He would like to see a more nuanced level of debate over recognizing gay relationships in marriage law. That's a fair thing to ask.
However, I have some concerns about the major argument he cites against changing marriage laws to allow same-sex couples to marry on the same terms as opposite-sex couples. As Barney sees it, the religious argument boils down as follows:
[Of] the many Christians who do oppose gay marriage, very few of them oppose it for reasons of power or to preserve church influence. They do so because they think it is a slippery slope that could lead, for example, to polygamy, because they think it is against nature, because they think it is bad for children. In other words, they hold a position in good conscience to which they think reason and evidence have led them.(Emphasis added)
I take issue with this description of the religious argument against same-sex marriage on two grounds.
First, you cannot mount a persuasive argument for anything based on a fallacy. You might force someone along to a tentative agreement, but only as long as they don't linger around questioning the answers the fallacious argument serves up. The slippery slope argument is one of the oldest fallacies around, and I would find it very hard to rest in good conscience on such a shaky foundation. I sometimes wonder if religion correspondents lack the nerve to identify bad arguments for public policy emanating from the churches.
Second, the children argument appalls me in the way it exploits them and takes a narrow view of their welfare in the service of these sorts of arguments. This is another fallacy -- it's a circular argument where the premise becomes the proof and the conclusion. I grew up in a nuclear family where the atmosphere could be positively explosive at times. The fallout continues, as I'm sure it does for a lot of people.
I would like to see a debate that started from the view that marriage is a state of life, where we stop confusing weddings with the married state, and started by looking at the realities of how people live. The moment metaphysics enters the equation -- whether it be religious or romantic ideas, both are basically philosophical -- the whole debate turns into an unrealistic shouting match. We actually need a debate that accepts that the desire for same-sex marriage is the fulfilment of a process that started with the repealing of the old sodomy laws.
The reason support for marriage equality has risen in recent times is that more people are aware of same-sex couples around them. It is very hard to entertain kinky fantasies about sexual deviants when your neighbours clearly fill in their days with the grind of wage-slavery, gardening and car maintenance, drink in the same pubs, shop at the same supermarkets, and live a life one can recognise as having deep similarity to one's own. Where the choice of life partner is not even a real point of difference in the world of 2012.
The whole argument against change falls apart at this point because the otherness of gay relationships -- such as it may be -- no longer matters in the face of lived reality. The sense of difference is no longer radical or threatening, and making a big deal about it seems perverse, boorish, and ill-mannered.
Perhaps another healthier ingredient in such a debate might be the avoidance of studiously not declaring a position in opinion pieces like this, as Barney continues to do. The only result of sitting on the fence is splinters in the buttocks. Come down (and come out!), Mr Zwartz.
