    Dave,
    In the article you reference, Maggie does discuss a “fourth option” of civil unions for committed couples or nonsexual relationships– and she dismisses this option as a poor strategic choice. (“What I dislike most about Ramesh’s essay is the assumption that civil unions of any kind represent a “fourth option” in the marriage debate. “) She certainly isn’t advocating it.

    She does write specifically about gay couples, in a way. She says “The question of what we ought to do for gay people must and should be taken up on its own merits, as a separate question.” There’s no compassion, or motherly advice, or anything we could view as evidence of her non-bigoted views of gays and lesbians. Perhaps she has something to say directly to gays and lesbians (instead of about them), but she doesn’t say it publicly.

  16. on 31 Mar 2007 at 8:35 amDave

    Just to clarify, the four options that Maggie references by inference in her article actually originate from Ramesh Ponnuru’s “Option 4: A Compromise on Gay Marriage” in the same issue of National Review. You can read it here:

    http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-133983358.html

    As described by Ponnuru, the list of options given are:

    1. Same-Sex Marriage
    2. Civil Unions
    3. Nothing … no special rights for gay couples
    4. Improve gay couples’ benefits without according specific legal standing to the sexual character of their relationships

    It is a bit awkward to determine exactly what Ponnuru is suggesting, and put a convenient “sound bite” label on it, but it sounds an awful lot like the “reciprocal beneficiaries” concept from Hawaii. Or as it is re-described by Maggie, a domestic partnership that is available to non-sexual unions (e.g. close relatives of any gender) as well as to same-sex couples.

    Upon further review, it seems that Maggie is saying that – even if option 4 seems like a reasonable and fair solution – it is not viable from a strategic and political point of view. The problem is that the rhetoric and intensity of debate has seemingly reached a “point of no return” with respect to the demands of the homosexual community. Rather than being accepted as a fair endgame outcome, such an option would only serve as a stepping stone to further encroachment upon marriage. The reason is that SSM advocates will not accept any alternative that they would perceive as “separate and unequal treatment”. And with the marriage debate being so polarized, offering any type of foothold would just serve as ammunition for judicial activism. Without having a federal marriage amendment in place, it just seems too politically dangerous to compromise.

    It would probably surprise you how many people in the conservative camp would be willing to consider an option like “reciprocal beneficiary” status. I know I would support it. There was quite an uproar last year in Colorado when Dr. James Dobson (Focus on the Family) indicated that he would support it. From the local perspective, it’s a moot point because we already have a type of civil union legislation that goes far beyond the reciprocal beneficiary concept. But if I lived in a state that hadn’t yet granted any legal status to gay couples, and there was already a state-level amendment in place to protect the traditional definition of marriage from judicial review, then I would support a reciprocal beneficiary law. And if we had a federal marriage amendment in place, people in many states would probably feel a lot safer in extending the same type of reciprocal beneficiary status.

    If Maggie is guilty of holding any deep-seated bias and resentment, I would have to say it’s directed towards the judiciary rather than towards the homosexual community. Her conclusion that the so-called “option 4” will not solve the marriage debate seems accurate, based on the unrelenting assault on marriage by SSM advocates.

  17. on 31 Mar 2007 at 10:34 ammatt

    Dave, first off, you should be less reactive. Generally speaking, on blogs people shy away from comments threads where one person is dominating the discussion. Further, if you spend an hour typing up 500-600 word responses to every critical comment, your critics will step up the rate just to watch you sweat. So chill.

    Secondly, quoting Ramesh always, always sets you up for a fall. Don’t do it. Progressives have had to sort out our issues with Chomsky, surely you can overcome the impulse to quote Ramesh chapter and verse.

    Also, you go a lo-o-o-o-ng way around the lake to pin the polarized debate on those insistent homos, when the fact is, religious conservatives (including some who are Democrats) have gone out of their way to limit legal protections for gays and lesbians for the last decade.

    DOMA? Any legal contract made in one state is valid across state lines, except for gay marriage and civil unions.

    Hate crimes laws punish crimes committed against another person due to their religious beliefs, but due to lobbying from the religious right, don’t similarly punish those who bash gays (which is, I hope you’ll agree, all too common).

    So your wounded tone — “the gays started it!” — is gratuitous. The religious right has made promoting laws specifically to deny gays and lesbians rights a centerpiece of its political strategy. You and your endorsed candidates are just facing the backlash towards the movement you’ve attached yourself to because you live in a state where people are too compassionate and urbane to see punishing gays as a legitimate function of our government.

  18. on 31 Mar 2007 at 3:59 pmPeter

    Matt, what issues did the Left have to “sort out” with Chomsky? In what way do you view Ramesh–or Dave’s quoting of him–to be to us what Chomsky or the Left’s relationship to Chomsky is to you guys? I’m genuinely curious.

  19. on 01 Apr 2007 at 12:04 ammatt

    Oh, it all sounds so logical, but somewhere in his chain of reasoning tends to be something totally nutty that it’s counterproductive to have to explain — “oh well I think the same thing in the end, but don’t think that part of his argument is correct…”

  20. on 01 Apr 2007 at 2:48 amJohn D

    It’s an interesting discussion, but I kept coming back to the quotation from Maggie Gallagher at the top of the post:

    There’s something special about unions of husbands and wives that justifies the unique status in law and in society.

    What might that be, Maggie?

    I found myself nodding in agreement with Phil that conservatives seem to be arguing, “not marriage, but something else would be okay,” and whenever “something else” is proposed, they say, “oh, not that either.”

    Really, the only one of Ponnuru’s (and everyone else’s) options that conservatives get behind is

    “3. Nothing … no special rights for gay couples”

    For this I pay taxes?

    But let’s get back to Maggie’s line, which I find very scary.

    There’s something special about white people that justifies the unique status in law and in society.

    Oh, no, wait, she didn’t say that. It must have been an echo.

    I know, I know, conservatives all loathe, positively loathe the bad old conservatives who were against interracial marriage, and well, any rights for non-whites. Modern conservatives just loathe those guys. Got it.

    But why is it that statements made by contemporary conservatives have such a familiar ring to them? Isn’t it just because all bigotry, in the end, sounds the same?

    My group is special and deserves rights that you don’t get. If you ask for these rights, I can say that you want “special rights,” even though we’re talking about rights I take for granted.

    It doesn’t matter what the “special” group is. Male. White. Christian. [Presumptively] Heterosexual.

    When you start defining people as part of an “other” and say they do not have access to the same rights, you are a bigot.

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