“They brazen it out. As long as they can sustain their attack the marriage idea in that way, they imagine that they are promoting the SSM idea.

“But they are not. Yet it is important to note that their attacks are percieved, usually in earnest (by themselves but also by many others), as promoting the SSM idea and making its mole hill into “the civil rights issue of this generation” or somesuch.”

I’d add that the SSM idea does not withstand the same sort of attacks that the SSM advocates use (unsuccessfully in terms of substance) against the marriage idea. Those attacks, when turnedto challenge the SSM idea, knocks the legs from under the rhetoric and argumentation of the SSM advocates.

The authors demonstrate this rigorously and respectfully with charity rather than rancour. It is a fine model for public discourse on highly contended issues.

There is the lack of sound moral argumentation in favor of the moral claim that same-sex sexual behavior is ever moral. There are poor attempts to argue in favor of it but usually the SSM advocates invoke moralism that simply assumes what they do not even bother to backup with sound moral argumentation. They tend to retreat to a pose of moral neutrality. But that undermines the demanded moral status they would assign to the type of relationship they claim is merited with SSM-as-marriage. That is the connection and the blurring brought to the discussion by the advocates of SSM.

The other issue is the conflict between the SSM idea and the marriage idea. This is the conflict that depends on the question, what is marriage. The advocates for SSM are more comfortable at attacking the marriage idea and are ill equipped to backup the special status (marital status is a special status) they demand for the SSM idea. This conflict of ideas is the decisive issue.

However SSM advocates seek to conflate these two issues. They have the losing argument on the question, what is marriage? So they make the political calculation that the issue of same-sex sexual behavior brings greater weight to bolster their weak SSM idea. Conflation is a strategic necessity and so they generally refuse to bracket it.

Still, they have a very weak hand given the weakness of the argumentation in favor of the moral claim that same-sex sexual behavior is ever moral.

And so they prefer the conflation of issues to promote many conflicting arguments and rhetoric for the sake of evading the actual disagreement on marriage. And on sexual behavior. They operate instead on the asserted supremacy of gay identity politics rather than on public discourse that forthrightly addresses both the marriage issue and the sexual behavior issue — take in turn or conflated.

The advocates of SSM have brought their gay emphasis to the question, what is marriage. It is an extravagant emphasis that is foreign or extrinsic to the marriage question. Yet the advocates press it into the marriage question and along with it they assert their pro-SSM moralism even as they denounce gayness as a basis for legitimate distinctions and even as they denounce morality as a public basis for lawmaking on marriage.

The SSM advocates have a huge mountain to climb — if reason and moral truth is the substance of the conflict of ideas here. Instead they would hope to make a mountain out of a mole hill and their emphasis becomes necessary for their efforts to transform marriage into the same-sex sexual behavior issue. When confronted on their own mole hill, the SSM advocates retreat but only in terms of reason and truth; they persist in a guerilla-like warfare (intellectually, politically, scientifically, legally, and rhetorically) in which they attack the stronger arguments and thedeeper and more substantive marriage idea. They braen it out. As long as they can attack the marriage idea in that way, they imagine they are promoting SSM

But they are not. Yet it is important to note that their attacks are percieved, usually in earnest, as promoting the SSM idea and making that mole hill into the “civil rights issue of this generation” or somesuch.

The book, What Is Marriage?, successfully explains the marriage idea and successfully answers the attacks. In the current context of our public discourse, this book contributes mightily to the promotion of the marriage idea. The SSM idea pales in comparison — with or without the SSM advocate’s gay emphasis.

The authors do what SSM advocates have failed to do. They have promoted a big idea and have done so without depending on mischaracterizations of the weaker and smaller SSM idea. The SSM advocates have failed to show that the SSM idea is big enough to merit their support as the replacement of the marriage idea. Their attacks, too, have failed in parrellel with their failure to promote the SSM idea.

Adding to the mix the bracketed (and truly seperate issue) of same-sex sexual behavior does not strengthen the pro-SSM arguments and attacks; but it inevitably raises the vlume on pro-SSM rhetoric. The authors write on the generous assumption that reason is common ground where SSM advocates will meet the promoters of the marriage idea. That is the correct approach, I think, and it concedes nothing but authentic respect to those who’d disagree with this book’s content.