I was reading New York Times' token conservative op-ed columnist Russ Douthat's take on last week's Prop 8 decision, which was remarkably even-keeled up to the end, when it disappeared down the paranoid conspiracy hole the right falls into whenever it's losing an argument on merit.  (To be fair and balanced, the left can be equally paranoid when losing, but with better reason.)

After graciously admitting that there is no such thing as "traditional marriage" as envisioned by opponents of marriage equality, and as graciously referring to heterosexual marriage as "an ideal", he suddenly wigs out and falls back on the heterosexuals-as-victims-of-the-Gay-Agenda argument:

If this newer order completely vanquishes the older marital ideal, then gay marriage will become not only acceptable but morally necessary. The lifelong commitment of a gay couple is more impressive than the serial monogamy of straights. And a culture in which weddings are optional celebrations of romantic love, only tangentially connected to procreation, has no business discriminating against the love of homosexuals.

But if we just accept this shift, we’re giving up on one of the great ideas of Western civilization: the celebration of lifelong heterosexual monogamy as a unique and indispensable estate. That ideal is still worth honoring, and still worth striving to preserve. And preserving it ultimately requires some public acknowledgment that heterosexual unions and gay relationships are different: similar in emotional commitment,but distinct both in their challenges and their potential fruit.

But based on Judge Walker’s logic — which suggests that any such distinction is bigoted and un-American — I don’t think a society that declares gay marriage to be a fundamental right will be capable of even entertaining this idea.

It almost sounds reasonable up to the end, doesn't it?  But look closely and you'll see the same page ripped out of the White-Conservatives-as-victims-of-black-racism playbook that is used by the right to justify another form of bigotry in defense of another form of apartheid. 

And at the core of it is the same fear of a change which has already taken place — that's why Douthat bangs on about "an ideal" which is manifestly not a reality, an ideal which is, in actuality, far more oppressive than anything the Gay Agenda has in store.

And News Flash!  Gay parents have been raising their own children for ages!  And even if they are raising adopted kids or have "blended families", the idea that a biological child is somehow better than an adoptive one or what amounts to a step-child is repugnant on the face of it.  See, this is what happens with the apartheid mentality — it leads to more and more divisions, finer and finer grades of bigotry.

Gay families that I know have a much broader support network than many straight families.  Ex has a daughter with a lesbian couple, and Ex's partner fathered her brother.  They spend every Tuesday, holidays, and much time besides — the six of them — as a family, in fellowship and fun, sharing the joys of child-rearing.  Heather not only has two mommies, she has two daddies, too (and I mean the latter in the straight and gay sense off the word) — how cool is that?

The children are loved.  Their family life is robust and fully supportive.  They're being acculturated into a society that embraces diversity, and where diversity is, more importantly, real.  Where it works.  Where it leads to healthy, happy communities that respect and support each other.  Talk about "ideal". 

And for the record, there is no sense in gay circles that gay families are better than straight ones, that the challenges of a relationship or the struggles of child-rearing are any different for gay people than for straight people.  There is no desire in the gay community in appealing for marriage equality to deprive any other marriage of rights or the dignity and respect they confer.

The difference between straight married couples and gay married couples is simple — it's the perks and protections they receive under the law. And when you consider that we work, pay the same taxes, and raise families just like straight folks without those perks and protections, well, it doesn't seem quite right, does it?

And if you want to drag the kids into it, at least be honest:  you don't really care about the kids. Just like the anti-abortionistas who don't give a rat's ass about the child once it's born, there is a contradiction in arguing passionately for children while denying their gay parents the same means of social and economic security straight parents have. 

But by making gay families' struggles harder (and spitefully so, as in the case of hospital visitation and inheritance) you actually disprove your point, because their triumphs are that much more remarkable for being that much harder won.