Into My Breeches? It's funny that Massachusetts is already that way. So maybe the couples don't have a slip of paper telling them that the government grants them such rights as heteros receive, but the rings are there, the bickering is there, etc. We have a great picture on our fridge of two friends of ours at their "wedding," wearing matching traditional white gowns. You can't know them and not think of them as spouses, because all the baggage, good and bad, is present, as it would be in any marriage. For all its blather about "protecting the institution of marriage" (believe me, the current issue of National Review is nearly unreadable in its apocalyptic fears), the Right's rhetoric is not distinguishable from a Brown-era segregationist's rhetoric about protecting the institution of our public schools (viz. Ol' Strom's 1940s speeches about allowing the "negro" into white society). It is the last gasp of the bigot when they claim to be protecting our institutions for our own good. The institution of marriage will survive homosexuality. So will the armed forces for that matter. It wasn't too long ago that an argument was made that black officers wouldn't be able to lead, and black enlistees would lower morale in previously all-white units. (And perhaps this was true at first, but the actual obstacle, bigotry, not integration, was only overcome by facing it rather than kicking it down the road.)

And what about Bill Frist's comment that "marriage is a sacrament"? It may be in your church, Bill. For some of us, it's a legal arrangement. And that's as it should be. Churches are private, non-governmental organizations, and no one can force the Il Papa to allow gay marriage in the Catholic Church. The anti-gay-marriage crowd would have us believe that secular gay marriage still corrupts the institution, Catholic or not. I fail to see this. Otherwise, why would the church still keep its own set of rules, stricter than the states', governing who may marry? The argument falls apart on so many fronts, the only thing left is for the Right to claim some nebulous but unspeakable damage that will be dealt to marriage. Honestly, they sound like Brahmins farting on about what might happen if between-caste marriage were allowed. It's pitiful, and another reason I don't vote for the bastards.