How about “priorities”?
Who would have guessed that Otter would become a conservative? The Rule of Law is under organized, well-funded attack in this country, states are defying federal law and law enforcement, elected Democratic officials are telling citizens that the national government is the Gestapo and should be violently opposed, the news media is paving the way for two years of Congressional obstruction, and conservatives are organizing…against gay marriage?
A coalition of 47 conservative organizations is launching a campaign to challenge the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, declaring same sex marriage to be a civil right. Wow, what great timing. The Democrats are intent on packing the Supreme Court already, the news media is fear-mongering daily about what the Evil Republicans have in store, and just in time for the mid-term elections, which already are looking like an open door to an impeachment orgy and a return to open borders and weenie foreign policies, conservatives decide to metaphorically die on a hill for a cause that is both futile, unpopular and unethical.
Among these deluded obsessives are Them Before Us , the American Family Association, the Colson Center for Biblical Worldview, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family,the Christian Medical and Dental Association, Live Action, the Ruth Institute, the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, and family policy nonprofits across the country, representing Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and others.
This group of bitter-enders should be joining principled conservatives in critical, winnable battles instead of focusing their time, trumpets and resources on an issue that has not only been settled but settled ethically. The right to same-sex marriage cannot be reversed without cruel and massive upheavals of lives and families, never mind giving the Left something else to riot about. Such a movement also guarantees the alienation of libertarians, who already line up with the Left regarding open borders.
The stubborn foes of the right to marry have laid out a three-prong strategy: “returning marriage policy to focus on the parent-child relationship; changing public opinion by emphasizing how same-sex marriage and other forms of family breakdown harm children; and mobilizing Christian churches to take a stand for protecting children.”
Hmmm, let’s see:
Ethics Alarms 
Wait, I have to be the first to respond?! 😉
The sexual liberation movement, no matter how it is thought about, is one of the roots of present chaos. This is not a popular idea and it is hard to “prove”. But I have determined it is sound (personal opinion if you wish).
In upstanding metaphysical systems, not only Christianity and Judaism but others too, sexual disorder is the origin of many different consequential problems.
Sexual liberation led to all sorts of deviancies and they are connected.
Still, relatively “normal” coupling (relatively normal homosexual couples) must be tolerated but ‘gently discouraged’. And there must be mechanisms where they can get tax benefits and other similar benefits. But “marriage” (a sacred bonding and indeed in Christianity and Judaism a sacrament) should not ever have been granted.
I do not have the power to change anyone’s outlook however, so I can only state my position.
I agree, and it wasn’t. The United States government has no authority to define or bestow a religious marriage on anyone. It has the authority to define and grant a secular institution that is also called “marriage”. Part of the problem is that humans use the same word to mean both a religious union between two people and a secular union between two people. They often go together, but they’re not the same thing. People living in slavery in the United States used to marry each other religiously when they were not allowed to marry legally. Atheists can marry legally without subscribing to any religion.
The United States government cannot deny participation in a secular union on the basis of sex. How a religion defines its unions, though, is up to the people who practice that religion. If people in your religious sect feel strongly enough about different interpretations of what your extremely competent and clearly benevolent deity wants, your sect may split into multiple smaller sects, each of them absolutely convinced that they have the truth and the others are delusional.
“All this movement is saying in reality is “We think gay people are icky and sick, and want to return to the good ol’ days when they hid those nasty “proclivities” and we could discriminate against them at will.”
The “restoration movement” taking form today is varied, complex and certainly fraught. But when it is understood to have a metaphysical grounding, and when the metaphysics are explained, it is then the Christian-grounded social restoration can be understood. Without that grounding however (in intellectually presented ideas: intellectus) Christian sexual mores will seem outmoded and oppressive.
The real conversation has to do with restoration and rebuilding on all levels, but certainly on the spiritual plane. Watch chaos spread: it will not abate by itself.
Christopher Dawson is a great resource for understanding genuine (non dogmatic) relationship of religious metaphysics to successful culture.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.202296/page/n3/mode/1up
The movie reference to Animal House is perfect, as this proposal is both stupid and futile. It is stupid and politically suicidal for the GOP as gay marriage was an 80/20 issue, with social conservatives choosing the 20 side of the issue. Bringing this up again is a guaranteed to loose many of those who jumped ship from the Democrats to support Trump in 2024 as the Democrats jumped the shark on DEI, transgender, and immigration. It is also futile as many states have gay marriage enshrined in their state constitutions, and the Full Faith and Credit clause in the Constitution is relevant here, as a marriage that is legally closed in one state is legal in the entire United States of America.
The organizations who are proposing this should also look at the sobering results of the Dobbs decision: the number of abortions has increased from 79,600 monthly in 2022 to 98,000 by mid 2025. The only tangible result of Dobbs is political, as it is not an election issue anymore at a national level.
We do not need homosexuality back as a political issue either. Gay and lesbian marriages seem to be as stable as heterosexual marriage (, with gay marriages being more stable than heterosexual marriage and lesbian marriage as less stable than heterosexual marriage). So banning gay marriage is not solving any social problem.
I am in favor of not having the government in my bedroom, and I am definitely not in favor of trying to impose a particularly religious view on marriage on the entire society. (Heck, I hail from a country that has legal prostitution, and I appreciate a libertarian legal approach to sexuality and other personal matters).
But for those who are inclined to impose Christian values on society, shouldn’t they prioritize these issues that really affect peoples lives negatively? Should then not look at the fairness of divorce laws and the family court system? Many men complain about this and cite this as reason not to marry (MGTOW). However I am afraid that all those tradcons do not want to touch these real issues with a ten foot pole, and instead prefer to virtue signal on sexual morals.
“But for those who are inclined to impose Christian values on society, shouldn’t they prioritize these issues that really affect peoples lives negatively?”
And this is just the issue: Culture and society have shifted away from that wide group of views and intuitions that were part of a Christian metaphysical picture. That “world” is in a ghostly condition, fractured, no longer held together. So yes, when a Christian (or another religious) speaks out, it is taken as imposition, and resisted. And resistance is emoted, not necessarily reasoned through.
My comment and my views do not come from a place of imposition — this is impossible. In so many areas you can only define your own views and choices and practice them. Things have been set in motion that cannot be controlled and things must go to their ends.
It is a pessimistic realization and (from my position now outside of the US) it is agonizing to watch as people see their very country and community (even their civilization) becoming unglued and chaos rising up.
My perspective is that no one seems to know why and how it happened. They do not have a full picture.
I do also agree that now is likely not the best time to start up such activism.
I respect your positions nearly always, even if I occasionally disagree with them. This is the first time I can honestly say I read something you wrote and thought this sounded like a cultural liberal wrote it, not a far left progressive per se, but a very definite cultural liberal. You are labeling opposition to same-sex marriage pretty much the way the 20 somethings I work with do who are all progressive.
The LGBT community are the ones driving the porno books in children’s schools and trying to legitimize polyamory and all the rest. They are the ones who want to cut off the privates of “trans” children. That is madness but WIDELY supported in that community.
LGBT relationship stats show few of them are monogamous and a large number of them have an insanely high number of sexual partners. It isn’t a healthy variation, even if it is a common one. LGB even without trans stuff are also trying to destroy religious liberty. Many would jail Christians if they could. You see it happening in European nations all the time.
That doesn’t mean gay people deserve to be tarred and feathered. I don’t believe in employment discrimination or anything like that, but gay people have actively campaigned to get anyone fired who doesn’t agree with them, with the same vigor trans people are with pronouns. It all runs together in the same vein.
Yeah, the people pushing against same-sex marriage aren’t the best policy wonks, but the nation is a worse place after that decision. The dissent said people would be labeled as enemies if civilization if they opposed the ruling once a certain time had passed, and guess what? That’s exactly what’s happened.
Since Obergefell, kids have been mutilated, religious liberty has been undermined, free speech has been suppressed on college campuses, and polyamory is now more acceptable. The LGBT community has actively pushed to make the only legitimate moral sexual ethic consent and literally nothing else. They aren’t the only ones who push that, but they are the most monolithic in their support.
As for political timing, you’re probably right about that. Given the way Democrats try to make the sky sound like it’s falling all the time, this is a definite opening for sure. That’s more of a pollitical analysis though.
Not gonna lie – while a wall of words isn’t pleasant it’s way more pleasant to see a wall of words rather than having to click back and forth between two pages. Chalk it up to first world problems or something, but I’d rather see the wall of words.
And I always discounted lefties saying that if Trump was elected, the Republicans would overturn gay marriage. Sheesh. At least it’s just conservative organizations, not the GOP.