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rfmcdonaldFrom Jason Kuznicki at Positive Liberty, about the dangers of opposing same-sex marriage for the institution.
For whatever it's worth, I got my Chief Scout's Award in 1995. Scouts Canada is a different organization from the Boy Scouts of America, thankfully since otherwise I wouldn't have been allowed to belong had I known my sexual orientation at the time. I find it sad how American conservatives are willing to wreck American institutions rather than let my unfortunate fellows south of the border partake in them.
[I]f large numbers of people–gays and lesbians, for example–are told that they do not need marriage, or that marriage cannot help them, or that they are unworthy of the institution, then some marginal number of straight people, especially those who identify most closely with gays and lesbians, will almost certainly come to have contempt for the institution of marriage and to see it as antiquated or irrelevant.
The Boy Scouts make a good parallel here. Formerly, individuals of all political persuasions held the scouting movement in high esteem. These days, however, liberals often mistrust the Boy Scouts as just another conservative anti-gay institution. They have come to view the good morals espoused by the Boy Scouts not as inclusive and all-American, but as quaint and partisan.
As a gay Eagle Scout, it breaks my heart to have to explain to my incredulous liberal friends the great things that scouting can do as an institution. Often they think I’m a Neanderthal for enthusing about virtues that scouting instills. Do we really want marriage to turn out the same way? While allowing gays and lesbians civil marriage seems unlikely to dissuade religious conservatives from marrying, prohibiting gays and lesbians from civil marriage seems quite likely to dissuade at least some liberals, who are not so closely attached to the institution, and who may view the deliberate snubbing of their gay and lesbian friends as a serious blot on the credibility of marriage itself.
For whatever it's worth, I got my Chief Scout's Award in 1995. Scouts Canada is a different organization from the Boy Scouts of America, thankfully since otherwise I wouldn't have been allowed to belong had I known my sexual orientation at the time. I find it sad how American conservatives are willing to wreck American institutions rather than let my unfortunate fellows south of the border partake in them.
