Is straight monogamy the sexual 'ideal'?

Many of the conservative arguments against gay marriage are bogus, says Ross Douthat in The NY Times, but a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman is still the "ideal"

Some conservatives argue that heterosexual monogamy is the ideal for reasons of procreation.
(Image credit: Corbis)

In the wake of a federal judge's decision to overturn California's gay-marriage ban, many on the Right are renewing their defense of "traditional marriage." New York Times columnist Ross Douthat says his fellow conservatives lost the Proposition 8 case because their stock argument — that heterosexual monogamy is "natural," and gay relationships "unnatural" — is "wrong." But lifelong, heterosexual monogamy remains the marriage "ideal," Douthat says, because it offers "an organic connection between human generations." Does the "potential fruit" of a heterosexual marriage really make it superior to a monogamous gay relationship? (Watch Pat Buchanan label gay marriage "unnatural")

Calling straight marriage ideal denies the humanity of gay couples: Yes, there's something "miraculous" and "sacred" about "heterosexual life-long coupling that produces new human life," says Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic. But Douthat's saying that gay couples "are forever uniquely excluded, by their nature, from being a 'microcosm of civilization,'" and from being part of a true, "ideal" marriage. Sorry, Ross, "we gays are here," and our families are real and legitimate, not some "drop-shadow to the ideal heterosexual relationship."

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