Opposing Gay Marriage May Seem like a Lost Cause. History Suggests It Isn’t.
A friend—a faithful Christian and a professor who specializes in political history—recently shared that after listening to Joe Rogan discuss gay marriage with Matt Walsh, he walked away discouraged. While Walsh articulated the biblical view of marriage as well as can be expected given the circumstances, Rogan “won” because his arguments, as silly as they were, resonate deeply with the cultural moment. When our collective moral framework is built around two principles—personal freedom and not causing harm—it’s nearly impossible to convince people that the definition of marriage shouldn’t be expanded to include same-sex couples. To oppose including those couples is now indistinguishable from bigotry. This partly explains why, in December, the Respect for Marriage Act passed both houses of the U.S. Congress with bipartisan support. Thirty-nine Republicans in the House and 12 in the Senate joined every Democrat to codify it into federal law. Support for gay marriage is so widespread that i...