"Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do to Me.” (Matthew 25:40)

I'm going to pass on Andrew Sullivan's spat with K-Lo from the National Review. He presents a pretty compelling argument against social conservatives who want to ban same-sex marriage.

The Federal Marriage Amendment for which K-Lo campaigned would render my civil marriage null and void. It would also explicitly remove any legal protections even under the rubric of "civil unions" that would provide me and my husband security. It would give people other than my spouse legal claims on my property were I to die or be rendered in some way incompetent. It would effectively divorce us. This is not factually in dispute. And if K-Lo supports equal treatment for gay couples under the rubric of civil unions, I'd be happy to discover that. But that is the only way she can argue that she is not, in fact, insisting that gay couples be stripped of defensible rights and stigmatized under the law. K-Lo even supported Virginia's Marriage Amendment which claims to bar even private legal arrangement between gay spouses. The removal of all these rights and responsibilities, by the way, in no way "protects" marriage for straight people: their rights are guaranteed regardless,
and I am an enthusiast for those rights and for those families. I came from one, after all.

We're not in danger of losing it [the ability to create children] in any way - and never will. Such heterosexual unions will remain and should remain at the heart of civilization, and heterosexual desire is hardly likey to evaporate because society is inclusive of all people, and not just the overwhelming majority. Moreover civil marriage already allows people to commit to one another without reproducing and no one seems to believe that marriage needs to be protected from this. So why the double standard for infertile or non-reproducing straights and gays - unless the point is purely to stigmatize homosexuality?

We are not redefining it [marriage]. We are making it available for the tiny minority of human beings and citizens who otherwise have no secure legal or social protection for their relationships. I'm sure K-Lo doesn't mean to hurt gays and in her own mind doesn't believe that stripping me of basic rights in my relationship renders me second class. But it does, and her feelings about this are irrelevant compared with the facts. Under her vision of society, my husband and I are denied the basic rights granted to every heterosexual. Under my vision, we all have the same rights; and gay people can and should celebrate the families of straight people, do all they can to support parenting, while straight people can do the same for their gay siblings, offspring and friends. Her vision necessitates marginalization and second class citizenship. And
she and others on her side of the debate need to acknowledge it as such and own it.