Contrary to what Andrew Sullivan says today, I never said, and am not predicting, that gay marriage in the United States will mean the end to religious freedom or the first amendment. The case from Sweden that I cited, and the problems in Canada that David Frum cited, do represent a real danger. We need to make sure things like that don’t happen here. Still, I don’t see America turning into Sweden and Canada on free speech or religious freedom issues any time soon, even if we get gay marriage. I do think, however, that in less dramatic ways than in Sweden and Canada, open debate on gay marriage is being inhibited in the United States. And the reason is the same–the false claim that the only basis for opposition to gay marriage is prejudice. (Sullivan makes a broad and false accusation of prejudice today.) My main point in my post on the problems with freedom of speech in Sweden was to show that the Europeans are not necessarily models for us to follow. Precisely because America will not, and should not, inhibit free speech in the way that Sweden already has, we need not accept the views of the Canadians or the Europeans on marriage either.

By the way, take a look at the post from Glenn Reynolds that Andrew Sullivan praises today. Reynolds lauds David Frum as a deep thinker and a great American. Reynolds also acknowledges that there is at least a good argument to be made that gay marriage will end up undermining, rather than reinforcing, marriage. In the end, Reynolds says, he thinks it’s more likely that gay marriage will strengthen marriage itself. Now that is a fair and sensible approach to this issue. As Reynolds has framed it, we face a complex question, with plausible scenarios on both sides, about which way the social effects of gay marriage will run. The issue is not one of prejudice, but of the effects of a major reform of marriage on the institution itself. And in the spirit of that framing, Reynolds praises Frum for his thoughtfulness. Yet Sullivan, despite holding up Instapundit as a model, ends his post by tarring his opponents as prejudiced. That accusation is the real problem with this debate.