Over at Whatever, John explains why the whole “defend marriage” thing is an utter LIE on its face:
Same-sex marriage already exists in the United States. It has for two years. The definition of marriage in the US already includes members of the same sex marrying each other.
By pressing for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between men and women, it is the marriage bigots who are looking to change the definition of marriage.
The language of the proposed constitutional amendment would end thousands of legal marriages — both the same marriages that legally exist now and all the same-sex marriages that would occur between now and whenever the theoretical moment would be that the 37th state ratified the amendment.
The proposed constitutional amendment would make second-class citizens of all same-sex married couples by stripping them of a marital status they currently enjoy, while allowing all other legally married couples to continue being married.
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As long as the marriage bigots can frame the debate as “defending marriage,” they can avoid acknowledging their agenda is patently hateful. But the accurate frame is that they’re attacking marriage — and attacking actual marriages — to change the definition of marriage into something that is in line with a discriminatory social agenda.