For those who believe homosexual conduct is sinful and marriage is a sacrament limited to one man and one woman, the potential damage posed by an expanded definition of marriage is much harder — indeed, essentially impossible — to articulate.

The challenge leaves lawyers defending marriage bans stammering about the derivative harm that would somehow befall children in traditional marriages if the link between marriage and procreation were severed.

“There’s harm if you change the definition because, in people’s minds, if marriage and creating children don’t have anything to do with each other, then what do you expect? You expect more children outside of marriage,” John Bursch, defending Michigan’s marriage law, told the justices.

Right, there’s going to be less straight marriage and more out-of-wedlock births if gays and lesbians are allowed to marry and have the children they’re already having under the auspices of marriage. How much simpler to brandish a sonogram of a developing fetus.