I cannot imagine how.

If you want to read a fascinating “conservative” case for legalizing gay marriage, read last week’s Newsweek. The conservative lawyer in question argues that banning same-sex marriage represents a gross governmental interference in private lives of citizens and a breach of personal freedom—a compelling argument from a different angle than the stance I automatically assume on why we should embrace gay marriage ASAP (namely—barring loving homosexual couples from marriage is just cruel).

Here's a sample of the article's contents:

“When we refuse to accord this status to gays and lesbians, we discourage them from forming the same relationships we encourage for others. And we are also telling them, those who love them, and society as a whole that their relationships are less worthy, less legitimate, less permanent and less valued. We demean their relationships and we demean them as individuals. I cannot imagine how we benefit as a society by doing so.”

When I was in my early teens, I thought that introducing the term “marriage” into the debate over same-sex rights made those court and ballot box battles messier than they needed to be. The way I saw it then, people got so tetchy over that one word. Couldn’t “civil unions” confer most of the benefits of marriage while skirting the big fight over same-sex marriage? But I know now that I was wrong. A civil union isn’t the same as a marriage. Yes, a civil union extends certain rights and protections, but it withholds the profound and particular respect and recognition that we (at least in theory, if not in practice) attach to marriage in our society.