Defending Marriage

Brendan O'Neill is a writer for the UK's Telegraph. He is an avowed atheist, but he makes a strong argument for traditional marriage in his latest article by debunking the claim that opposition to homosexual "marriage" is another manifestation of the kind of prejudice that once opposed interracial marriage. Here's an excerpt from the piece:

...this comparison between restrictions on interracial marriage and restrictions on gay marriage is utterly moronic; it is historically illiterate and politically opportunistic. Gay-marriage supporters might like to fantasise that they are bravely struggling against an injustice as terrible as America’s old bans on interracial marriage or European states’ one-time bans on Jewish-Gentile marriages, but there is one very important difference between those who campaigned against bans on interracial marriage and those who campaign against restrictions on gay marriage: the anti-racist activists of old were calling for democratic equity within an already-existing institution, whereas today’s pro-gay marriage activists are calling for the creation of an entirely new institution. ...

Gay marriage is very different, because such an institution, the state-approved union of two men, has never existed before. Where black and white lovers or Jewish/Gentile sweethearts once demanded, rightly and bravely, equity within an existing social institution, gay-rights activists today are actually demanding the creation of a brand new, historically unprecedented institution – one in which two men can, in the eyes of the state and society, form a marital union.