Blankenhorn switches from pro-gender marriage to gender-segregation

Author of The Future of Marriage, David Blankenhorn testified in court in favor of pro-gender marriage in 2010 during California’s Proposition 8 debate.  In his recent New York Times op-ed he explained his reasoning:

I opposed gay marriage believing that children have the right, insofar as society makes it possible, to know and to be cared for by the two parents who brought them into this world. I didn’t just dream up this notion: the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which came into force in 1990, guarantees children this right.

Marriage is how society recognizes and protects this right. Marriage is the planet’s only institution whose core purpose is to unite the biological, social and legal components of parenthood into one lasting bond. Marriage says to a child: The man and the woman whose sexual union made you will also be there to love and raise you. In this sense, marriage is a gift that society bestows on its children. 

At the level of first principles, gay marriage effaces that gift.

But then he changed his mind.  Now Blankenhorn’s focus has switched from pursuing what he believes is best for children (both a mother and a father) to appeasing gender-segregated adult couples:

For me, the most important is the equal dignity of homosexual love. I don’t believe that opposite-sex and same-sex relationships are the same, but I do believe, with growing numbers of Americans, that the time for denigrating or stigmatizing same-sex relationships is over.

As for denigrating and stigmatizing, both will increase as gay rights activists continue to call gender defenders “bigots” and “offensive.”

Take it from someone who lives in Vermont:  many liberals’ love and open-mindedness end abruptly when you support pro-gender marriage.  Gender-integrated marriage advocates are silenced in Vermont and businesses are sued for supporting pro-gender marriage. 

Blankenhorn, surely you gave in too soon.   Americans can debate gender-integration in marriage while upholding the dignity and worth of people with same-sex attraction, and same-gender marriage advocates can treat their opponents with respect.  Just because it is difficult doesn’t mean we should give up.

Don’t surrender, be a pro-gender marriage defender.