Sorry to be returning to the issue yet again, but those who aren't interested can always just skip this post. I am bowled over by how opponents of gay marriage are willing to defy the simplest demands of logic in presenting their case. The latest in the line is William Rees-Mogg in today's Times. It is perhaps not strictly accurate to classify him as an opponent, since he ends his column by allowing that the resistance of Christian churches to the legalization of same-sex marriage 'may be wrong'. But he's evidently open to the possibility that it may also not be, for he carefully states the case for the churches that he thinks should carry some weight.
What is it? Its central premise is that (£) 'children are... best reared in a stable marriage'. Suppose this to be true. Then we need some further argument to show why same-sex unions will somehow on average destabilize those marriages that issue in children (as not all marriages do, of course). Rees-Mogg offers not a word in support of that hypothesis. He offers only two things. One is a rhetorical question:
Can it help to strengthen the institution of marriage to make its very definition weaker and to extend it to same-sex couples, not only in common usage, but in the legal framework?
Well, can it? Maybe the answer is that, yes, it can; or maybe it will neither strengthen nor weaken the institution of marriage. Vague hand-waving on the issue doesn't help to resolve it. (I leave aside as a mere curiosity the unargued-for notion that allowing same-sex couples to marry makes the 'very definition' of marriage weaker.) The second relevant thing Rees-Mogg offers is that 'the attitude of the Church is that the welfare of children matters most, and that changing the definition of marriage would be unhelpful for children.' Again, that's an attitude unsupported by either argument or evidence. Is the idea here that more same-sex unions than opposite-sex ones will not involve children? But, if so, so what? Rees-Mogg doesn't even hint at how this would adversely affect marriages which do involve children. These guys are truly desperate.