What is the most probable motivation for the states that reject gay marriage?

[werepossum]

SNIP

Taking this bask to the thread topic, what's 'right and wrong' about gays and gay marriage involves a basic issue of one majority mistreating a minority for no good reason, whether that's execution, impriisonment, economic sanctions or denying the civil right of marriage. OUr political system offers no real protection for a minority like gays, beyond the conscience of the majority, which too often falls short (see centuries of racism).

You won't find much useful on what's right for gays and gay marriage in your 'natural selection' blather. A more rational and principled argument is required for that.

I've said many times that in my opinion, the only real argument for the discrimination against gays on marital rights is bigotry, empowered by the popular vote, where the majority who are not gay can without any price to pay go into a little box curtained off and express their bigotry. Progress is possible in that system, as shown with racism and sexism, but difficult.

Progress on racism and sexism came less from the majority simply doing what's right than from pressure those groups could bring that gays don't have. Women wanting the vote or an end to pay discrimination had the power both of numbers - just over half the population - and a unique position to inflict suffering on the men who voted. Little happend for a century on race after slavery was ended until the treatment of blacks became an international embarrassment and propaganda problem from the Soviets in the cold war, where US efforts to win the hearts and minds of third world nations who were being courted by communists who promised an end to the brutal western-backed governments were damaged by the pictures of the mistreatment of blacks in the US.

Gays lack that leverage. They simply have to appeal to morality and justice, and that's an uphill struggle as even former victims of discrimination - blacks - become the oppressor.

Their only real leverage usually has been the courts, where state constitutions' declarations of equality have had challenges their authors had not planned on by gays.

This has led to some victories that have helped 'get the majority used to equality', and make discrimination harder to justify. They're slowly overcoming bigotry.

Most people who oppose gay marriage simply have no idea about the injustice they are supporting. Democracy indulges their complacency.

"Let them eat civil unions". "Let them eat separate but equal".

I don't think it's quite as simplistic as you make it. The majority does have the right to make the society they want, the only question being at what point the rights of the individual should (indeed must) supersede those of the majority.

As a little 'L' libertarian I default to freedom whenever possible. If we are all free men and women, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, then we should be able to enter into any reasonable contract between consenting adults as long as it does not materially affect others. (If my neighbors Neil and Bob are building a thousand pound bomb, there's a reasonable chance I may be materially affected; if Neil and Bob get married, not so much.) There is, and should be, no right to not be offended by someone else's behavior as long as it is otherwise within acceptable norms. I can't imagine why anyone would ever want to give the government this kind of power over their lives.

And civil unions are a nightmare. From that moment on you have two separate bodies of law that will inevitably begin to diverge. I would love it if all this talk about gay marriage went away forever, and with civil unions I don't think that ever happens, the struggle just changes to between civil unions and "real marriage".