Who is this “group.”

First – heterosexuals, BKennedy. Since we’re the ones who have been getting married so far. Heterosexuals generally do not have a culture of marriage, as the high divorce and cohabitation rates indicate.

Second – self-proclaimed Christians. Since the rates of self-proclaimed Christians doing those things are about equal to that of non-Christians, we are not only not defending marriage adequately, we’re also not doing a good job of defending and promoting the Christian faith or we would not have so many “cultural” Christians. Meaning people who check the census box as Christians but live thoroughly secular lives.

Why does our argument flounder because somewhere, someone who lends no voice either for or against marriage but is Christian gets a divorce?

If it was “someone” “somewhere” that would be an anomaly. But the truth is is entirely normal and mainstream. That’s the problem.

How do you propose we affect the actions of other people who are distant and entirely unrelated? … We already are the spokesmen Laura, and we should not be held accountable if people hear our plea and refuse to change their behavior.

I have not heard any such plea. Where are the ad campaigns that encourage young people to marry? Where are the ad campaigns to discourage divorce? Who’s in charge of that movement? Has Rick Warren or the AFA or similar groups signed on to show support for it? I know a lot of people who are perfectly willing to throw a few bucks in the jar to support campaigns against gay marriage. But where is the reverse campaign – the one where we say, this is what marriage is meant to be and we all need to live accordingly?

Heteros need to find a way to build a strong platform of promoting and defending marriage for ourselves before we can stand on that platform and defend it from others. Stacy, you don’t like the “encounter group” approach, but you do promote marriage in other ways in your personal life. I think that’s great and I laud you for that. I do the same, and support my church which has a strong culture of marriage. Believers who are in churches which do not have a strong culture of marriage ought to start promoting it. (Certainly the promotion of two-parent households will do more to lift children out of poverty than the food banks many churches run; any church which invests time and money fighting poverty ought to be encouraging marriage as part of that effort.)

I just think it would be more effective and less hypocritical for us to have a pro-active campaign to take marriage back for ourselves, rather than a negative campaign to keep it away from other people. Because if heterosexuals generally and Christians specifically had treated marriage with respect, or at least start to treat marriage with respect so that the cultural definition of marriage shifts back to what we want it to be, then same sex marriage won’t even be an issue. It would be unthinkable.

Agreed… but part of keeping that high ground is actually doing what we demand of others: respecting marriage. And as a group, we don’t.

We’re collectivists now? As I recall in the last encounter on marriage between you two, Mr. McCain said something to the effect of “who is this we?”

I repeat that: Who is this “group.” Is it Catholics, Protestants, people of religious faith? How do you propose we affect the actions of other people who are distant and entirely unrelated? Why does our argument flounder because somewhere, someone who lends no voice either for or against marriage but is Christian gets a divorce?

Collectivism is absurd Laura. The only thing we need to defend is our position as it relates to ourselves. It is not as if the gay community takes seriously attempts to quash their mind-bendingly vulgar and degenerate brothers and sisters who go about vandalizing Mormon churches and organizing gay sex fairs in the middle of downtown San Francisco. Their gay groupthink does not extend to a defense of the excesses taken by homosexuals.

We already are the spokesmen Laura, and we should not be held accountable if people hear our plea and refuse to change their behavior.

Conservatives cannot surrender the high ground in this argument and expect to win. And marriage is a hill to die on.

Agreed… but part of keeping that high ground is actually doing what we demand of others: respecting marriage. And as a group, we don’t.

I know, I know… you’ve been married for 20 years. I’ve been married for 15; although this is my second marriage, I did not divorce, I was widowed. But until the divorce rate drops at least into the single digits, we look like – heck, we ARE – hypocrites. Ed’s on the right track, facilitating Marriage Encounter weekends. As a group, we need to do more like that. We don’t need Prejean or any spokesman against gay marriage as much as we need a spokesman in favor of hetero marriage.