The ERA insanity was sailing toward ratification when it hit that coral reef of reason named Phyllis Shlafly. Ms. Schlafly has already weighed in on gay marriage (guess which side?) but noone seems to have noticed.
It doesn't matter who it will be whose arguments will sway the country to leave marriage alone. What does matter is that it will happen.
One of the checks and balances of the open society is blind justice. We've developed egalitarianism almost to a fault. We stage cultural interventions to enforce the notion of equal opportunity. We know that without such, it is all too possible for minority cultures to stagnate for generations. But the unchecked impulse to forcibly apply egalitarianism can cause harm. We've seen it happen with communism.
It is not easy to prove one way or another whether gay marriage is an appropriate candidate for even-handedness under the law.
Women are not the same as men, to that everyone agrees, but we agree the law should treat women and men equally in most circumstances. It is equally uncontroversial to aver that homosexuality is not the same as heterosexuality, but we are not agreed as to whether they should ever be treated equally.
Ms. Schlafly was most successful by forcing us to fully face the inevitable consequences of full equality for women under the law. But again, noone has accomplished that splash of cold water to the imagination for gay marriage yet.
For the role of business executive, it appears that male and female candidates are interchangeable. For the role of mother and primary care-giver, PC says the father can do an equal job as primary care-giver. Arguable, but luckily there is no controversy at the moment about these roles. For the role of leading the family unit, are homosexual couples interchangeable with heterosexual couples? There is nowhere near a consensus that they are interchangeable.
It really chafes the libertarian-minded among us to look at the problem from the point-of-view of society instead of merely gauging the satisfactions of the individuals involved.
An individual's choice of sexual partner is of no concern to the government, as long as they are both consenting adults entering into a non-incestous relationship.
Indeed, by drawing a legal distinction between homosexuals and heterosexuals in the application of laws, you create a new classification of citizen.