Equal Rights and Marriage Rites
Advocates of homosexual marriage today routinely frame it as an equal rights issue: They are being denied rights that are available to others.

What are they talking about? I am not aware of any state that prohibits homosexuals from marrying or restricts them in any way that does not apply equally to heterosexuals. To the best of my knowledge, in every state a homosexual man is perfectly free to marry any woman who will have him. A lesbian woman is free to marry any man who will have her. The law gives them exactly the same rights that everyone else has.

No no, I'm sure the homosexual marriage advocates will reply. As a homosexual man, I don't want to marry a woman, I want to marry another man. And the law won't let me marry another man, it limits me to marrying a woman.

So how does the law discriminate? Homosexual marriage advocates are saying that "equal rights" means that they must have the right to do something that no one else has the right to do. The law says that others can do X. They don't want to do X, they want to do Y. So they say that "equal rights" means that if others are allowed to do X, they must be allowed to do Y. Huh?

The law says that paper money issued by the U.S. Treasury is legal tender that must be accepted in payment of any debt. Suppose that I don't want to use U.S. dollars, that I prefer to use French francs or pretty yellow and orange beads. Does the principle of equal rights under law really mean that store owners should be required to accept whatever I want to use as money? If others can use the money they want, that I should be able to use the money I want?

Indeed, the law has never said that any male may legally marry any female. I cannot marry a six year old girl. Could I argue in court that, as other people who are over the legal age are allowed to marry, that therefore age limits violate my civil rights? Surely the reply would be that "equal rights" means that the same age limits apply to me as to anyone else. I cannot legally marry a mannequin, or a poodle, or a character in a video game, even if she is female. Does this violate my equal rights? Indeed, there is at least one circumstance where I would not legally be allowed to marry a woman even though another man would be legally allowed to marry this very same woman. Surely it is a fundamental violation of the principle of equal rights if my neighbor is allowed to marry this woman but I am not. Right? But what if I am already married and he is not? Every state in the United States forbids bigamy.

The laws of every state place certain restrictions on marriage: You must be a certain age, you must have been a resident of the state for so long, neither of you can be married to someone else ... and you must be of the opposite sex. These same laws apply to every one. Whether you are white or black, Democrat or Republican, Christian or Buddhist or atheist, heterosexual or homosexual. The same laws apply to every one. There is no discrimination in present law.