Generation Next

A reader writes:

My generation (I am 23) sees conservatives railing against homosexuality and we see stupid, shallow arguments like NR's thrown around with utter disregard for their cost in human lives and human deaths, and we want to distance ourselves with all deliberate speed from the people who make those sloppy arguments and the movements who smile upon them.

My generation does not view homosexuality as a condition to be confronted or thwarted or weakened--we view it as just a thing that people are. Like many other things people are, like being blonde or tall or selfish or fat or brilliant, homosexuality carries baggage and preconceived notions that people believe or reject, but at this point it probably wouldn't even matter to my generation if homosexuality were a choice. As a whole, we know that it is a waste of our collective breath to hold homosexuals in disdain in much the same way it is a waste to hold in disdain any demographic we live with. But we know that it is not a waste of our breath to confront those who, in the midst of their second or third marriages, speak with smug self-satisfaction about the meaninglessness of the committed relationships of our siblings and cousins and friends.

As someone who is young, and whose family is very religious, same-sex marriage is as much an issue of public respect for those I love as it is a moral or religious matter. The fact that it is good public policy is secondary to the reality that it is the right thing to embrace.