“It’s a threat to traditional marriage!”




Having heard many, many people in my state argue that we cannot allow gay marriage because it’s a threat to traditional marrage -- people like Matt Birk of the Baltimore Ravens -- let me make a contrarian argument.

For five thousand years, straight people, and only straight people, have been entrusted with the institution of marriage. And for five thousand years they have made total hash of it, a record of disastrous failure. Marriages destroyed by infidelity, drinking, drug abuse, immaturity, domestic violence, abandonment, child abuse, incest, and mental cruelty. Heterosexuals have proved that they cannot be trusted with this institution anymore.

I propose that for the next five thousand years, only gays and lesbians can marry. Straight people will just have to get along with the same deal that gays have had to put up with. Fighting with lawyers and doctors over legal rights, health care, child custody, hospital visitation. Because opponents of gay marriage insist, vehemently, that it’s okay to force gay people who love each other to live like that, right? Force straight people to live in the shadows like that, if they think it's okay to treat gays that way. We’ll see how quickly their attitude changes.

So Matt, your team has had its four downs. For the next five thousand years it's the other team's turn. Gays get to marry and people like Matt don't. They can still have kids, buy houses, make their lives, but no marriage. Who's with me?