Cheers to Vermont and Iowa (with a belated shame-on-you to California)! Like Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, says in this NYTimes article, “Contrary to the claims made by the opponents of equality, it’s not just judges, it’s not just the coasts, and it’s not just going away.” It is not going away. We can’t ignore this issue or hope that it will go away any longer. Nor can we infringe upon civil rights by banning same-sex marriage.

This issue is just another link in the long chain of civil rights changes that our country has gone through, is going through, and will go through. This one just happens to be the one we’re dealing with now. We’ve abolished slavery, given all citizens a right to vote (both for all colors and sexes), and now we are working through this one. Same sex marriage will be allowed in all states in our country eventually; that, I believe, is inevitable. Those who are trying to stop it will eventually lose this battle. Those who wished to continue slavery lost their battle. Those who wished to prevent blacks form voting lost their battle. Those that wished to prevent women from voting lost their battle. Those that wish to prevent same-sex marriage will lose their battle.

What is the argument against? It is that allowing same-sex marriage will harm the institution of marriage. That, somehow, that institution is threatened. The National Organization for Marriage says on it’s website:

“Who gets harmed? The people of this state who lose our right to define marriage as the union of husband and wife, that’s who. That is just not right.”

This is simply a non-answer. “That is just not right”? What is? Please explain.

NOM has launched an ad campaign that you can read about (and see an ad) here. Naturally it’s playing the “fear” card and trying to induce behavior by making people scared. There were statements to the affect of “they want to take away my freedom” but with no explanation how or what that even means. Again, this is a non-argument.

The argument (at least purported by NOM) is that we don’t want gay marriage because our faith tells us that marriage is between a man and a women. But it stops there. Why is that important? What harm will same-sex marriages cause to anyone else? Isn’t this just a metaphysics issue?

Let’s start to build a list of people who will eventually lose their battle:

• Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage
• “Euripides” who runs the blog “Self Evident Truths“