Same-sex marriage decision

(This was too long for Facebook.) I have never found my crystal ball very reliable, but I’m taking it out again anyway:

1. Most Democrats in the Fall elections will continue to say they favor traditional marriage, but they’ll also continue to refuse to do anything to buttress it – either by opposing same-sex marriage, changing divorce laws, or whatever.
2. Like Obama, Democrats will leave themselves wiggle room (“I said I was religiously opposed, not really opposed! Separation of Church’n’State, y’know.”) so they can claim to have been on “the right side of history” when the smoke clears.
3. A few more Democrats will “Out” themselves as SSM supporters, thinking the wind has shifted. In a few districts, they’ll be right.
4. 99.7% of Republican candidates will campaign very hard on the SSM issue, thinking it’s a winner for the GOP.
5. Many of the Republican candidates will say nauseatingly stupid and demeaning/insulting things about people with same-sex attraction. I personally will be very tired of the issue by election day and will find some of the whining about “hate speech” plausible for a change.
6. But it will be hard for the Republicans to overplay their hand on the issue, and the Republican swing just got bigger, if only because the judiciary’s the wrong branch to make this decision.
7. Republican swing or not, no Federal Marriage Amendment will be ratified – most Republicans will drop the issue after the election. (Surprise, surprise!)
8. Eventually, people will wake up and say “if ‘a union of equals’ is all marriage is, as Judge Walker says, then to heck with it. Why should the government be involved at all? Let them ‘union’ on their own nickel.” In other words, there’s a chance that “marriage” will become a religious term (again?) and we’ll go back to the drawing board on what kind of nouveau family behavior the government should try to promote once couples pair off in “civil unions.” Some tax code revisions will be adopted to tailor tax benefits toward, for instance, supporting a dependent — especially a dependent child — and away from rewarding pairing off per se.

I regret that the traditional western views of marriage that were uncontroversial in my utterly secular law school a mere 30 years ago are now considered intolerably bigoted, but that’s life in Amnesia City.

This took way longer on that than intended. Gotta go.