Quote Of The Day

Ezra Klein, on marriage, and the fight for “traditional” marriage:

In other words, America does not currently conceive of marriage in the way that Douthat and Tushnet would like it to conceive of marriage, and in the way it would need to conceive of marriage in order for there to be a good reason the institution can’t accommodate gays. So to oppose gay marriage, Douthat and Tushnet must first construct an alternative version of marriage, and then argue that if real marriage opens to gays, that’s another step away from the idealized marriage that would be closed to gays. It’s like partisans of VCRs opposing improvements to DVDs because they make the widespread resurrection of VHS unlikely.

This is the sort of thing I think about when I hear thrice-married Newt Gingrich talking about the sanctity of marriage. It almost seems like he’s fighting not to protect the type marriage that exists in America, but to protect the marriage that he wishes existed in America.