In other words, doesn't your whole argument hinge on the premise that being gay -- or at least being gay parents -- isn't as good as being straight?
Hi there, hope you're having a great trip!
Predictably, my answer to your question is "no". :-)
I actually thought of the argument you have just put forth, and was even thinking that you especially might think of that. But I think it all fits into my original post on the topic.
In short, it's not about "better", it's about "different". If you have apples in one bin, and oranges in another, it won't help to put some oranges (same-sex marriages) in with the apples (opposite-sex marriages). People will still recognize that they are oranges, and will not call them apples, just because they want to be called apples. Why? Because they are different by nature.
Moving away from the somewhat lame metaphor, let me restate things this way: marriage has been a way to channel nature into families within ours and other cultures. A man/man or woman/woman couple is capable of raising children, to be sure, but cannot ever create their own children without outside help. While that is also true of SOME man/woman couples, it is ALWAYS true of same-sex couples. They don't meet the fundamental criterion for partaking in the institution of marriage. This is different than saying "yes, but not all man/woman couples can or wish to have children", because the place to draw the line is at the biological category level, not the individual couple's decision level. (On the other hand, if marriage is viewed as being about adult rights, then there is no such line.)
I still haven't addressed your exact point yet. It seems you perceive that I think, ultimately, that marriage hinges on the superior parenting skills of a man and woman together. That's not so. I am confident that one can point to certain same-sex couples who can do a better job raising a child than certain man/woman couples. (For that matter, many single parents do a better job raising children without having the biological father or mother around.) But how does one define "better"? Is it truly from the child's perspective? I maintain that nature's way calls for a father and mother, which is why marriage, when viewed as nature's way channeled into a cultural institution, calls for a man and woman. So yes, I believe that the BEST way for a child to be raised is by his or her own father and own mother, in a committed marriage, which ultimately serves that exact purpose. This is not about the relative "parenting skills" of gay vs. straight, and it is not about the "right" of a given adult to raise a child. It is about how the concept of family is intertwined with the concept of marriage. We can easily look around in society and see how the two things are torn apart frequently - families without a married father and mother. This is not just a neutral display of diversity, it is a negative thing. While gay marriage does not add to the negative, it does nothing toward repairing the damage, either. It simply does not serve the purpose of marriage, as I and many others view it. There's no good reason for me to support using the word "marriage" to describe apples AND oranges.
This has been sort of a rambling commentary, but the bottom line is that I see no reason for thinking that my position implies that gays are "worse" than straights. There are two basic points from my perspective: (1) as a category, same-sex couples have a different justification than opposite-sex couples when it comes to marriage; (2) a child is ideally raised by its own married father and mother. Anything else is not the ideal, but is a necessary compromise - even though there is not any less love involved.
Even if you disagree with (2), or are not sure what to think about it, my gay marriage position really only hinges on (1) - i.e. different things merit different labels. Apples and oranges. Society knows that there is a difference, and the debate really is about which labels to use: "marriage" and "civil union", "marriage" and "domestic partnership", "marriage" and "gay marriage", "marriage" and "marriage*", "marriage A" and "marriage B", etc. A husband/husband is not a wife/wife is not a husband/wife. Calling them all "marriage" simply shifts the labeling distinction one level deeper.
