The Spectacularity of Noncaringism

With the recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision concerning gay marriage, the usual set of howler monkeys are out in full force -- the lunatic left screeching saying that "over our dead bodies" will they accept less than 100% "equality", the nutball right yelling about supporting "perversion", spitting and shrieking at each other like tomcats.

My kingdom for a fifty-thousand-gallon bucket of cold water.

Let us face facts; the only direction in which the "100% marriage" crowd has consistently moved is backwards. If the Federal Marriage Amendment were predicated solely on the number of states that have already banned gay marriage by legislation or constitutional amendment, it would have passed in a landslide. No state has voter-approved gay marriage, and in the one where it exists by court order, gays have used every desperate maneuver in the book, including publishing names and addresses of voters who have signed petitions requesting a vote on the topic, to disenfranchise the electorate and stop gay marriage from even coming CLOSE to a vote.

At the same time, the "perverts don't deserve ANY rights" crowd is consistently losing ground. Attempts to remove nondiscrimination ordinances, impose adoption bans, remove gay teachers, and the like have backfired badly; indeed, some of the most vehement gay rights opposition have even endorsed bills that benefit gay couples in an attempt to hold on to greater relevancy.

Thus, what appears to be happening is that voters, while not willing to throw biology, psychology, and common sense out the window and claim gay couples are the same as straight couples, are also disinclined to view them as completely dissimilar. It would seem that the majority middle sees marriage as what it truly is -- not some Gollum-esque "Precious" whose possession validates your ideology and destroys your enemies, but a boring, nonpartisan, binding contract whose boilerplate works well for some, poorly for others, and only moderately for most.

The reluctance of people to fully endorse gay marriage, in my opinion, has less to do with antigay animus than it does a gut instinct that one should not add a second story to a house with severe foundation cracking. And unfortunately, right now, all they're getting are crooked contractors pushing unrealistic fixes -- the right wing wanting to cement in the basement and the left wanting to put the house on Jell-o.

With that in mind, in the next few weeks, the voters and their representatives will decide, in New Jersey and Colorado, how exactly they wish to handle this issue. The signs, portents, and entrail-readers are all pointing in the direction of limiting marriage to heterosexual couples, but providing some form of legal recognition and benefit for homosexual ones.

And honestly, I think they're right. At least for now.