Disgusting concessions from the proponents of gay marriage

I'm on the road so I don't have time to give this the thorough treatment it deserves, but I had a little down time that I used to read the transcript of today's oral arguments in Proposition 8 Supreme Court case.  I was completely disgusted by the arguments on both sides, but mostly by the concessions made by the proponents of gay marriage.

Justice Alito:  Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years. Same-sex marriage is 25 very new. I think it was first adopted in The Netherlands in 2000. So there isn't a lot of data about 2 its effect. And it may turn out to be a -- a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing,...But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cell phones or the Internet?

The proper response to this is: No, gay marriage cannot possibly turn out to be a bad thing even if we concede the erroneous assumption we have only thirteen years of actual data to go by.  How do we know this?  Well, first, because we have thirteen years of actual data to go by, and if there were even the slightest hint that gay marriage had deleterious effects the opponents would long ago have seized on those and trumpeted them as a prominent part of their case.  But they haven't, because there aren't any.  But more than that, opponents of gay marriage have not even been able to put forth any credible hypothetical scenario whereby gay marriage might have any harmful effects on society.  The only argument against gay marriage is tradition, and some possible harmful effects that no one has actually been able to imagine, let alone demonstrate.

That argument didn't get made.  Not only that, but one of the advocates for gay marriage actually conceded that states could legitimately ban gay marriage, but only if they had not already granted gays other rights like civil unions.  I won't even try to extract the twisted reasoning behind this.  Go read the transcript if you really want to know.

The case of Loving v. Virginia, the case the legalized interracial marriage, was brought up, but no one has drawn the correct analogy: it is actually possible to raise a much more legitimate argument against interracial marriage than against gay marriage.  That people of color are discriminated against in the United States is a demonstrable fact.  That marriages that involve people of color tend to produce children of color is also a demonstrable fact.  Therefore the state has a legitimate interest in preventing people of color from marrying white people in the interests of preventing the production of children who will be the subject of societal discrimination.

Are you disgusted by that argument?  You should be.  It is a disgusting argument.  No one but the most hardened racist bigot would raise that argument in today's world.  And yet, that is exactly the argument that is being danced around in the Supreme Court today.

Here's a question I wish one of the justices would pose to the opponents of gay marriage:  "Please rank the following parental situation in order of their desirability for the children:

1.  One father, one mother, married
2.  One father, one mother, unmarried, but in a committed relationship
3.  A single parent
4.  A gay couple, married
5.  A gay couple, unmarried but in a committed relationship
6.  Foster care by a straight couple

Can you seriously imagine anyone going on the record rating foster care or single parenthood over a gay couple in today's world?  Honestly, what else is there to say?