I’m not going to get into my whole anti-slippery slope thing again, but I think opponents of gay marriage sometimes misunderstand that occasionally giving in a little prevents giving in a lot. Consider feminists today. There was a time when their arguments galvanized millions of ordinary Americans. Today, feminism is something of a joke – at least when it’s identified as feminism – because the issues groups like NOW yap about are so distant from the lives and desires of ordinary women. The Equal Rights Amendment failed precisely because most women felt they’d won what they needed to win – the vote, anti-discrimination laws etc. The same, to some extent, holds true for blacks. Black activists today whine about reparations and state flags because the major legal and political victories have been won already.

Judging from many of the gays I’ve talked to or heard from, the demand for marriage is less strong than the demand for the tangible things they want: social security benefits, hospital visitation, health insurance etc. etc. I understand the argument that conceding these items would be giving gays an inch when their hell-bent on taking a mile. But I’m not at all sure it’s true that all that many of them want the mile. As we’ve learned from the presidencies of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, co-opting some of the agenda of the opposition more often takes the wind out of the sales of the opposition. Opponents of gay marriage want to concede nothing. I think that’s misguided on public policy grounds (see below). And, in political terms it keeps the pro-gay marriage coalition unified. Just something to think about.