Yesterday morning, I watched some of Fox News Sunday and caught a debate between superlawyer Ted Olson and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. The subject of course was Gay Marriage and given the obvious view of host/moderator Chris Wallace, one could say that Perkins was outnumbered two-to-one. You don't often see those odds opposing a right-wing position on Fox News.
Still, that wasn't why Perkins lost badly. It was because he had no answer to this question which Wallace put to him…
You and your wife live happily in this house. There's a same sex couple living [next door]. What's the damage to you?
Perkins ducked and weaved and tried to talk about the damage done to merchants who are fined or driven out of business because they don't want to make Gay Wedding Cakes. He simply had no answer to Wallace's question. His movement never has, which is why they've lost this debate.
He tried instead to present as fact the notion that children do better in a family with one male parent and one female parent. The studies that asserted that are old ones of questionable credibility even then…and way outnumbered by more recent studies that say there's no proof of that. And of course, even if it's true that kids do better with a mixed set of parents, that's not an argument against Gay Marriage. It is at best an argument against Gay Adoption.
It's also an argument for making it harder for couples to get divorces in this country — a change for which absolutely no one is fighting.
Not only is the battle over, I sure got the feeling that Perkins knows it's over; that all he's interested in at this point is not admitting defeat and not losing whatever donations and power his organization can still extract from those who don't want to concede a lost cause.
There are districts and probably even a few states where a candidate for office can help his or her fundraising and vote-getting by promising to fight hard against Gay Marriage. That may be just about all that's left of that particular movement.