Jimpadan wrote:
If conservatives are against laws that benefit one group over another, and the original marriage law had nothing against gay marraige, shouldn't conservatives be fighting to get the law changed back so straights aren't benefited more than gays?
Sure. We'll get right on that the moment that we eliminate all of the other laws in our country which may create a disincentive to marriage for straight couples who find themselves pregnant. Like a welfare system which rewards single mothers more than those who marry the guy who knocked them up. The Earned Income Tax Credit which directly penalizes a couple who marry over one that doesn't.
Let's also bring back the social pressures which were used to force young heterosexual couples to marry. Let's bring back shotgun weddings, arranged marriages, and all of that other stuff! Then we'll eliminate all of the government benefits granted to married couples which currently benefit straight people, but not gay. That way, we'll be right back where we used to be. Wont that be great!
Except that if we did shift our laws completely back, gay couples wouldn't want to marry. Because legal marriage was a burden, not a benefit. It was a government mandating sets of contractual obligations which men had to keep in return for potentially knocking up someone's daughter. In return, the man got to claim sole sexual use of his bride and have the children they produce bear his name and all that other manly stuff.
Why the hell would gay couples get within 100 miles of that? They'd do what most heterosexual couples did as well. They'd just shack up, call themselves married, and be done with it.