A claim that gay marriage requires only modest changes to family laws has a Swiftian air, minus the satire In its June 21-22 edition the venerable Wall Street Journal published an op-ed, “Gay Marriage Is Good for America”, in which Jonathan Rauch argued in support of the California supreme court’s recent decision to allow homosexual marriage. There have been many such favorable articles, but this one is the best illustration I have seen of the inexorable logic of rationalization that drives those who choose a moral disorder upon which to base their lives. It achieved an air of complete unreality.
There is a Jonathan Swift aspect to Jonathan Rauch’s argument that would serve it well if it were intended as satire. In his Modest Proposal Swift suggested eating babies to alleviate 
the famine in Ireland: “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled.” This was brought to mind by Rauch’s suggestion that homosexual marriage required only “modest changes to existing family laws.” Homosexual marriage, he claimed, would serve to stabilize American society “on the conservative -- in fact, traditional -- grounds that gay souls and straight society are healthiest when sex, love and marriage all walk in step.” However, Rauch is not a satirist. He is serious, which would make it funnier, if it wasn’t so sad.
Rauch wrote, quite correctly, that marriage is not only a contract between two people; it is a contract with the community which recognizes it. The couple is...more here
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