Here’s an editorial from the latest National Review in support of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which would ban gay marriage. The editorial deserves comment.

First, I enjoy some of the rhetoric the writers use. “There is every reason to expect that liberal legal activists will sue…” Oh, those liberal legal activists, always stirring up trouble! Notice they didn’t say, “There is every reason to expect that married gay couples will sue.” Heavens, no — if they did that, readers might get the impression that this is an issue that actually affects real people.

I also like, “We would object to judges’ taking it upon themselves to impose a national regime of gay marriage.” Regime. Nice one. What comes to mind when you think of a regime these days? Dictionary.com defines the term and includes two sample phrases: a fascist regime and suffered under the new regime. Nice connotation. You’d think we were trying to force straight people into same-sex marriage, when really, people would suffer only under a regime that would ban gay marriage. I saw a line a few weeks ago: “If you’re against gay marriage, don’t have one.” Pretty simple.

The editorial says, “Gay marriage would cut the final cord that ties marriage to the well-being of children.” Except that there are gay couples who adopt and raise children and love them just as much as any other adoptive parents would love their children. And children receive just as much love and attention when raised by same-sex couples as they do when raised by different-sex couples. Many conservatives still, in 2003, are unconsciously wedded (as it were) to the idea that all gay people are irresponsible, bed-hopping, club-hopping drug users. And even if most gay couples did fit this mold (a premise I will not accept without first seeing a direct survey of all gay Americans, closeted and uncloseted, urban and rural, religious and atheist, bookish and stupid, independent-minded and herd-minded) — don’t these particular conservatives realize that any couple that wants to adopt a child must be evaluated by an adoption agency first? Or do they think Bruce and Sven are going to pop into Prada, pick up some shoes and a baby, and head out to the clubs?

The editorial states, “Our cultural forgetting of the meaning of marriage has already had too many sad consequences for children and adults.” One would therefore expect conservatives not just to accept, but to enthusiastically support gay marriage as a positive consequence for children and for the adults who raise them.

I wish people would think through things more clearly before publishing something like this.

How about the final paragraph? “But conservatives retain a healthy resistance to fiddling with our basic political document. Judges have, unfortunately, displayed no such resistance in recent decades. On an issue where the stakes could hardly be higher, they need to be resisted.” How would permitting gay marriage be “fiddling with our basic political document?” Where in the U.S. Constitution is there any statement at all about marriage?

If you’re against gay marriage, don’t have one. It’s pretty simple.