Some people, including Art Leonard in his terrific write-up of Hernandez v. Robles in the Gay City News today and several of the speakers at the gay marriage this evening, point out a bizarre irony in the court’s opinion. The court states:

Despite the advances of science, it remains true that the vast majority of children are born as a result of a sexual relationship between a man and a woman, and the Legislature could find that this will continue to be true. The Legislature could also find that such relationships are all too often casual or temporary….

The Legislature could find that this rationale for marriage does not apply with comparable force to same-sex couples. These couples can become parents by adoption, or by artificial insemination or other technological marvels, but they do not become parents as a result of accident or impulse. The Legislature could find that unstable relationships between people of the opposite sex present a greater danger that children will be born into or grow up in unstable homes than is the case with same-sex couples, and thus that promoting stability in opposite-sex relationships will help children more.

Basically, straight couples deserve marriage because they’re more likely to have children thoughtlessly, by “accident or impulse,” whereas, because gay couples have to actually want children enough to take deliberate steps to have them such as artificial insemination or adoption, they can be barred from getting married.

The old stereotype about gay people and commitment is turned on its head, but we still lose out.

Welcome to Bizarro-Land.

This decision is as insulting as Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 anti-sodomy decision that was eventually sent to history’s dustbin by Lawrence v. Texas. Rallies were held in Sheridan Square on the sad day that Bowers was decided and again on the happy day 17 years later when Lawrence reversed it. I look forward to the day when a rally is held in celebration of New York State’s allowing its gay citizens to get married, a day when Hernandez v. Robles itself is relegated to the dustbin of history.

And we’d damn well better not have to wait 17 years for it.