The faltering campaign for same sex marriage has suffered recent reversals in the couts while offering increasingly dishonest arguments for its radical cause. A recent column in the Seattle Times featured the headline, "In Sickness  and in Health, 'til the Courst Do Us Part."

   The column, by gay partners Ken Molsberry and Chris Vincent, actually contradicted the headline: despite the Washington Supreme Court finding no right to same sex marriage in the state constitution, the two lovers had't been "parted" in any sense. In fact, their whole argument bristled with assertions of deathless commitment ("We love each other, we are devloted to each other") that no court or ever attempted to undermine. Denying governmental endorsement of their relationship (complete with special tax breaks) isn't the same thing as trying to drive them apart. Despite their current anger at the courts, gay activists should recognize that judges have done nothing to block same sex unions. They have repeatedly insisted, however, that governmental sanction for such unions should only come when the people and their elected representatives in state legislatures decide that it's necessary and appropriate.

   One of the most telling lines in the emotionally wrought column by Molsberry and Vincent declares: "We need to be treated fairly. We need to be able to say that we are legally married to each other. Without access to the word and to the instiution of marriage, we will always be second class citizens."

   This familiar refrain remains deeply dishonest and thoroughly misleading. Both Molsberry and Vincent already possess precisely the same "access to the word and to the instiution of marriage" as any of their heterosexual neighbors -- no more access, and no less. There isn't a single human being that a straight male can marry that a gay male can't. In no sense does their homosexual orientation make them second class citizens. But it might be fair to say that the government continues to view gay connections as second class relationships -- in the same sense that brother-and-sister would be considered second-class relatonships. No one suggests that the association between a brother-and-sister is punished because the government won't allow these two to marry, nor that a brother-and-sister association needs official endorsement in the same way that a husband-and-wife relationship does. When restricting the institution of marriage to people of the opposite sex who bear no close relationship to one another, society doesn't discriminate among individuals, but it does discriminate among the types of unions worthy of official sponsorship. As Molsberry and Vincent apparently prove with their ongoing devotion to one another, it's entirely possible to express love and build stable connections without such sponsorship.  

   Gay activists may claim that marriage rules ought to be changed to honor gay relationships as the equivalent of opposite-sex relationships, but it's dishonest to pretend that their cause involves anything less than a radical alteration of society's must fundamental institution.