The Battle for Marriage

Not that long ago (I think it was just last year) any proponent of traditional marriage who brought up the specter of a slippery slope towards polyamory, polygamy and such if gay marriage were embraced was accused of being homophobic, bigoted, ridiculous, a scare mongerer and first cousins to bolweevils. Today, however, it is no longer social conservatives warning that gay marriage will lead to the dissolution of marriage in any recognizable form, but gay rights activists who are openly promising to work towards that end. Over at the Weekly Standard Ryan Anderson has an article up called "Beyond Gay Marriage" which looks at the recent full page ad taken out in the New York Times by mainstream gay rights activists and their supporters advocating not just gay marriage, but group marriages and the like. The statement actually advocates for polygamy, group marriage and even pairs of gay/lesbian couples deliberately "creating" children to be passed back and forth between them. Read the text of the statement here. As Mr. Anderson points out, while the authors of this statement claim that non-traditional families are now the norm, they pay no attention to the effects the breakdown of traditional marriage have had on children and society. Their only concern is that nothing impede or disenfranchise adult's rights to do exactly what they want.
Mr. Anderson compares this to what have become known as "The Princeton Principles", a statement in support of marriage created and endorsed by a wide range of religious and secular professors, thinkers and researchers. The Princeton Principles are based on extensive research into how marriage and its breakdown affect men, women, children, society and government. Suffice it to say that the evidence is overwhelming that marriage is far superior to other familial arrangements for all involved.
Additionally, the statement demonstrates that there are many, many reasons to support a traditional definition/view of marriage which are not religious in nature. IMO, the argument in favor of traditional marriage has not gone as well as it should have in large part because supporters of traditional marriage too often start and end the conversation with "God made marriage to be between a man and a woman." While there may be no more compelling argument for the religious minded than "because God said so", in order for the government to act accordingly some purely earth based benefit must be demonstrated. For today, enough people oppose same-sex marriage that voters have kept it at bay. However, that majority opinion will rapidly disappear (and in many surveys already has) if supporters of traditional marriage can't let go of their need to couch their argument in religious terms in order to put forth an argument which is self-evidently superior regardless of one's religious thinking. I think that the authors of the Princeton Principles have done just that.
So read the "Beyond Gay Marriage" statement to see what the future holds if supporters of marriage don't step up to the plate. Then read the Princeton Principles for a vision of hope and a vastly superior argument in favor of marriage. Then pass it on.