A Secular Case Against Marriage Equality?, Ctd.

Derb continues to make his case. His first point:

The comment thread here has me wondering how many conservatives we actually have reading Secular Right.

So, at a blog that tries to dispel the stereotype that all conservatives are religious, Derb sets up same-sex marriage as a litmus test for conservatism. He continues:

Same-sex marriage has never, so far as I know, been proscribed by law anywhere, because it never occurred to lawmakers that it was a thing anyone would want to do!

What about DOMA?

More to the point: homosexuality itself was outlawed through sodomy laws until very recently. Marriage wasn't a possibility in the light of greater bigotries. Derb goes on:

Hospital visiting. Still not getting it. If your hospital’s rules won’t allow gay lovers to visit, agitate to get the rules changed. What does this have to do with gay marriage?

Because the only way to demonstrate with adequate seriousness the relationship between two people of the same gender, especially when confronting prejudice or just plain ignorance from random hospital staffers, is with a marriage license. But Derb's bafflement is genuine. It simply never occurs to many straight people that their own marriages would ever be questioned, or that the massive array of rights that come with it would ever be infringed. And why would it occur to them? It's only when these things are stripped away that you realize how critical they are.