I'm really getting annoyed with the anti gay marriage rhetoric. Forget the fact that our country has many more important, life-and-death issues we should be tackling (like Iraq and healthcare, for starters). If we're going to take on a moral hot topic, can we at least appeal to rationalism and logic in doing so?

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said, "Marriage between one man and one woman does a better job protecting children better than any other institution humankind has devised. As such, marriage as an institution should be protected, not redefined."

First of all, if there has been any reputable, controlled, scientific study of marriage patterns effects on children, I'd love to read it. But I'd like to see the result of such a study where proportional weights of single parents, divorced parents, and domestic abuse are taken as independent factors.

The fact of the matter is that we can't really say what the effect of a same-sex couple raising a child is because we haven't yet given ample opportunity for this scenario to take place. Every child is different, as is every parent. If we really want to know whether a homosexual couple is as effective at parenting as a heterosexual couple, we need to give enough of them the chance to be parents and to be in officially recognized families to make our comparisons valid.

The other argument for the "Defense of Marriage" amendments is that the legalization of same-sex marriages will undermine the sanctity of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Here's another place where logic and rational thinking are tossed out the window. Legaling same-sex marriages won't stop heterosexual partners for getting married, nor will it change the sanctity with which heterosexuals enter into their covenant. What does undermine the sanctity of marriage are true social evils like domestic abuse, child neglect, and infidelity. With divorce rates and domestic abuse at the ridiculous levels they are in this "modern society", how can anyone serious talk about the American institution of marriage as a thing of sanctity in the first place?