What makes him a homophobe? All I knew about was a political donation. Homophobe implies a fear or hatred of homosexuals, I haven't seen evidence for that yet. Does this word apply here?
> There might be arguments from child-rearing benefits and social obligations
Since religious arguments trivially violate the 1st Amendment, these are the arguments that were tried in court and were found wanting. No need to rehash those cases here. The only remaining "argument" is an irrational fear or hatred of gay people, which we call homophobia.
For better or worse (mostly the latter) we pretend to have separation of church and state, but certainly do not.
Being reminded of this, manages to deeply offend many people on both sides. If we don't talk about it, its not a problem, right? (LOL)
So, like it or not, government marriage = Christian marriage and Christians are going to be really offended at the government redefinition of their religious institution. Just like Jews would be annoyed if the IRS enforced changes in the Bar Mitzvah or the FAA decided to enforce changes in the Mormon baptism for the dead ritual.
The gay marriage people really screwed up there, intentionally or not. Should have done it in two far less controversial steps, one step to get the government once and for all out of the church, and then once church and state are separated, there would be no religious component to changing the state definition of marriage, much as there's very little religious animosity on the topic of obscure trust inheritance law or modifications to building codes.
Gay people seem to have little empathy for religious people. I'm not religious and even I have more empathy for them than the gay people do. I can assure you Christians believe in their religion just as strongly as progressives believe in their religion of progressivism.
