Camille Paglia

You have critically miosoderutsnd what marriage is. Again, compare this with criminal sodomy. Sodomy is an act that two individuals can engage in without relation to anyone else, but marriage requires the recognition of society. Two people calling themselves married does not make it so. It is simply impossible for government not to be involved in marriage because marriage is a societal act, not an individual one. There are only three possibilities for how it can be addressed: first, the government may deny there is anything called marriage. This is a pseudo-libertatian position because while it appears that the state is getting out of the relationship business on the surface, in reality, all those interpersonal relationships (such as parent and child) which use marriage as a buffer against the social engineering of the state are left vulnerable if the government fails to recognize the authority of a relationship based in civil society (in the Lockean sense). Second, the government may defer to civil society and recognize only traditional marriage. Finally, government may destroy civil society directly by co-opting into itself the role of civil society by re-defining marriage to include gay marriage. Only the second option restrains the state. It is the successful propoganda of the gay activists that has tricked you into thinking that expanding the state role from recognizing the existence of a thing into re-defining that thing's existence is somhow an act of governmental forbearance.