Will Cain tries to understand:
I think it’s possible to be opposed to gay marriage without relying on bigotry or religious zealotry. I think there is a Burkean-traditionalist, cultural-mores-should-change-slowly argument. I also think there is an arbitrariness to the definition of marriage that isn’t resolved by simply encompassing same sex couples. In the end, I don’t personally find these arguments compelling – thus I support gay marriage. But I recognize they aren’t based in bigotry.
I think that's easily the best argument against: a purely skeptical resistance to change of any crucial social institution. But the answer to that lies in the genius of federalism: it's possible to try this out in a few states first to see what happens, before we leap to a national consensus. And we have – across the US and Europe. So far: a total non-event for most, and a huge leap for inclusion and the pursuit of happiness for gay people and their families. And Burke, remember, once wrote: "We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation" and "A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation." My view, given the ubiquity of openly gay people in our society, that it is the conservative mission to integrate them into existing institutions, rather than consign them to the margins or to some balkanized, separate category, like "civil unions". Tommy Christopher is less conflicted:
I will concede that it is possible to treat someone as a lesser human being without knowing you’re doing it, or without believing you’re doing it, but that doesn’t absolve you of your bigotry. If you like gay people just fine, but have some religious/cultural/philosophical reason for denying their right to marry each other, you are still denying their right to marry each other. In fact, the inability to tell that you’re a bigot is exactly the kind of ignorance that propels the bigotry.
The Dish 