Discrimination Does Not Equal Protection

How many times have we heard this idea repeated over and over, in state after state, as a lame excuse for why LGBT people should not be married. Advancing the false notion that marriage is primarily about making and raising children and not about the adults involved...while it has worked to mobilize voters against marriage equality...also denies the notion that LGBT have families and children of their own or that any person regardless of their orientation could get married for...*gasp*...love....and not only to procreate. It's a bread and butter talking point for anti-equality groups that has been so reused and so taken apart and disproven that I am shocked that it still finds traction with anybody. What about older couples, infertile couples, or people who just don't want kids?...we marry them as long as they are opposite-sex couples. So what gives? Well...that's because it's not about preserving some abstract idea of marriage that straight people don't even follow as much as it is about preventing LGBT's from a place at the table.

A pair of articles on Think Progress caught my eye today that...while they are very different stories in themselves...The first being an anti-equality TV spot featuring Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk, who thinks that gays already have enough protections and the second is a legal challenge to the recently signed law in California making it illegal to practice ex-gay therapy on minors...by parents. Both stories seam light years a part,and yet both speak volumes about what marriage equality opponents truly want to protect...and I don't think the answer is children. First up is Mr. Birk who's YouTube video is no longer able to be embedded but who's words now have a life of their own...