W on the Why of Marriage

Tuesday, the putative leader of the most populous North American country had time for marriage. George What? Bush didn't get married. Instead at his press conference that let him lie at length about Iraq, one question did interject itself on our subject.

QUESTION: Mr. President, two years ago, Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, heard your State of the Union address, went back to California and began authorizing the marriage of gay men and lesbians. Thousands of people got married.

The California courts later ruled he had overstepped his bounds. But we were left with these pictures of thousands of families getting married. And they had these children. Thousands of children.

Now, that might have changed the debate, but it didn't.

But in light of that, my question is: Are you still confident that society's interest and the interests of those children in gay families are being met by government saying their parents can't marry?

BUSH: I believe society's interests are met by defining marriage as between a man and a woman. That's what I believe.

There you have it. He's a man of faith. He says what he believes. He has no intellectual basis. The data would not support him. Empirical observation would make any educated and insightful person derive more open-minded and compassionate conclusions. However, we have a belief buffeting our ears.