Simple truths about marriage equality:
1. It does not affect our children. No impartial, peer-reviewed study has convincingly shown that children raised by same-sex couples are adversely affected. Naturally, our society is socialized to consider a traditional family as having a mother and a father, but the continued elimination of traditional gender roles is occurring regardless of same-sex marriage. Having two mothers or two fathers is something that children can both handle and learn to accept.
2. What the Bible says is irrelevant. We don't legislate based on religion, and for you to say that your religious text should dictate how we enact policy is foolish and shameful. Seek to change the church, not the state. It's how we do things here in a country where we are forbidden from making a law accepting the establishment of religion.
3. It is not a state's rights issue. If we left civil rights to the south, African-Americans would still be using separate bathrooms and water fountains in some areas of this country. We don't leave certain crucial issues to the states because our national interest supersedes the need to give them autonomy. This is one of those issues.
4. Tradition doesn't matter. Traditional marriage is a term invented by those with no evidence to back their claims. "Traditional voting" excluded blacks and women. "Traditional labor standards" let children be exploited. "Traditional racial equality" let black people be treated as property and legislated as half-people. Tradition is irrelevant to the decision of allowing society to evolve and develop.
5. It isn't going to ruin marriage. Marriage as an institution is changing, but to attribute that change to the rights of same-sex couples is sheer desperation. Yes, we have a "marriage problem" of some sort in this country. Will denying same-sex couples the right to marry help lower heterosexual divorce rates? Of course not; it would be sheer lunacy to suggest as much. This argument is bogus.
6. Procreation is also irrelevant. We do not limit marriage to only those who are scientifically capable of procreating or engaging in what we have decided as a society is standard sexual behavior. If you deny same-sex marriage based on the grounds of procreation, we need to ban marriage after 60.
7. It is going to happen. My generation overwhelmingly supports it. If we don't do it now, we'll do it as soon as the demographics have shifted enough that it can be passed nationwide. The arc of history is bending in the favor of equal rights.
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